ick neck twisted sideways: overmastering sleep
possessed him, from his gullet there gushed out wine
and gobbets of human flesh, as he drunkenly vomited.
It was now that I thrust the stake deep into the embers
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to let it get hot, and encouraged all my companions
with heartening words, lest any back off from fear.
Then, just as the olive-wood stake, though green, was about
to catch fire, and was glowing, intensely incandescent,
I leaned close, pulled it clear of the flames. My companions
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crowded around me. Some god breathed great courage into us.
The others grasped the olive-wood stake, sharp-pointed,
and rammed it into his eye, while I leaned over it,
and twisted it round. As when a man with a drill
bores a ship timber, and those below keep it turning
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with a strap held at either end, and the drill runs nonstop--
just so we grasped and in his eye kept turning
that fire-sharpened stake: round the red-hot orb blood ran.
Eyelids and eyebrows alike were singed by the fiery breath
from the burning eyeball: its roots now crackled in the heat.
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As when a blacksmith plunges a great axe or an adze
in cold water to temper it, and it hisses loudly--
for this is how iron achieves its greatest strength--just so
did his eye now hiss around the olive-wood point. He gave
a terrible scream, that made the rock resound,
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and we shrank back in terror. He tore the stake, all slobbered
with fresh-shed blood, from his eye, and with both arms
hurled it from him, maddened with pain, and screamed aloud
to the other Kyklopes, those who were his neighbors,
dwelling in caves near the windswept mountaintops,
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and they heard him cry out, and gathered from all around,
and stood by the cave and asked him what was the matter:
'What great hurt, Polyphemos, is it makes you scream like that
through the ambrosial night, and rouse us all from sleep?
Surely no mortal is rustling your flocks against your will?
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Surely you're not being murdered by guile or by force?'
"From within
the cave mighty Polyphemos answered them thus: 'My friends,
Nobody's killing me by guile, not by force.' To this,
addressing him with winged words, they now responded:
'If no one is harming you, then, and you're alone, there's no
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way you can dodge a sickness sent by great Zeus: you must
just offer up prayers to our father, Lord Poseidon.'
"So they spoke,
and departed. I laughed in my heart at the way that name,
and my faultless planning, had so deceived them. Meanwhile
the Kyklops, groaning and suffering agonies of pain,
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groped with his hands, took the stone from the cave's entrance,
and sat there in the opening with both arms wide outstretched,
hoping to catch anybody who tried to slip out with the sheep--
did he really suppose I was going to be that stupid?
By now I'd figured out just what I would have to do
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to find an escape from death both for my companions
and for myself: I'd thought of every trick and device
that might save our lives: the threat was great and immediate.
Now this, to my mind, looked the best of such plans:
There were the rams, well-nourished and thickly fleeced,
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fine strapping specimens, the wool on them violet-dark.
These I silently tied together with pliable withies--
on which the Kyklops, bred in lawlessness, would sleep--
taking three at a time: the middle one carried a man,
while the ones on each flank gave my comrades protection:
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thus each three sheep bore one person. As for myself,
there was one special ram, the best in the whole flock:
him I grasped by the back, curled up under his shaggy belly,
and lay with my hands twisted into his marvelous fleece,
holding on tight, with great patience, never relaxing.
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And so, lamenting, we lay there, awaiting the bright dawn.
"When Dawn appeared, early risen and rosy-fingered,
then the males of the flocks sallied out of the cave to pasture,
while the ewes went bleating about their pens, unmilked,
with bursting udders. Their master, in agonizing pain,
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kept feeling along the backs of all his sheep
as they stood before him. The booby never perceived
that under his rich-fleeced sheep there were men tied on!
Last of the flock the ram approached the entrance, heavy
with his thick wool--and with me and my quick thinking!
