Thrice did we see the spray cast forth and stars with sea-dew done;But the wind left us weary folk at sinking of the sun,
And on the Cyclops' strand we glide unwitting of the way.
Locked from the wind the haven is, itself an ample bay;570
But hard at hand mid ruin and fear doth Ætna thunder loud;
And whiles it blasteth forth on air a black and dreadful cloud,
That rolleth on a pitchy wreath, where bright the ashes mix,
And heaveth up great globes of flame and heaven's high star-world licks,
And other whiles the very cliffs, and riven mountain-maw
It belches forth; the molten stones together will it draw
Aloft with moan, and boileth o'er from lowest inner vale.
This world of mountain presseth down, as told it is in tale,
Enceladus the thunder-scorched; huge Ætna on him cast,
From all her bursten furnaces breathes out his fiery blast;580
And whensoe'er his weary side he shifteth, all the shore
Trinacrian trembleth murmuring, and heaven is smoke-clad o'er.
In thicket close we wear the night amidst these marvels dread,
Nor may we see what thing it is that all that noise hath shed:
For neither showed the planet fires, nor was the heaven bright
With starry zenith; mirky cloud hung over all the night,
In mist of dead untimely tide the moon was hidden close.
But when from earliest Eastern dawn the following day arose,
And fair Aurora from the heaven the watery shades had cleared,
Lo, suddenly from out the wood new shape of man appeared.590
Unknown he was, most utter lean, in wretchedest of plight:
Shoreward he stretched his suppliant hands; we turn back at the sight,
And gaze on him: all squalor there, a mat of beard we see,
And raiment clasped with wooden thorns; and yet a Greek is he,
Yea, sent erewhile to leaguered Troy in Greekish weed of war.
But when he saw our Dardan guise and arms of Troy afar,
Feared at the sight he hung aback at first a little space,
But presently ran headlong down into our sea-side place
With tears and prayers:
'O Teucrian men, by all the stars,' he cried,
'By all the Gods, by light of heaven ye breathe, O bear me wide600
Away from here! to whatso land henceforth ye lead my feet
It is enough. That I am one from out the Danaan fleet,
And that I warred on Ilian house erewhile, most true it is;
For which, if I must pay so much wherein I wrought amiss,
Then strew me on the flood and sink my body in the sea!
To die by hands of very men shall be a joy to me.'
He spake with arms about our knees, and wallowing still he clung
Unto our knees: but what he was and from what blood he sprung
We bade him say, and tell withal what fate upon him drave.
His right hand with no tarrying then Father Anchises gave610
Unto the youth, and heartened him with utter pledge of peace.
So now he spake when fear of us amid his heart did cease:
'Luckless Ulysses' man am I, and Ithaca me bore,
Hight Achemenides, who left that Adamastus poor
My father (would I still were there!) by leaguered Troy to be.
Here while my mates aquake with dread the cruel threshold flee,
They leave me in the Cyclops' den unmindful of their friend;
A house of blood and bloody meat, most huge from end to end,
Mirky within: high up aloft star-smiting to behold
Is he himself;—such bane, O God, keep thou from field and fold!620
Scarce may a man look on his face; no word to him is good;
On wretches' entrails doth he feed and black abundant blood.
Myself I saw him of our folk two hapless bodies take
In his huge hand, whom straight he fell athwart a stone to break
As there he lay upon his back; I saw the threshold swim
With spouted blood, I saw him grind each bloody dripping limb,
I saw the joints amidst his teeth all warm and quivering still.
—He payed therefore, for never might Ulysses bear such ill,
Nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead:
For when with victual satiate, deep sunk in wine, his head630
Fell on his breast, and there he lay enormous through the den,
Snorting out gore amidst his sleep, with gobbets of the men
And mingled blood and wine; then we sought the great Gods with prayer
And drew the lots, and one and all crowded about him there,
And bored out with a sharpened pike the eye that used to lurk
Enormous lonely 'neath his brow overhanging grim and mirk,
As great a shield of Argolis, or Phœbus' lamp on high;
And so our murdered fellows' ghosts avenged we joyously.
—But ye, O miserable men, flee forth! make haste to pluck
The warping hawser from the shore!640
For even such, and e'en so great as Polypheme in cave
Shuts in the wealth of woolly things and draws the udders' wave,
An hundred others commonly dwell o'er these curving bights,
Unutterable Cyclop folk, or stray about the heights.
