POL. What mean these transports, this insensate uproar,
These Bacchanalian orgies? Nyssa’s god,
The brazen timbrel, and the rattling drum,
Are distant from these regions. In the cave
How fare the new-yeaned lambkins? do they suck,
Or follow they the ewes? have ye prepared
In wicker vats the cheeses? No reply?
This club shall make ye weep forthwith. Look up,
Not on the ground.
CHOR. We lift our dazzled eyes
To Jove himself; I view the twinkling stars
And bright Orion.
POL. Is my dinner ready?
CHOR. It is. Prepare your jaws for mastication.
POL. Are the bowls filled with milk?
CHOR. They overflow,
And you may drink whole hogsheads if you will.
POL. Of sheep, or cows, or mixed?
CHOR. Whate’er you please;
But swallow not me too.
POL. No certainly;
For ye would foot it in my tortured paunch,
And kill me with those antics. But what crowd
Behold I in the stalls? Some thieves or pirates
Are landed: at the mouth of yonder cave
The lambs are bound with osiers, on the floor
The cheese-press scattered lies, and the bald head
Of this old man is swoll’n with many bruises.
SIL. Ah me! into a fever I am beaten.
POL. By whom, old man, who smote thy hoary head?
SIL. O Cyclops, by these ruffians whom I hindered
From carrying off their plunder.
POL. Know they not
I am a god sprung from the blest immortals?
SIL. All this I told them, yet they seized your goods,
Eat up your cheese without my leave, dragged forth
The lambs, declared they would exhibit you
In a huge collar of three cubits long,
Closely imprisoned, and before that eye,
Which in the centre of your forehead glares,
Bore out your entrails, soundly scourge your hide,
Then throw you into their swift vessel’s hold
Tied hand and foot, and sell you, with a lever
To heave up ponderous stones, or to the ground
Level some door.
POL. Indeed! go whet the knives
Without delay, collect a mighty pile
Of wood, and light it up with flaming brands,
They shall be slain immediately, and broiled
To satisfy my appetite with viands
Hot from the coals. The rest shall be well sodden;
For I am sated with unsavoury beasts,
Enough on lions have I banqueted
And stags that haunt this mountain: but ’tis long
Since human flesh I tasted.
SIL. My dread lord,
Variety is sweet: no other strangers
Have reached of late these solitary caves.
ULY. O Cyclops, hear the strangers also speak,
In their defence. We, wanting to buy food,
Came to your caverns from our anchored bark.
These lambs to us he bartered for our wine,
And of his own accord, when he had drank,
Yielded them up; no violence was used:
But the account he gives is utter falsehood,
Since he was caught without your privity
Vending your goods.
SIL. I? curses on your head!
ULY. If I have uttered an untruth.
SIL. By Neptune
Your sire, O Cyclops, by great Triton, Nereus,
Calypso, Nereus’ daughters, by the waves,
And all the race of fishes, I protest,
Most beauteous Cyclops, my dear little lord,
I sold not to the foreigners your goods;
May swift perdition, if I did, o’ertake
These sinners here, my children, whom I love
Beyond expression.
CHOR. Curb thy tongue: I saw thee
Vending thy lord’s possessions to the strangers:
If I speak falsehood, may our father perish!
But injure not these foreigners.
POL. Ye lie;
For I in him much rather would confide
Than Rhadamanthus, and pronounce that he
Is a more upright judge. But I to them
Some questions would propose. Whence sailed, strangers?
Where is your country and your native town?
ULY. We in the realms of Ithaca were born;
But after we had laid Troy’s bulwarks waste,
O Cyclops, by those howling winds which raise
The ocean’s boisterous surges, to your coast
Our vessel was impelled.
POL. Are ye the men
Who worthless Helen’s ravisher pursued
To Ilion’s turrets on Scamander’s bank?
ULY. The same: most dreadful toils have we endured.
POL. Dishonourable warfare; in the cause
Of one vile woman ye to Phrygia sailed.
ULY. Such was the will of Jove; on no man charge
The fault. But we to you, O generous son
Of ocean’s god, our earnest prayers address,
Nor fear with honest freedom to remonstrate
That we your hapless friends, who to these caves
For refuge fly, deserve not to be slain
To satiate with accursed human food
Your appetite: for to your sire, great king,
Full many a temple on the shores of Greece
Have we erected; Tænarus’ sacred haven
To him remains inviolate, the cliff
Of Malea, Sunium for its silver mines
Renowned, on whose steep promontory stands
Minerva’s fane, and the Gerastian bay.
