_20
And frighted heard strange sounds and dismal yells,
Nor saw from whence they came; for all the night
A murky storm deep lowering o'er our heads
Hung imminent, that with impervious gloom
Opposed itself to Cynthia's silver ray,
And shaded all beneath. But now the sun
With orient beams had chased the dewy night
From earth and heaven; all nature stood disclosed:
When, looking on the neighbouring woods, we saw
The ghastly visage of a man unknown,
_30
An uncouth feature, meagre, pale, and wild;
Affliction's foul and terrible dismay
Sat in his looks, his face, impaired and worn
With marks of famine, speaking sore distress;
His locks were tangled, and his shaggy beard
Matted with filth; in all things else a Greek.
He first advanced in haste; but, when he saw
Trojans and Trojan arms, in mid career
Stopp'd short, he back recoiled as one surprised:
But soon recovering speed he ran, he flew
Precipitant, and thus with piteous cries
_40
Our ears assailed: 'By heaven's eternal fires,
By every god that sits enthroned on high,
By this good light, relieve a wretch forlorn,
And bear me hence to any distant shore,
So I may shun this savage race accursed.
'Tis true I fought among the Greeks that late
With sword and fire o'erturned Neptunian Troy
And laid the labours of the gods in dust;
For which, if so the sad offence deserves,
_50
Plunged in the deep, for ever let me lie
Whelmed under seas; if death must be my doom,
Let man inflict it, and I die well-pleased.'
He ended here, and now profuse to tears
In suppliant mood fell prostrate at our feet:
We bade him speak from whence and what he was,
And how by stress of fortune sunk thus low;
Anchises too, with friendly aspect mild,
Gave him his hand, sure pledge of amity;
When, thus encouraged, he began his tale.
_60
'I'm one,' says he, 'of poor descent; my name
Is Achæmenides, my country Greece;
Ulysses' sad compeer, who, whilst he fled
The raging Cyclops, left me here behind,
Disconsolate, forlorn; within the cave
He left me, giant Polypheme's dark cave;
A dungeon wide and horrible, the walls
On all sides furred with mouldy damps, and hung
With clots of ropy gore, and human limbs,
His dire repast: himself of mighty size,
_70
Hoarse in his voice, and in his visage grim,
Intractable, that riots on the flesh
Of mortal men, and swills the vital blood.
Him did I see snatch up with horrid grasp
Two sprawling Greeks, in either hand a man;
I saw him when with huge, tempestuous sway
He dashed and broke them on the grundsil edge;
The pavement swam in blood, the walls around
Were spattered o'er with brains. He lapp'd the blood,
And chewed the tender flesh still warm with life,
_80
That swelled and heaved itself amidst his teeth
As sensible of pain. Not less meanwhile
Our chief, incensed and studious of revenge,
Plots his destruction, which he thus effects.
The giant, gorged with flesh, and wine, and blood,
Lay stretched at length and snoring in his den,
Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharged
With purple wine and cruddled gore confused.
We gathered round, and to his single eye,
The single eye that in his forehead glared
_90
Like a full moon, or a broad burnished shield,
A forky staff we dexterously applied,
Which, in the spacious socket turning round,
Scooped out the big round jelly from its orb.
But let me not thus interpose delays;
Fly, mortals, fly this cursed, detested race:
A hundred of the same stupendous size,
A hundred Cyclops live among the hills,
Gigantic brotherhood, that stalk along
With horrid strides o'er the high mountains' tops,
_100
Enormous in their gait; I oft have heard
Their voice and tread, oft seen them as they passed,
Sculking and cowering down, half dead with fear.
Thrice has the moon washed all her orb in light,
Thrice travelled o'er, in her obscure sojourn,
The realms of night inglorious, since I've lived
Amidst these woods, gleaning from thorns and shrubs
A wretched sustenance.' As thus he spoke,
We saw descending from a neighbouring hill
Blind Polypheme; by weary steps and slow
_110
The groping giant with a trunk of pine
Explored his way; around, his woolly flocks
Attended grazing; to the well-known shore
He bent his course, and on the margin stood,
A hideous monster, terrible, deformed;
Full in the midst of his high front there gaped
The spacious hollow where his eye-ball rolled,
A ghastly orifice: he rinsed the wound,
And washed away the strings and clotted blood
That caked within; then, stalking through the deep,
_120
He fords the ocean, while the topmost wave
Scarce reaches up his middle side; we stood
Amazed, be sure; a sudden horror chill
Ran through each nerve, and thrilled in every vein,
Till, using all the force of winds and oars,
We sped away; he heard us in our course,
And with his outstretched arms around him groped,
But finding nought within his reach, he raised