Whence come they, that they know not what and who
My master is, approaching in ill hour
The inhospitable roof of Polypheme,
And the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying?
Be silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear 85
Whence coming, they arrive the Aetnean hill.
ULYSSES:
Friends, can you show me some clear water-spring,
The remedy of our thirst? Will any one
Furnish with food seamen in want of it?
Ha! what is this? We seem to be arrived 90
At the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe
This sportive band of Satyrs near the caves.
First let me greet the elder. — Hail!
SILENUS:
Hail thou,
O Stranger! tell thy country and thy race.
ULYSSES:
The Ithacan Ulysses and the king 95
Of Cephalonia.
SILENUS:
Oh! I know the man,
Wordy and shrewd, the son of Sisyphus.
ULYSSES:
I am the same, but do not rail upon me. —
SILENUS:
Whence sailing do you come to Sicily?
ULYSSES:
From Ilion, and from the Trojan toils. 100
SILENUS:
How, touched you not at your paternal shore?
ULYSSES:
The strength of tempests bore me here by force.
SILENUS:
The self-same accident occurred to me.
ULYSSES:
Were you then driven here by stress of weather?
SILENUS:
Following the Pirates who had kidnapped Bacchus. 105
ULYSSES:
What land is this, and who inhabit it? —
SILENUS:
Aetna, the loftiest peak in Sicily.
ULYSSES:
And are there walls, and tower-surrounded towns?
SILENUS:
There are not. — These lone rocks are bare of men.
ULYSSES:
And who possess the land? the race of beasts? 110
SILENUS:
Cyclops, who live in caverns, not in houses.
ULYSSES:
Obeying whom? Or is the state popular?
SILENUS:
Shepherds: no one obeys any in aught.
ULYSSES:
How live they? do they sow the corn of Ceres?
SILENUS:
On milk and cheese, and on the flesh of sheep. 115
ULYSSES:
Have they the Bromian drink from the vine’s stream?
SILENUS:
Ah! no; they live in an ungracious land.
ULYSSES:
And are they just to strangers? — hospitable?
SILENUS:
They think the sweetest thing a stranger brings
Is his own flesh.
ULYSSES:
What! do they eat man’s flesh? 120
SILENUS:
No one comes here who is not eaten up.
ULYSSES:
The Cyclops now — where is he? Not at home?
SILENUS:
Absent on Aetna, hunting with his dogs.
ULYSSES:
Know’st thou what thou must do to aid us hence?
SILENUS:
I know not: we will help you all we can. 125
ULYSSES:
Provide us food, of which we are in want.
SILENUS:
Here is not anything, as I said, but meat.
ULYSSES:
But meat is a sweet remedy for hunger.
SILENUS:
Cow’s milk there is, and store of curdled cheese.
ULYSSES:
Bring out: — I would see all before I bargain. 130
SILENUS:
But how much gold will you engage to give?
ULYSSES:
I bring no gold, but Bacchic juice.
SILENUS:
Oh, joy!
Tis long since these dry lips were wet with wine.
ULYSSES:
Maron, the son of the God, gave it me.
SILENUS:
Whom I have nursed a baby in my arms. 135
ULYSSES:
The son of Bacchus, for your clearer knowledge.
SILENUS:
Have you it now? — or is it in the ship?
Old man, this skin contains it, which you see.
SILENUS:
Why, this would hardly be a mouthful for me.
ULYSSES:
Nay, twice as much as you can draw from thence. 140
SILENUS:
You speak of a fair fountain, sweet to me.
ULYSSES:
Would you first taste of the unmingled wine?
SILENUS:
‘Tis just — tasting invites the purchaser.
ULYSSES:
Here is the cup, together with the skin.
SILENUS:
Pour: that the draught may fillip my remembrance.
ULYSSES:
See! 145
SILENUS:
Papaiapax! what a sweet smell it has!
ULYSSES:
You see it then? —
SILENUS:
By Jove, no! but I smell it.
ULYSSES:
Taste, that you may not praise it in words only.
SILENUS:
Babai! Great Bacchus calls me forth to dance!
Joy! joy!
ULYSSES:
Did it flow sweetly down your throat? 150
SILENUS:
So that it tingled to my very nails.
ULYSSES:
And in addition I will give you gold.
SILENUS:
Let gold alone! only unlock the cask.
ULYSSES:
Bring out some cheeses now, or a young goat.
SILENUS:
That will I do, despising any master. 155
Yes, let me drink one cup, and I will give
All that the Cyclops feed upon their mountains.
