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Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Translated by Raymond Wright
We sailed on, our spirits now at a low ebb, and reached the land of the high and mighty Cyclops, lawless one-eyed brutes, who trust so to the everlasting gods they never plant with their own hands or plow the soil. Unsown, unplowed, the earth teems with all they need, wheat, barley and vines, swelled by the rains of God to yield a big full-bodied wine from clustered grapes. They have no meeting place for council, no laws either, no, up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns – each a law to himself, ruling his wives and children, not a care in the world for any neighbor.
A level island stretches flat across the harbor, not close inshore to the Cyclops’ coast, not too far out, thick with woods where the wild goats breed by hundreds. No trampling of men to start them from their lairs, no hunters roughing it out on the woody ridges, stalking quarry, ever raid their haven. No flocks browse, no plowlands roll with wheat; unplowed, unsown forever – empty of humankind – the island just feeds droves of bleating goats. For the Cyclops have no prowed ships, no shipwrights there to build them good trim craft that could sail them out to foreign ports of call, as most men risk the seas to trade with other men. Such artisans would have made this island a fine place to live... A great spot, it could bear you any crop you like in season. The water-meadows along the low foaming shore run soft and moist, and your vines would never wither. The land’s clear for plowing. Harvest on harvest, a man could reap a healthy stand of grain – the subsoil’s dark and rich.
There’s a snug deep-water harbor there, what’s more, no need for mooring-gear, no anchor-stones to heave, no cables to make fast. Just beach your keels, ride out the days till your shipmates’ spirit stirs for open sea and a fair wind blows. Last, at the harbor’s head there’s a spring that rushes fresh from beneath a cave, and black trees flourish round its mouth.
***
Well, here we landed, steering through the pitch-black night. Fog swirled around the ships, wrapping the moon in clouds, and nothing glimmered through that gloom. Not one of us glimpsed the island, scanning hard, or the long waves rolling us slowly toward the coast, not till our ships had run their keels ashore. Smoothly beaching our boats, furling our sails, we swung out on the sloping sand and fell asleep.
At first light we all came together, intrigued to tour the island. Soon we saw mountain-goats to make our morning meal. Quickly we fetched our curved bows and hunting spears from the ships and, splitting up into three bands, we started shooting. Soon enough we had bags of game to warm our hearts. A dozen vessels sailed in my command and to each other crew I gave nine goats, while my crew took ten.
Then all day long till the sun went down we sat and feasted well on sides of meat and rounds of heady wine. The good red stock in our ships’ holds had not run out, still plenty left. We stared across at the Cyclops’ shore, so near we could even see their smoke, hear their voices, their bleating sheep and goats. Then when the sun had set, we lay down and slept at the water’s edge.
***
When dawn broke I called a meeting, commanding all the crews: “The rest of you stay here, comrades. I’ll go across with my own ship and crew and probe the natives living over there – violent, savage, lawless? Or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?”
With that I boarded my ship and told my crew to sail at once and cast off cables quickly. They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.
When we reached the Cyclops’ shore we spied a cave. It gaped above the surf, towering, overgrown with laurel. Here big flocks, sheep and goats, spent the nights. Around its mouth ran a yard walled by quarried boulders, sunk deep in the earth, and big pines and oaks loomed darkly there.
In this cave lived a giant Cyclops. He always pastured his sheepflocks far afield, and never mixed with others. A grim loner, dead set in his own lawless ways. A piece of work named Polyphemus, by god, a monster like a shaggy hill – a man-mountain rearing head and shoulders over the world.
Off I went with my dozen best fighters, leaving the rest of my loyal crew to guard the ship. Along with provisions in a leather sack I brought a goatskin of my best wine – ruddy, irresistible, a deep-red mellow vintage – what an aroma, what magic, what a godsend, no joy in holding back when pouring it! A sudden foreboding told me I’d soon come up against some giant clad in power like armor-plate – a savage deaf to justice, blind to law.
We made our way to his cave, but failed to find our host himself inside. Off in his pasture he ranged his sleek flocks. So we explored his den, gazing wide-eyed at it all – the large flat racks loaded with drying cheeses, the hammered buckets brimming with milk, pens crowded with lambs and kids, fresh sucklings, each sort penned apart. My comrades pressed me, pleading hard, “Let’s steal the cheeses, then come back for the lambs and sail away.” But I would not agree – and how much better if I had – not till I saw him, what gifts he’d give us. So there we built a fire, helped ourselves to the cheeses, and settled in, awaiting his return.
***
The Cyclops came back from the pasture late in the day, herding his flocks home, lugging a huge load of good dry logs to fuel his fire at supper. He flung them down in the cave – a jolting crash – we scuttled in panic into the deepest dark recess. Next he drove his sleek flocks into the open vault, all he’d milk at least, but he left the males outside in walled yard. To close his door he hoisted overhead a tremendous, massive slab, twenty-two horses could have hauled it, such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave.
Down then he squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats. Half of the fresh white milk he set aside in wicker racks to press for cheese, the other half he let stand in pails, ready at hand to wash down his supper. When he’d finished all his chores he lit a fire, and its blazing light he spied us.