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Groping his back, the strong Polyphemos addressed him, saying:
'Dear ram, why do you come thus through the cave, the very
last of the flock? You used not to lag behind the others,
but were always first out, to graze on the lushest pasture,
striding ahead, the first to reach the flowing river,
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the first that liked to head back into the sheepfold when
evening came on. But now you're the last of all. Are you mourning,
maybe, your master's lost eye, which a wicked man put out,
he and his wretched fellows, when he'd doused my wits with wine--
Nobody--who, I tell you, is not clear of destruction yet !
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If you only could think as I do and had the power of speech
to tell me where that creature is hiding away from my might,
then would his brains, dashed out, lie scattered over the ground
throughout the cave, and my spirit would be lightened
of all the ills which that nothing-worth Nobody's brought me.'
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So saying, he let the ram go on out through the entrance.
"When we'd moved on a little way from the cave and the enclosure,
first I loosed myself from the ram, then untied my comrades.
Quickly then we drove off the fat, smart-stepping sheep,
glancing back all the time, until we reached our ship.
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A welcome sight to our dear comrades were those of us
who'd escaped death: for the others they started wailing.
But this I stopped, with a silent upward jerk of the head
that said 'No' to their weeping. I told them to throw on board,
fast, all the fine-fleeced sheep, and to put to sea at once.
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They came aboard quickly, each man to his rowlock, and seated
in proper order they struck the grey brine with their oars,
and when we had backed offshore as far as a man's shout
would carry, I called out to the Kyklops with mocking words:
'Kyklops, it was, then, no weakling whose comrades you planned,
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by might and brute force, to eat in your hollow cave! In full
were your evil deeds to rebound on your own head, vile wretch,
who did not shrink from eating the guests in your house, for which
Zeus and the other gods have exacted requital from you.'
"So I spoke, and my words made him yet more angry at heart,
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so that he wrenched off, and hurled at us, the peak of a lofty
mountain, that fell just in front of our dark-prowed vessel,
narrowly missing the end of the steering oar: the sea
surged up under the falling rock's impact, created
a wave that carried our vessel straight back shoreward,
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a heaving swell from the deep, aimed directly at the land.
But I seized a very long pole in my hands and thrust us
clear once more, and urgently signed to my comrades
to row for dear life, and get us away from danger,
gesturing with my head. They bent to their oars, and rowed.
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But when, working hard at the sea, we'd doubled the distance,
then I shouted again to the Kyklops, though all around
my comrades with calming arguments tried stop me:
'Stubborn wretch, why so set on infuriating this savage?
Just now he flung some missile seaward, drove our vessel
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back to land--indeed, we thought we were done for!
If he'd heard any one of us making a sound, or shouting,
he'd have broken our heads as well as the ship's timbers
with a cast of some sharp glinting boulder, so mighty his arm!'
"Thus they spoke, but could not shift my great-hearted spirit,
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and I answered him back, irate and resentful at heart:
'Kyklops, if any mortal, of all mankind, should ask you
about your eye's unseemly blindness, tell them it was
Odysseus, sacker of cities, who destroyed your eyesight:
Laertes' son, who calls Ithake his home.'
"So I spoke,
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and he groaned aloud, and then responded to me, saying:
'Alas, that ancient prophecy has indeed come true for me!
There once was a prophet here, a great gentleman too--
Telemos, Eurymos' son, a man unmatched in seercraft,
who grew old as a diviner among the Kyklopes: he
510
told me that all these things would happen in time to come,
that by Odysseus' hands I'd be deprived of my sight.
But I always thought it would be some tall and handsome
hero who'd show up here, endowed with mighty strength:
But in fact it's this puny, no-account weakling who's
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deprived me of eyesight after fuddling my wits with wine!
Come back here, Odysseus, and let me offer you guest-gifts,
and urge the famed Earth-Shaker to grant you conveyance home,
for I am his son, and he avows that he's my father.
He himself, if he so chooses, will heal me--he, and none other,
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whether one of the blessed gods or some mortal human.'