…
CHORUS:
Ye have taken Troy and laid your hands on Helen?
ULYSSES:
And utterly destroyed the race of Priam.
…
SILENUS:
The wanton wretch! she was bewitched to see 160
The many-coloured anklets and the chain
Of woven gold which girt the neck of Paris,
And so she left that good man Menelaus.
There should be no more women in the world
But such as are reserved for me alone. — 165
See, here are sheep, and here are goats, Ulysses,
Here are unsparing cheeses of pressed milk;
Take them; depart with what good speed ye may;
First leaving my reward, the Bacchic dew
Of joy-inspiring grapes.
ULYSSES:
Ah me! Alas! 170
What shall we do? the Cyclops is at hand!
Old man, we perish! whither can we fly?
SILENUS:
Hide yourselves quick within that hollow rock.
ULYSSES:
‘Twere perilous to fly into the net.
SILENUS:
The cavern has recesses numberless; 175
Hide yourselves quick.
ULYSSES:
That will I never do!
The mighty Troy would be indeed disgraced
If I should fly one man. How many times
Have I withstood, with shield immovable.
Ten thousand Phrygians! — if I needs must die, 180
Yet will I die with glory; — if I live,
The praise which I have gained will yet remain.
SILENUS:
What, ho! assistance, comrades, haste, assistance!
(THE CYCLOPS, SILENUS, ULYSSES; CHORUS.)
CYCLOPS:
What is this tumult? Bacchus is not here,
Nor tympanies nor brazen castan
ets. 185
How are my young lambs in the cavern? Milking
Their dams or playing by their sides? And is
The new cheese pressed into the bulrush baskets?
Speak! I’ll beat some of you till you rain tears —
Look up, not downwards when I speak to you. 190
SILENUS:
See! I now gape at Jupiter himself;
I stare upon Orion and the stars.
CYCLOPS:
Well, is the dinner fitly cooked and laid?
SILENUS:
All ready, if your throat is ready too.
CYCLOPS:
Are the bowls full of milk besides?
SILENUS:
O’er-brimming; 195
So you may drink a tunful if you will.
CYCLOPS:
Is it ewe’s milk or cow’s milk, or both mixed? —
SILENUS:
Both, either; only pray don’t swallow me.
CYCLOPS:
By no means. —
…
What is this crowd I see beside the stalls? 200
Outlaws or thieves? for near my cavern-home
I see my young lambs coupled two by two
With willow bands; mixed with my cheeses lie
Their implements; and this old fellow here
Has his bald head broken with stripes.
SILENUS:
Ah me! 205
I have been beaten till I burn with fever.
CYCLOPS:
By whom? Who laid his fist upon your head?
SILENUS:
Those men, because I would not suffer them
To steal your goods.
CYCLOPS:
Did not the rascals know
I am a God, sprung from the race of Heaven? 210
SILENUS:
I told them so, but they bore off your things,
And ate the cheese in spite of all I said,
And carried out the lambs — and said, moreover,
They’d pin you down with a three-cubit collar,
And pull your vitals out through your one eye, 215
Furrow your back with stripes, then, binding you,
Throw you as ballast into the ship’s hold,
And then deliver you, a slave, to move
Enormous rocks, or found a vestibule.
CYCLOPS:
In truth? Nay, haste, and place in order quickly
The cooking-knives, and heap upon the hearth, 221
And kindle it, a great faggot of wood. —
As soon as they are slaughtered, they shall fill
My belly, broiling warm from the live coals,
Or boiled and seethed within the bubbling caldron. 225
I am quite sick of the wild mountain game;
Of stags and lions I have gorged enough,
And I grow hungry for the flesh of men.
SILENUS:
Nay, master, something new is very pleasant
After one thing forever, and of late 230
Very few strangers have approached our cave.
ULYSSES:
Hear, Cyclops, a plain tale on the other side.
We, wanting to buy food, came from our ship
Into the neighbourhood of your cave, and here
This old Silenus gave us in exchange 235
These lambs for wine, the which he took and drank,
And all by mutual compact, without force.
There is no word of truth in what he says,
For slyly he was selling all your store.
SILENUS:
I? May you perish, wretch —
ULYSSES:
If I speak false! 240
SILENUS:
Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee,
By mighty Triton and by Nereus old,
Calypso and the glaucous Ocean Nymphs,
The sacred waves and all the race of fishes —
Be these the witnesses, my dear sweet master, 245
My darling little Cyclops, that I never
Gave any of your stores to these false strangers; —
If I speak false may those whom most I love,
My children, perish wretchedly!
