The Cyclops (216-283)

Are the bowls too full of milk?

Aye, so that thou canst swill off a whole hogshead, so it please thee.

Sheeps’ milk or cows’ milk or a mixture of both?

Whichever thou wilt; don’t swallow me, that’s all.

Not I; for you would start kicking in the pit of my stomach and kill me by your antics. (Catching sight of Odysseus and his followers.) Ha! what is this crowd I see near the folds? Some pirates or robbers have put in here. Yes, I really see the lambs from my caves

tied up there with twisted osiers, cheese-presses scattered about, and old Silenus with his bald pate all swollen with blows.

Oh! oh! poor wretch that I am, pounded to a fever.

By whom? who has been pounding thy head, old sirrah?

These are the culprits, Cyclops, all because I refused to let them plunder thee.

Did they not know I was a god and sprung from gods?

That was what I told them, but they persisted in plundering thy goods, and, in spite of my efforts, they actually began to eat the cheese and carry off the lambs; and they said they would

tie thee in a three-cubit pillory and tear out thy bowels by force at thy navel, and flay thy back thoroughly with the scourge; and then, after binding thee, fling thy carcase down among the benches of their ship to sell to some one

for heaving up stones, or else throw thee into a mill.

Oh, indeed! Be off then and sharpen my cleavers at once; heap high the faggots and light them; for they shall be slain forthwith and fill this maw of mine,

what time I pick my feast hot from the coals, waiting not for carvers, and fish up the rest from the cauldron boiled and sodden; for I have had my fill of mountain-fare and sated myself with banquets of lions and stags, but ’tis long I have been without human flesh.

Truly, master, a change like this is all the sweeter after everyday fare; for just of late there have been no fresh arrivals of strangers at these caves.

Hear the strangers too in turn, Cyclops. We had come near the cave from our ship,

wishing to procure provisions by purchase, when this fellow sold us the lambs and handed them over for a stoup of wine to drink himself,—a voluntary act on both sides,—there was no violence employed at all. No, there is not a particle of truth in the story he tells,

now that he has been caught selling thy property behind thy back.

I? Perdition catch thee!

If I am lying, yes.

O Cyclops, by thy sire Poseidon, by mighty Triton and Nereus, by Calypso and the daughters of Nereus,

by the sacred billows and all the race of fishes! I swear to thee, most noble sir, dear little Cyclops, master mine, it is not I who sell thy goods to strangers, else may these children, dearly as I love them, come to an evil end.

Keep that for thyself; with my own eyes I saw thee sell the goods to the strangers; and if I lie, perdition catch my sire! but injure not the strangers.

Ye lie; for my part I put more faith in him than Rhadamanthus, declaring him more just.

But I have some questions to ask. Whence sailed ye, strangers? of what country are you? what city was it nursed your childhood?

We are Ithacans by birth, and have been driven from our course by the winds of the sea on our way from Ilium, after sacking its citadel.

Are ye the men who visited on Ilium, that bordereth on Scamander’s wave, the rape of Helen, worst of women?

We are; that was the fearful labour we endured.

A sorry expedition yours, to have sailed to the land of Phrygia for the sake of one woman!