by Homer
both sides hurling bronze-tipped spears at each other.
All through morning, when holy light was increasing,
we held them off, standing fast in spite of their numbers.
But after the sunlight waned—when oxen are unyoked—
Kikones forced us back and killed more Akhaians.
From every vessel six of my men in their strong greaves
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died. We others escaped from death on that doom-day.
The God Sends a Storm
“We sailed on farther then, our hearts in mourning,
glad to be saved from death, but losing our good men.
None of my up-curved ships went far on their journey
before we called three times to all of our joyless
war-friends, dead on the land where Kikones downed them.
“Stormcloud-gathering Zeus now raised up the Northwind
against our ships, a massive storm hiding the ocean
and land alike with cloud. Night was roused from the heavens:
our vessels were driven headlong, sailcloth was ripping,
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torn into rags, three or four scraps, by the fierce wind.
We struck and stowed them below, dreading our end there.
We rowed as hard and fast as we could to a landfall.
A Nameless Island
“We lay there two whole nights and days without moving.
Pain and weariness ate up all of our spirits.
When Dawn in her beautiful braids ended the third day,
we stood our masts again, we hoisted the white sails
and sat as the wind and helmsman steered us along well.
A Land of Blossoms and Forgetfulness
“Now would I come home safe to the land of my Fathers?
Not when waves and current, together with Northwind,
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♦ drove us away from Kuthereia, rounding Maleia.
From there I was borne for nine whole days by a blasting
wind on the fish-filled sea. We came on the tenth day
♦ to Lotos-eaters’ land—their food is a flower.
We went ashore there promptly, gathered some water
and ate by the race-fast ships. My crewmen were hungry.
“After we ate our food and relished a good wine,
I sent off men on a search. I told them to find out
who held this land, the bread-eating people who lived here.
I chose two men and sent a third as a herald.
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“They promptly left and mingled with Lotos-eaters.
Their people never planned on death for our war-friends:
they gave them food to try, their blossoms of lotos.
But anyone chewing the honey-sweet fruit of the lotos
no longer wanted to bring us news or to leave there.
Rather they planned on dining with Lotos-eaters,
cropping lotos themselves and forgetting the way home.
“I took them all to the ships—they cried when I forced them.
I dragged them aboard the hollow ship and I lashed them
below deck. I told the others, war-friends I trusted,
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to clamber aboard the race-fast ships in a hurry,
lest they devour more lotos, forgetting the way home.
They boarded quickly and took their seats at the benches
right in line, their oars splashing the gray sea.
Loners
“We sailed on farther now, heavy and heart-sore.
We came to the Kuklops’ land. A lawless and prideful
people who trust the deathless Gods for their farming,
they plow no field and root no plants with their own hands.
Everything grows without their plowing and sowing—
barley and wheat and grapevines, heavily laden
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with clusters for wine. Zeus brings rain for their growing.
♦ They don’t make laws, they don’t assemble or counsel.
They live near crests of high mountains in hollow
caves and each man lays down laws for his children
and wives. No one Kuklops cares for another.
The Island of Wild Goats
“Not too close or far from the land of the Kuklops
a densely wooded island spreads away from its harbor.
Wild goats are born and grow there in countless
numbers for no man’s footfall frightens or stops them.
Hunters never arrive there, men who would go through
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pain stalking through woods or the heights of mountains.
The land’s not crowded with flocks or farms that are plowed out:
every day the soil’s unplowed and unplanted.
Lacking men, it feeds a bedlam of wild goats.
“The nearby Kuklops own no warships with red cheeks.
They have no shipwrights there, men who could build up
strongly timbered vessels, finishing each touch
for sailing to people’s towns. But plenty of others
cross the sea by ship to call on each other,
men who could work this island, making it well-tilled.
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The land is not so poor, it would carry in season
every fruit and its gentle and dewy meadows
lie by the gray sea—grapevines never would fail there.
Fields are flat for a plow, so harvests would stand tall
every season. The topsoil’s rich as the subsoil.
The harbor’s a safe one too, no need for a mooring,
dropping anchor stones or lashing the stern-lines.
A man could beach a ship then wait for the sailors’
hearts to tell them to go with a following sea-wind.
Blind Landfall
“A shiny stream flows to the head of the harbor.
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It springs from under a cave with poplars around it.
We sailed in there, some Power guiding us darkly
in mist at night with hardly a glow to be made out,
then fog surrounding the ship. Nothing of moonlight
showed in the sky overhead: sea-clouds had blocked it.
No one spotted the island itself with his own eyes
or saw the tumbling, drawn-out waves onto dry land
before our tight-planked ships had glided ashore there.
Vessels beached, we took down all of the white sails
then disembarked ourselves on the shore of the salt sea.
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We fell asleep, looking ahead to the bright Dawn.