***
“Strangers!” he thundered. “Who hides there? Traders? Or pirates roving the sea like wolves, raiding at will, risking your lives to plunder other men? Where did you come from?”
The hearts inside us shook, terrified by his rumbling voice and monstrous hulk. Nevertheless I found the nerve to answer, firmly:
“We came from Greece, bound from Troy! Driven far off course by the warring winds, over the vast gulf of the sea – battling home on a strange course, a route that’s off the map. Since we’ve chanced on you, we beg your warm welcome, even a guest-gift, the sort that hosts give strangers. That’s the custom. Respect the gods, my friend. We’re suppliants – at your mercy! Zeus guards us as all guests and suppliants, guaranteeing our sacred rights!”
“Stranger,” he grumbled back from his brutal heart, “you fool, you must come from nowhere, telling me to fear the gods or avoid their wrath! We Cyclops never blink at any blessed god. I’d never spare you from fear of Zeus, but only if I felt like it. But where did you anchor your ship? Up the coast or close in? Just curious....”
So he laid his trap, but I didn’t take the bait.
“My ship? Smashed against the rocks at your island’s far cape, dashed against a cliff as the winds rode us in, we almost died.”
He said nothing in reply to that, the ruthless brute. Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men and snatching two at once. Rapping them on the ground, he knocked them dead like pups – their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor. Ripping them limb from limb like a mountain-lion, he chewed them down and left no scrap, ate their guts, flesh and bones!
We screamed and cried – paralyzed, appalled – witnessing his grisly work. But once the Cyclops had stuffed his enormous gut with human flesh, washing it down with raw milk, he slept in his cave, stretched out along his flocks.
I thought at first to steal up to him, draw the sharp sword at my hip and stab his chest at the liver. I groped for the fatal spot – but a fresh thought held me back. There at a stroke we’d finish off ourselves as well. For how could we, with our bare hands, heave back that slab he set to block his cavern’s gaping maw?
So we lay there groaning, awaiting daylight.
***
At dawn the monster relit his fire and milked his sheep. When he’d finished his chores, he snatched up two more of my men for breakfast. Well-fed, he drove his fat sheep from the cave, lifting the huge doorslab up and away, then slipping it back in place. Turning his flocks to the hills he left me there, brooding on revenge. How could I get him back?
One plan struck my mind as best. The Cyclops’ great club: there it lay by the pens, olivewood, full of sap. He’d lopped it off to brandish once it dried. It looked big enough to serve as the mast of a ship with twenty oars, a freighter broad in the beam that plows through miles of sea – so long, so thick it bulked before our eyes. I chopped off a fathom’s length, rolled it to my comrades, told them to plane it down, and they made the club smooth as I bent and shaved the tip to a stabbing point. I turned it over the blazing fire to char it good and hard, then hid it well, buried deep under the sheep’s dung that littered the cavern’s floor in thick wet clumps. When sleep overcome the monster, we’d hoist that stake and grind it into his eye.
***
Nightfall brought him back, herding his woolly sheep. He drove the sleek flock into the vaulted cavern, rams and all, then he hoisted the huge slab to block the door. After milking his sheep and bleating goats, he ate up two more of my men for dinner.
But now I lifted a carved wooden bowl, brimful of my ruddy wine. I went right up to the Cyclops, enticing him:
“Here, Cyclops, try this wine – to top off the banquet of human flesh you’ve bolted down! I brought it here to make you a fine gift, hoping you would pity me, send me home, but I won’t endure your rages. You barbarian – how can any man on earth come visit you after this? What you’ve done outrages all that’s right!”
He seized the bowl and drank it, and the strong wine pleased him greatly. Soon he demanded a second bowl.
“More! A hearty helping! Our soil yields powerful, full-bodied wine, and the rains from build its strength. But this nectar, ambrosia – this flows from heaven! Tell me your name now, so I can give you a gift to warm your heart.”
I poured him another bowl, and then another. Three bowls I brimmed, and three he drank to the last drop, the fool. Then, when the wine swirled round his brain, I approached him with a cordial, winning word.
“So, you ask me my name. I will tell you, but you must give me a guest-gift as you’ve promised. Nobody – that’s my name. Nobody – that’s what my mother and father call me, all my friends.”
But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart, “Nobody? Well, Nobody, here’s my gift to you. I’ll eat you last, after I’ve eaten your friends!”
With that he feel over, sprawled full-length, flat on his back and lay there, his massive neck slumping to one side. Sleep overwhelmed him as wine came spurting, flooding up from his gullet with chunks of human flesh – he vomited, blind drunk.
***
Now, at last, I thrust our stake in a bed of embers to get it red-hot. I rallied my comrades:
“Courage – no panic, no one hang back now!”
Just before the green olive-stake caught fire – the glow terrific, yes – I dragged it from the flames. My men clustered round as courage breathed through us all. Hoisting high that stabbing stake, we rammed it hard – straight into the monster’s eye.
I drove my weight on it from above, boring it home. Blood came boiling up around that smoking shaft. The hot blast singed his brow and eyelids. We bored the fiery tip round and round until his broiling eyeball crackled, sizzled and burst with a hiss.
