Not a word 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 —
and ripping them limb from limb to fix his meal
he bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap,
330 devoured entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all!
We flung our arms to Zeus, we wept and cried aloud,
looking on at his grisly work —paralyzed, appalled.
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.
And I with my fighting heart, I thought at first
to steal up to him, draw the sharp sword at my hip
and stab his chest where the midriff packs the liver —
I groped for the fatal spot but a fresh thought held me back.
340 There at a stroke we’d finish off ourselves as well —
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, waiting Dawn’s first light.
When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
the monster relit his fire and milked his handsome ewes,
each in order, putting a suckling underneath each dam,
and as soon as he’d briskly finished all his chores
he snatched up two more men and fixed his meal.
Well-fed, he drove his fat sheep from the cave,
350 lightly lifting the huge doorslab up and away,
then slipped it back in place
as a hunter flips the lid of his quiver shut.
Piercing whistles —turning his flocks to the hills
he left me there, the heart inside me brooding on revenge:
how could I pay him back? would Athena give me glory?
Here was the plan that 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. Looking it over, we judged it big enough
360 to be the mast of a pitch-black ship with her twenty oars,
a freighter broad in the beam that plows through miles of sea —
so long, so thick it bulked before our eyes. Well,
flanking it now, I chopped off a fathom’s length,
rolled it to 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 dung
that littered the cavern’s floor in thick wet clumps.
370 And now I ordered my shipmates all to cast lots —
who’d brave it out with me
to hoist our stake and grind it into his eye
when sleep had overcome him? Luck of the draw:
I got the very ones I would have picked myself,
four good men, and I in the lead made five . . .
Nightfall brought him back, herding his woolly sheep
and he quickly drove the sleek flock into the vaulted cavern,
rams and all —none left outside in the walled yard —
his own idea, perhaps, or a god led him on.
380 Then he hoisted the huge slab to block the door
and squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats,
each in order, putting a suckling underneath each dam,
and as soon as he’d briskly finished all his chores
he snatched up two more men and fixed his meal.
But this time I lifted a carved wooden bowl,
brimful of my ruddy wine,
and went right up to the Cyclops, enticing,
‘Here, Cyclops, try this wine —to top off
the banquet of human flesh you’ve bolted down!
390 Judge for yourself what stock our ship had stored.
I brought it here to make you a fine libation,
hoping you would pity me, Cyclops, send me home,
but your rages are insufferable. You barbarian —
how can any man on earth come visit you after this?
What you’ve done outrages all that’s right!’
At that he seized the bowl and tossed it off
and the heady wine pleased him immensely —‘More’ —
he demanded a second bowl —‘a hearty helping!
And tell me your name now, quickly,
400 so I can hand my guest a gift to warm his heart.
Our soil yields the Cyclops powerful, full-bodied wine
and the rains from Zeus build its strength. But this,
this is nectar, ambrosia —this flows from heaven!’
So he declared. I poured him another fiery bowl —
three bowls I brimmed and three he drank to the last drop,
the fool, and then, when the wine was swirling round his brain,
I approached my host with a cordial, winning word:
‘So, you ask me the name I’m known by, Cyclops?
I will tell you. But you must give me a guest-gift
410 as you’ve promised. Nobody —that’s my name. Nobody —
so my mother and father call me, all my friends.’
But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart,
‘Nobody? I’ll eat Nobody last of all his friends —
I’ll eat the others first! That’s my gift to you!’
With that
he toppled over, sprawled full-length, flat on his back
and lay there, his massive neck slumping to one side,
and sleep that conquers all overwhelmed him now
as wine came spurting, flooding up from his gullet
with chunks of human flesh —he vomited, blind drunk.
420 Now, at last, I thrust our stake in a bed of embers
to get it red-hot and rallied all my comrades:
‘Courage —no panic, no one hang back now!’
And green as it was, just as the olive stake
was about to catch fire —the glow terrific, yes —
I dragged it from the flames, my men clustering round
as some god breathed enormous courage through us all.
Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point,
straight into the monster’s eye they rammed it hard —
I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home
430 as a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright’s drill
that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl
and the drill keeps twisting faster, never stopping —
So we seized our stake with its fiery tip
and bored it round and round in the giant’s eye
till blood came boiling up around that smoking shaft
and the hot blast singed his brow and eyelids round the core
and the broiling eyeball burst —
its crackling roots blazed
and hissed —
as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze
in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam
440 and its temper hardens —that’s the iron’s strength —
so the eye of the Cyclops sizzled round that stake!
He loosed a hideous roar, the rock walls echoed round
and we scuttled back in terror. The monster wrenched the spike
from his eye and out it came with a red geyser of blood —
he flung it aside with frantic hands, and mad with pain
he bellowed out for help from his neighbor Cyclops
living round about in caves on windswept crags.
Heari
ng his cries, they lumbered up from every side
and hulking round his cavern, asked what ailed him:
450 ‘What, Polyphemus, what in the world’s the trouble?
Roaring out in the godsent night to rob us of our sleep.
452 Surely no one’s rustling your flocks against your will —
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,
it must be a plague sent here by mighty Zeus
and there’s no escape from that.
460 You’d better pray to your father, Lord Poseidon.’
They lumbered off, but laughter filled my heart
to think how nobody’s name —my great cunning stroke —
had duped them one and all. But the Cyclops there,
still groaning, racked with agony, groped around
for the huge slab, and heaving it from the doorway,
down he sat in the cave’s mouth, his arms spread wide,
hoping to catch a comrade stealing out with sheep —
such a blithering fool he took me for!
