Dialogues of the Gods (1.1-1.5)

A good-looking lover they say you have, Galatea, in this Sicilian shepherd who’s so mad about you!

None of your jokes, Doris. He’s Poseidon’s son, whatever he looks like.

What of it? Though it was a son of Zeus himself that had so wild and hairy an appearance and, most hideous thing of all, only one eye, do you think his birth would help him to be any better-looking?

His wild and hairy appearance, as you call it, isn’t ugly. It’s manly. And his eye goes very nicely with his forehead, and it sees just as well as if it were two.

My dear Galatea, from the way you’re praising him, it looks as if your Polyphemus is more loved than loving.

That’s not true; but the way you all criticise him annoys me. If you ask me, I think you’re jealous of the day when, looking after his sheep, he caught sight of us from his watch-point, as we were playing on the shore at the foot of Etna, where there’s a long stretch of beach between the mountain and the sea. He didn’t even look at you, but thought me the prettiest of us all, and was all eye for me and me only. That’s what’s annoying you; because it proves that I’m better than any of you, and that I deserve to be loved. None of you got so much as a glance.

Do you think people should be jealous of you, just because a shepherd with bad eyesight thought you pretty? Anyhow, what could he see to praise in you but your white skin? And he only likes that, I imagine, because he’s used to cheese and milk, and so thinks everything like them pretty. .

Apart from all that, any time you want to find out what your face really looks like, take a peep into the water from a rock when it’s calm and look at yourself. You’re nothing but white skin. Nobody thinks much of that, unless there’s some rosy colour as well to show it off.

Still, though I am unrelieved white, I have got a lover, even if it’s only Polyphemus. But not one of you has any shepherd or sailor or boatman to admire her. Besides, Polyphemus is musical.

You’d better not talk about that, Galatea. We heard his singing the other day, when he came serenading you. Gracious Aphrodite! Anyone would have taken it for the braying of an ass. And as for the lyre itself! What a thing it was! The fleshless skull of a stag! Its horns served as the arms of the lyre and he’d joined them with a yoke, and fitted on his strings, without bothering to twist them round a peg, so that his performance was scarcely tuneful or harmonious, with him roaring away himself in one key, and his lyre accompanying him in another. So we just couldn’t help laughing at such attempts at a love song. For even Echo, who’s such a chatterbox, wouldn’t so much as answer his bellowing, but was ashamed to be caught imitating such a rough, ridiculous song.

And your Prince Charming was carrying in his arms as his little plaything a bear-cub just as hairy as himself. Who wouldn’t envy you such a lover, Galatea?

Well, Doris, let us see your own lover. Obviously he’s handsomer, more musical and a better player of the harp.

I’ve not got one. I don’t pride myself on being a charmer. But as for a fellow like your Cyclops, that smells as rank as any he-goat, and, by all accounts, eats his meat raw, and makes a meal of visiting strangers—may you keep him for yourself, and ever return his affection.