"So he spoke, and I answered him, saying: 'How I wish
I had the power to strip you of breath and life, and send you
down to the realm of Hades, as surely as no one
will heal your eye, not even the Earth-Shaker himself.'
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"So I spoke, and he then prayed to the lord Poseidon,
reaching out both his hands to the starry heavens: 'Hear me,
Poseidon, dark-haired Earth-Shaker, if I am truly
your son, if you avow yourself my father! Grant
that Laertes' son, whose home is on Ithake,
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Odysseus, sacker of cities, shall not reach home--
But if it's fated that he's to see his loved ones again,
to come back to his well-built house and his native land,
may he get there late, in bad shape, all his comrades lost,
in a ship not his own, and be met with trouble in his home!'
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"So he spoke in prayer, and was heard by the dark-haired god.
Then once more he hefted an even greater rock
and swung and hurled it, putting huge force into the throw,
and it landed only a little behind our dark-prowed vessel,
narrowly missing the end of the steering oar: the sea
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surged up under the falling rock's impact, created
a wave that carried our vessel straight on shoreward:
and so we came back to the island where all our other
well-benched ships lay together, and around them sat
our comrades in tears, forever awaiting our return.
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When we got there we ran up our vessel onto the beach,
and ourselves disembarked upon the sandy strand.
The Kyklops' sheep we fetched out from the hollow ship
and allotted them so that no one got less than his fair share.
But the ram my well-greaved comrades allotted to me alone
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when the sheep were shared out, as a special prize: on the shore
this ram to Zeus, Kronos' son, dark-clouded, omnipotent,
I sacrificed, burned the thighs. But he ignored my offering:
he had in mind the destruction of all my well-benched ships,
and every last one of my trusty comrades. So then
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the whole long day until the going down of the sun
we sat feasting on meat in abundance and sweet wine;
but when the sun had set and darkness came on
then we lay down and slept along the line of the shore.
When Dawn appeared, early risen and rosy-fingered,
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then indeed I aroused my companions and ordered them
to embark themselves, and to cast off the stern warps.
They came aboard quickly, seated themselves at the rowlocks,
and sitting in order struck the grey salt deep with their oars.
"So we sailed on from there, lamenting at heart, but relieved
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at having got clear of death, though we'd lost our comrades."
Book 10
"To the isle of Aiolia then we came, where was the dwelling
of Aiolos, Hippotas' son, much loved by the deathless gods,
on a floating island: encircling it was a rampart
of unbreakable bronze: the rock ran up sheer and smooth.
Twelve offspring of his besides were established in his halls,
5
Six daughters there were, and also six lusty sons:
the daughters he gave to the sons to be their bedfellows.
These always eat with their dear father and loving mother,
and countless fine dishes are ready to hand before them.
The house smells of food, reechoes with their chatter
10
every day; but at nighttime, beside their modest wives,
they sleep under blankets upon their corded bedsteads.
It was, then, to their city and fine abode that we came,
and for a full month he befriended me, asked about everything--
Ilion, Argive vessels, the homecoming of the Achaians,
15
and I told him the whole story, just as it happened.
When I asked him about our own journey, wanted his help
in sending us on our way, he denied me nothing, furnished
conveyance, gave me a bag he'd made from the flayed hide
of a nine-year-old ox, in which he'd imprisoned the paths
20
of the blustering winds: Kronos' son had made him their steward,
empowered to calm or arouse them, as he might choose.
This he put in my hollow ship, tied fast with a shining cord
of silver, that let no breeze, however slight, escape.
For me, however, he sent a breath of the west wind to blow
25
that would bear ships and men home; but he wasn't destined
to bring this about: our own folly was what undid us.
"For nine days on end we sailed, both by day and by night,
and now on the tenth our homeland came into sight--
close enough indeed to see men tending their watch fires:
30
then it was that sweet sleep came upon me in my exhaustion,