But I was already plotting . . .
470 what was 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 at stake, monstrous death staring us in the face —
till this plan struck my mind as best. That flock,
those well-fed rams with their splendid thick fleece,
sturdy, handsome beasts sporting their dark weight of wool:
I lashed them abreast, quietly, twisting the willow-twigs
the Cyclops slept on —giant, lawless brute —I took them
three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man
480 while the two rams either side would shield him well.
So three beasts to bear each man, but as for myself?
There was one bellwether ram, the prize 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, waiting Dawn’s first light.
As soon
as young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
the rams went rumbling out of the cave toward pasture,
490 the ewes kept bleating round the pens, unmilked,
their udders about to burst. Their master now,
heaving in torment, felt the back of each animal
halting before him here, but the idiot never sensed
my men were trussed up under their thick fleecy ribs.
And last of them all came my great ram now, striding out,
weighed down with his dense wool and my deep plots.
Stroking him gently, powerful Polyphemus murmured,
‘Dear old ram, why last of the flock to quit the cave?
In the good old days you’d never lag behind the rest —
500 you with your long marching strides, first by far
of the flock to graze the fresh young grasses,
first by far to reach the rippling streams,
first to turn back home, keen for your fold
when night comes on —but now you’re last of all.
And why? Sick at heart for your master’s eye
that coward gouged out with his wicked crew? —
only after he’d stunned my wits with wine —
508 that, that Nobody . . .
who’s not escaped his death, I swear, not yet.
510 Oh if only you thought like me, had words like me
to tell me where that scoundrel is cringing from my rage!
I’d smash him against the ground, I’d spill his brains —
flooding across my cave —and that would ease my heart
of the pains that good-for-nothing Nobody made me suffer!’
And with that threat he let my ram go free outside.
But soon as we’d got one foot past cave and courtyard,
first I loosed myself from the ram, then loosed my men,
then quickly, glancing back again and again we drove
our flock, good plump beasts with their long shanks,
520 straight to the ship, and a welcome sight we were
to loyal comrades —we who’d escaped our deaths —
but for all the rest they broke down and wailed.
I cut it short, I stopped each shipmate’s cries,
my head tossing, brows frowning, silent signals
to hurry, tumble our fleecy herd on board,
launch out on the open sea!
They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks
and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.
But once offshore as far as a man’s shout can carry,
530 I called back to the Cyclops, stinging taunts:
‘So, Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew
you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave —
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 —
so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back!’
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 in front of our dark prow
540 and 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
but 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 in 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:
550 ‘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 another flashing, jagged rock!’
‘Good god, the brute can throw!’
So they begged
but they could not bring my fighting spirit round.
I called back with another burst of anger, ‘Cyclops —
if any man on the face of the earth should ask you
560 who blinded you, shamed you so —say Odysseus,
raider of cities, he gouged out your eye,
Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca!’
So I vaunted and he groaned back in answer,
‘Oh no, no —that prophecy years ago . . .
it all comes home to me with a vengeance now!
We once had a prophet here, a great tall man,
567 Telemus, Eurymus’ son, a master at reading signs,
who grew old in his trade among his fellow-Cyclops.
All this, he warned me, would come to pass someday —
570 that I’d be blinded here at the hands of one Odysseus.
But I always looked for a handsome giant man to cross my path,
some fighter clad in power like armor-plate, but now,
573 look what a dwarf, a spineless good-for-nothing,
Come here, Odysseus, let me give you a guest-gift
and urge Poseidon the earthquake god to speed you home.
I am his son and he claims to be my father, true,
and he himself will heal me if he pleases —
no other blessed god, no man can do the work!’
‘Heal you!’ —
580 here was my parting shot —‘Would to god I could strip you
of life and breath and ship you down to the House of Death
as surely as no one will ever heal your eye,
not even your earthquake god himself!’
But at that he bellowed out to lord Poseidon,
thrusting his arms to the starry skies, and prayed, ‘Hear me —
Poseidon, god of the sea-blue mane who rocks the earth!
If I really am your son and you claim to be my father —
come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities,
Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca,
590 never reaches home. Or if he’s fated to see
his people once again and reach his well-built house
592 and his own native country, let him come home late
and come a broken man —all shipmates lost,
alone in a stranger’s ship —
and let him find a world of pain at home!’
So he prayed
and the god of the sea-blue mane, Poseidon, heard his prayer.
The monster suddenly hoisted a boulder —far larger —
wheeled and heaved it, putting his weight behind it,
massive strength, and the boulder crashed close,
600 landing just in the wake of our dark stern,
just failing to graze the rudder’s bladed edge.
A huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under,
yes, and the tidal breaker drove us out to our island’s
far shore where all my well-decked ships lay moored,
clustered, waiting, and huddled round them, crewmen
sat in anguish, waiting, chafing for our return.
We beached our vessel hard ashore on the sand,
we swung out in the frothing surf ourselves,
and herding Cyclops’ sheep from our deep holds
610 we shared them round so no one, not on my account,
would go deprived of his fair share of spoils.
But the splendid ram —as we meted out the flocks
my friends-in-arms made him my prize of honor,
mine alone, and I slaughtered him on the beach
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