Hunting and Feasting on Goats
“When newborn Dawn came on with her rose-fingered daylight,
we all were amazed at the place. We roamed through the island
and Nymphs, the daughters of Zeus who carries the great shield,
flushed out mountain goats, a meal for my war-friends.
Quickly we took out arching bows and our long-tipped
spears from the ships. We formed three groups and we let fly:
a God soon gave us our kills, raising our spirits.
Twelve black ships had followed me: each was allotted
nine goats. For mine alone there were ten goats.
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“So now we ate and drank all day until sundown,
feasting on honey-sweet wine and plenty of goat-meat.
The good red wine was not all gone from our vessels:
enough remained since everyone topped off the wine-urns
after we first captured the Kikones’ holy city.
“We also gazed at the nearby land of the Kuklops
where smoke was rising. Men, rams and goat-flocks were calling.
When Helios the Sun-God set and darkness was coming,
we lay and slept right there on the shore of the salt sea.
A Gigantic Cave
“Then newborn Dawn c
ame on with her rose-fingered daylight.
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I gathered all of the men myself and I told them,
‘Stay here now, the rest of you men I rely on.
I’ll sail across in my own ship with some crewmen
♦ to find and test those people, however they turn out.
Maybe they’re overbearing, savage and unjust.
Or maybe they’re mind-full of Gods and kindly with strangers.’
“I spoke that way and boarded, telling my war-friends
to board themselves. After they loosened the stern-lines
they boarded at once and took their seats at the oar-locks,
all in order, then beat the gray sea with their rowing.
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“We came to the place quite soon—the island was close by—
and saw a cave by the shore not far from the salt sea,
high and covered with laurel. Plenty of livestock,
goats and sheep, were kept there. Around it a big yard
spread out, built up high: stones were embedded,
tall pine-trees and oaks, covered with high leaves.
An outsize man slept there. He tended the livestock
all by himself, far from the cave, mixing with no one
else. He lived apart with the mind of an outlaw.
He’d grown amazingly huge, hardly resembling
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a bread-eating man at all, more like a wooded mountain
crag that’s high and alone, away from the others.
A Very Strong Wine
“I told the rest of my crew, war-friends I trusted,
to stay there close to the ship for now and to guard it.
I chose a number of men, twelve of the bravest,
and set out. I brought a goatskin full of our dark wine,
the sweet one Maron gave me, the son of Euanthes,
priest of Apollo, the God who watches the city
of Ismaros. Awed by Maron, we’d guarded his woman
and child—he made his home in Phoibos Apollo’s
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wooded grove—and the presents he gave me were glowing.
Seven talents of gold he gave me, all of it well-worked.
He gave me a wine-bowl, all silver, and plenty of good wine
in double-handled wine-urns, twelve of them filled up—
a drink for the Gods, uncut and sweet. None of his housemaids
knew of the wine, not one slave in the great hall.
Maron knew, his wife and their own housekeeper only.
Whenever they drank that red, honey-sweet vintage,
he filled one goblet and poured it in twenty measures
of water. The scent that rose from the bowl was a wonder
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of sweetness. No one could hold back from that dear wine!
I filled a large goatskin and took it. I loaded
food in a bag as my bold spirit sensed in a short time
a man would approach us wearing massive and savage
prowess, hardly knowing of laws and fairness.
Noisy Lambs and Kids
“We promptly arrived at the cave but spotted him nowhere
inside. He was tending fattened flocks in some meadow.
We walked in the cave and stared in wonder at each thing:
baskets loaded with cheese, pens crowded with noisy
lambs and kids, each livestock group with its own place,
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the older lambs kept apart from the yearlings
and both from the newborn. Whey filled all the containers,
bowls and well-made pails, those that he milked in.
To Steal or to Stay
“My war-friends urged me now that first we should haul off
cheese to the race-fast ship and then we should hurry
back to drive off the lambs and kids from their stock-pens
down to our vessel and sail off fast on the salt sea.
I paid them no mind. But how much better was their way!
♦ I wanted to see the man. Would he offer me guest-gifts?
The man was to prove, when he came, no joy to my war-friends.
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“We started a fire, gave gifts to the Gods and we took down
cheese ourselves for a meal. We sat there and waited.
The Kuklops Arrives
“He came on driving flocks. He carried a hulking
weight of dry timber for fire for his dinner
and threw it down in the cave, causing an uproar,
scaring us all. We ran to the end of the cavern.
He drove his fattened stock in the spread-out cavern—
all of these he’d milk. He’d left at the doorway
billy goats and rams: they’d stay outside in the big yard.
He raised a huge and heavy door-stone and set it
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in place. The hard labor of twenty-two four-wheeled
wagons could not raise that stone from the cave floor.
That’s how huge a boulder he’d placed at the doorway.
“He sat and milked all the ewes and the noisy