CHORUS:
There stop!
I saw him giving these things to the strangers. 250
If I speak false, then may my father perish,
But do not thou wrong hospitality.
CYCLOPS:
You lie! I swear that he is juster far
Than Rhadamanthus — I trust more in him.
But let me ask, whence have ye sailed, O strangers? 255
Who are you? And what city nourished ye?
ULYSSES:
Our race is Ithacan — having destroyed
The town of Troy, the tempests of the sea
Have driven us on thy land, O Polypheme.
CYCLOPS:
What, have ye shared in the unenvied spoil 260
Of the false Helen, near Scamander’s stream?
ULYSSES:
The same, having endured a woful toil.
CYCLOPS:
Oh, basest expedition! sailed ye not
From Greece to Phrygia for one woman’s sake?
ULYSSES:
‘Twas the Gods’ work — no mortal was in fault. 265
But, O great Offspring of the Ocean-King,
We pray thee and admonish thee with freedom,
That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee,
And place no impious food within thy jaws.
For in the depths of Greece we have upreared 270
Temples to thy great Father, which are all
His homes. The sacred bay of Taenarus
Remains inviolate, and each dim recess
Scooped high on the Malean promontory,
And aery Sunium’s silver-veined crag, 275
Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever,
The Gerastian asylums, and whate’er
Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept
From Phrygian contumely; and in which
You have a common care, for you inhabit 280
The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots
Of Aetna and its crags, spotted with fire.
Turn then to converse under human laws,
Receive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide
Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts; 285
Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits
Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.
Priam’s wide land has widowed Greece enough;
And weapon-winged murder leaped together
Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless, 290
And ancient women and gray fathers wail
Their childless age; — if you should roast the rest —
And ‘tis a bitter feast that you prepare —
Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded;
Forgo the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer 295
Pious humanity to wicked will:
Many have bought too dear their evil joys.
SILENUS:
Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel
Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue
You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops. 300
CYCLOPS:
Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man’s God,
All other things are a pretence and boast.
What are my father’s ocean promontories,
The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?
Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove’s thunderbolt, 305
I know not that his strength is more than mine.
As to the rest I care not. — When he pours
Rain from above, I have a close pavilion
Under this rock, in which I lie supine,
Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast, 310
And drinking pans of milk, and gloriously
Emulating the thunder of high Heaven.
And when the Thracian wind po
urs down the snow,
I wrap my body in the skins of beasts,
Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on. 315
The earth, by force, whether it will or no,
Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and herds,
Which, to what other God but to myself
And this great belly, first of deities,
Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know 320
The wise man’s only Jupiter is this,
To eat and drink during his little day,
And give himself no care. And as for those
Who complicate with laws the life of man,
I freely give them tears for their reward. 325
I will not cheat my soul of its delight,
Or hesitate in dining upon you: —
And that I may be quit of all demands,
These are my hospitable gifts; — fierce fire
And yon ancestral caldron, which o’er-bubbling 330
Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.
Creep in! —
…
ULYSSES:
Ai! ai! I have escaped the Trojan toils,
I have escaped the sea, and now I fall
Under the cruel grasp of one impious man. 335
O Pallas, Mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,
Now, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy
Are these; — I totter on the chasms of peril; —
And thou who inhabitest the thrones
Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove, 340
Upon this outrage of thy deity,
Otherwise be considered as no God!
CHORUS (ALONE):
For your gaping gulf and your gullet wide,
The ravin is ready on every side,
The limbs of the strangers are cooked and done; 345
There is boiled meat, and roast meat, and meat from the coal,
You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun,
An hairy goat’s-skin contains the whole.
Let me but escape, and ferry me o’er
The stream of your wrath to a safer shore. 350
The Cyclops Aetnean is cruel and bold,
He murders the strangers
That sit on his hearth,
And dreads no avengers
To rise from the earth. 355
He roasts the men before they are cold,
He snatches them broiling from the coal,
And from the caldron pulls them whole,
And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone
With his cursed teeth, till all be gone. 360
Farewell, foul pavilion:
Farewell, rites of dread!
The Cyclops vermilion,
With slaughter uncloying,
Now feasts on the dead, 365
In the flesh of strangers joying!
ULYSSES:
O Jupiter! I saw within the cave
Horrible things; deeds to be feigned in words,
But not to be believed as being done.
CHORUS:
What! sawest thou the impious Polypheme 370
Feasting upon your loved companions now?
ULYSSES:
Selecting two, the plumpest of the crowd,