Aeneid

I pray the blessed gods to rid the earth

of the vile monster! None can look on him,

none speak with him. He feeds on clotted gore

of disembowelled men. These very eyes

saw him seize two of our own company,

and, as he lolled back in the cave, he clutched

and dashed them on the stones, fouling the floor

with torrent of their blood; myself I saw him

crunch with his teeth the dripping, bloody limbs

still hot and pulsing on his hungry jaw.

But not without reward! For such a sight

Ulysses would not brook, and Ithaca

forgot not in such strait the name he bore.

For soon as, gorged with feasting and o'ercome

with drunken slumber, the foul giant lay

sprawled through the cave, his head dropped helpless down,

disgorging as he slept thick drool of gore

and gobbets drenched with bloody wine; then we,

calling on Heaven and taking place by lot,

drew round him like one man, and with a beam

sharpened at end bored out that monster eye,

which, huge and sole, lay under the grim brow,

round as an Argive shield or Phoebus' star.

Thus took we joyful vengeance for the shades

of our lost mates. But, O ill-fated men!

Fly, I implore, and cut the cables free

along the beach! For in the land abide,

like Polyphemus, who in hollow cave

kept fleecy sheep, and milked his fruitful ewes,

a hundred other, huge as he, who rove

wide o'er this winding shore and mountains fair:

Cyclops accursed, bestial! Thrice the moon

has filled her horns with light, while here I dwell

in lonely woods and lairs of creatures wild;

or from tall cliffs out-peering I discern

the Cyclops, and shrink shuddering from the sound

of their vast step and cry. My sorry fare

is berries and hard corners dropped from trees,

or herb-roots torn out from the niggard ground.

Though watching the whole sea, only today

Have I had sight of ships. To you I fled.

Whate'er ye be, it was my only prayer

to 'scape that monster brood. I ask no more.

O, set me free by any death ye will!”

He scarce had said, when moving o'er the crest

of a high hill a giant shape we saw:

that shepherd Polyphemus, with his flocks

down-wending to the well-known water-side;

huge, shapeless, horrible, with blinded eye,

bearing a lopped pine for a staff, he made

his footing sure, while the white, fleecy sheep,

sole pleasure now, and solace of his woes,

ran huddling at his side.

Soon to the vast flood of the level brine

he came, and washed the flowing gore away

from that out-hollowed eye; he gnashed his teeth,

groaning, and deep into the watery way

stalked on, his tall bulk wet by scarce a wave.

We fled in haste, though far, and with us bore

the truthful suppliant; cut silently

the anchor-ropes, and, bending to the oar,

swept on with eager strokes clean out to sea.

Aware he was, and toward our loud halloo

whirled sudden round; but when no power had he

to seize or harm, nor could his fierce pursuit

o'ertake the Ionian surges as they rolled,

he raised a cry incredible; the sea

with all its billows trembled; the wide shore

of Italy from glens and gorges moaned,

and Aetna roared from every vaulted cave.

Then rallied from the grove-clad, Iofty isle

the Cyclops' clan, and lined the beach and bay.

We saw each lonely eyeball glare in vain,

as side by side those brothers Aetna-born

stood towering high, a conclave dark and dire:

as when, far up some mountain's famous crest,

wind-fronting oaks or cone-clad cypresses

have made assembling in the solemn hills,

Jove's giant wood or Dian's sacred grove.

We, terror-struck, would fly we knew not where,

with loosened sheet and canvas swelling strong

before a welcome wind; but Helenus

bade us both Scylla and Charybdis fear,

where 'twixt the twain death straitly hems the way;

and so the counsel was to veer our bark

the course it came. But lo! a northern gale

burst o'er us from Pelorus' narrowed side,

and on we rode far past Pantagia's bay

of unhewn rock, and past the haven strong

of Megara, and Thapsus Iying low.

Such were the names retold, and such the shores

shown us by Achemenides, whose fate

made him familiar there, for he had sailed

with evil-starred Ulysses o'er that sea.

Off the Sicilian shore an island lies,

wave-washed Plemmyrium, called in olden days

Ortygia; here Alpheus, river-god,

from Elis flowed by secret sluice, they say,

beneath the sea, and mingles at thy mouth,

fair Arethusa! with Sicilian waves.