But those intolerable wrongs which Greece
From Troy had suffered, could we not forgive.
Our triumph interests you, who in a land
With Greece connected, dwell, beneath the rock
Of flaming Ætna. Let those public laws
Which all mankind obey, on you prevail
To change your ruthless purpose, and admit
Your suppliants to a conference, who have long
Endured the perils of the billowy deep;
With hospitable gifts, and change of raiment
Assist us, nor affix our quivering limbs
On spits, to sate your gluttony. Enough
Hath Priam’s land depopulated Greece,
Whole myriads have in fighting fields been slain;
The widowed bride, the aged childless matron,
And hoary sire, hath Troy made ever wretched.
But if you burn, and at your hateful feasts
Devour the scattered relics of our host,
Whither shall any Grecian turn? but listen
To my persuasion, Cyclops, and control
Your gluttony. What piety enjoins,
Prefer to this defiance of the gods:
For ruin oft attends unrighteous gain.
SIL. Leave not the smallest morsel of his flesh;
Take my advice, and if you eat his tongue,
You certainly, O Cyclops, will become
A most accomplished orator.
POL. Vile caitiff,
Wealth is the deity the wise adore,
But all things else are unsubstantial boasts,
And specious words alone. I nought regard
Those promontories sacred to my sire.
Why dost thou talk of them? I tremble not,
O stranger, at the thunderbolts of Jove,
Him I account not a more powerful god
Than I am, nor henceforth will heed him: hear
My reasons; when he from the skies sends down
The rain, secure from its inclemency
Beneath this rock I dwell, and make a feast
On roasted calves, or on the savage prey,
Stretched at my length supine, then drain a pitcher
Of milk, and emulate the thunder’s sound.
When Thracian Boreas pours his flaky showers,
In hides of beasts my body I enwrap,
Approach the fire, nor heed the pelting snows.
Compelled by strong necessity, the ground
Produces grass, and nourishes my herds,
Whom, to no other god except myself,
And to this belly, greatest of the gods,
I sacrifice. Because each day to eat,
To drink, and feel no grief, is bliss supreme,
The Heaven, the object of the wise man’s worship.
I leave those gloomy lawgivers to weep,
Who by their harsh impertinent restrictions
Have chequered human life; but will indulge
My genius, and devour thee. That my conduct
May be exempt from blame, thou shalt receive
As pledges of our hospitality
The fire, and that hereditary cauldron
Well heated, which shall boil thy flesh: walk in,
Ye shall adorn my table, and produce
Delicious meals to cheer my gloomy cave,
Such as a god can relish.
ULY. I have ’scaped,
Alas! each danger at the siege of Troy,
’Scaped the tempestuous ocean; but in vain
Attempt to soften the unpitying heart
Of him who spurns all laws. Now, sacred queen,
Daughter of Jove, now aid me, O Minerva,
For I such perils as far, far exceed
My Phrygian toils, encounter: and, O Jove,
Dread guardian of each hospitable rite,
Who sitt’st enthroned above the radiant stars,
Look down: for if thou view not this, though deemed
Omnipotent, thou art a thing of nought.
[_Exeunt_ POLYPHEME, ULYSSES, _and_ SILENUS.
1st SEMICHOR. That insatiate throat expand,
Boiled and roast are now at hand
For thee, O Cyclops, to devour:
From the coals in evil hour
Yet reeking, shall thy teeth divide
The limbs of each unhappy guest,
To thy table served when dressed
In dishes formed of shaggy hide.
O betray me not, my friend,
For I on you alone depend:
Now approach the shades of night,
Launch the bark, and aid our flight.
2nd SEMICHOR. Thou cave, and ye unholy rites,
Adieu, the Cyclops’ cursed delights,
Who on his prisoners wont to feed,
Hath banished pity from his breast.
Inhuman execrable deed!
On his own hearth, the suppliant guest,
Regardless of the Lares’ guardian powers,
Now he slays, and now devours:
Hot from the coals, with odious jaws,
Human flesh the miscreant gnaws.