He loosed a hideous roar. The rock walls echoed and we scuttled back in terror. The monster wrenched the spike from his eye and out it came with a red geyser of blood. Mad with pain he bellowed out for help from his neighboring Cyclops.
***
In their caves on windswept crags they heard his cries. Lumbering up from every side, hulking round his cavern, they asked what ailed him:
“Polyphemus, What’s wrong? Roaring out to rob us of our sleep. Surely no one’s rustling your flocks – surely no one’s trying to kill you now by fraud or force!”
“Nobody, friends,” Polyphemus bellowed back from his cave. “Nobody’s killing me now by fraud and not by force!”
“If you’re alone,” his friends boomed back at once, “and nobody’s trying to overpower you now – look, mighty Zeus must have sent a plague sent here, no escaping that. You’d better pray.”
They lumbered off. Nobody’s name, my cunning stroke, had duped them all.
***
Meanwhile Polyphemus, still groaning, groped for the slab. Heaving it from the doorway, down he sat in the cave’s mouth, arms wide, hoping to catch us stealing out with sheep.
But I had already begun plotting... trying to figure the best way out. How could I find escape from death for my crew, myself as well? My wits kept weaving, weaving cunning schemes – life in the balance, monstrous death staring us in the face – till one plan struck my mind as best.
That flock, those rams with their thick fleece, sturdy, sporting their weight of wool: I lashed them together in threes, using willow-twigs the Cyclops slept on. Each middle ram in concealed a man, tied up under their ribs, while the two rams either side would shield him well.
So three beasts to bear each man, but as for myself? I saw the prize ram of all the flock, and clutching him by his back, tucked up under his shaggy belly. There I hung, face upward, both hands locked in his marvelous deep fleece, clinging for dear life, my spirit steeled, enduring...
So we held on, desperate, awaiting dawn.
***
When day broke the rams went rumbling out of the cave toward pasture. The Cyclops, heaving in torment, felt the back of each animal, but never sensed my men under their thick fleece. Last my own great ram wobbled out, weighed down by me beneath his wool. Stroking him gently, Polyphemus murmured:
“Dear old ram, why last of the flock to quit the cave? In the old days you’d never lag behind the rest, first of the flock you’d graze the fresh grasses, but now you’re last of all. Why? Oh if only you had words to tell me where that scoundrel cringes! I’d smash him against the ground, I’d spill his brains across my cave. That would ease my heart of all the pains he’s made me suffer!”
With that threat he let my ram go free outside. As soon we’d got one foot past cave and courtyard, I freed myself from the ram, and then freed my men. We drove our flock to the ship, where our comrades welcomed us and wailed for their dead friends.
I cut it short, stopped each shipmate’s cries. My head tossing, brows frowning, I sent them silent signals to hurry, to tumble our fleecy herd on board, to launch on the open sea.
They sat to the oars, in ranks, and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.
***
Once offshore, I called back stinging taunts to the Cyclops, as far as a man’s shout can carry:
“So, Cyclops – you with your brute force! Your filthy crimes came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal, daring to eat your guests in your own house!”
That made the rage of the monster boil over. Ripping off the peak of a towering crag, he heaved it so hard the boulder landed just before our prow. A huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under – a tidal wave from the open sea.
The sudden backwash drove us landward again, forcing us close inshore.
Grabbing a long pole, I thrust us off and away, tossing my head for dear life, signaling crews to put their backs in the oars, escape grim death. They threw themselves into the labor, rowed on fast.
But once we’d plowed the breakers twice as far, again I began to taunt the Cyclops – men around me trying to check me, calm me, left and right:
“So headstrong – why? Why rile the beast again? That rock he flung in the sea just now, hurling our ship to shore once more – we thought we’d die on the spot! If he’d caught a sound from one of us, just a moan, he would have crushed our heads and ship timbers with one heave of rock! Good god, the brute can throw!”
So they begged, but they could not curb my fighting spirit. I called back with another burst of anger:
“Cyclops, if any man on the face of the earth should ask you who blinded you, shamed you, say Odysseus, raider of cities, he gouged out your eye!”
The monster suddenly hoisted an a even bigger boulder. He wheeled and heaved it, putting his weight behind it, all his massive strength. The boulder crashed close, landing just in the wake of our stern, just failing to graze the rudder’s bladed edge. A huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under. The tidal breaker drove us out to our island’s far shore, where our ships clustered and their crewmen huddled in anguish, chafing for our return.
We beached our ship on the sand and waded into the frothing surf. Herding the Cyclops’ sheep from our holds, we shared them round so no one would lack his fair share of spoils. But my comrades made the splendid ram my prize of honor, mine alone. I slaughtered it on the beach and burned its thighs to Zeus of the thundercloud, who rules the world.
All day long till the sun set we sat and feasted on sides of meat and strong wine. Then, when night came, we lay down and slept at the water’s sloping edge.
At dawn I roused the crews to man the ships and cast off cables. We sailed on, glad to escape our deaths, yet sick at heart for the friends we had lost.