The <I>Odyssey</I>
Page 29
goats in order. He gave each lamb to its mother
promptly to suckle. He curdled half of the white milk,
scooping off curds to place them in wickerwork baskets.
Half of the milk he put in its pails to be ready
for drinking himself when he liked, right there at his dinner.
Are You Pirates?
“Soon as he briskly ended his chores in the cavern
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he started a fire, he saw us now and he asked us,
‘Strangers—who are you? What watery way do you sail from?
Are you traders? Or maybe you recklessly wander
over the sea like pirates, roaming and risking
your lives while bringing harm to others in far lands.’
The God of the Lowly Stranger
“He spoke that way and all our spirits were broken,
afraid of his heavy voice and oversize body.
Even so I found some words and I answered,
‘We sailed from Troy. We’re Akhaians, driven by every
sea-wind over the endless reach of the salt sea.
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Heading for home, we came this way by another
course by chance—or Zeus wanted to plan that.
We claim to be men of Atreus’s son Agamemnon:
there’s the greatest name right now under the heavens,
such was the city he ravaged, the numbers of people
he killed. We ourselves approach your knees and we face you
humbly though, we hope you’ll offer us presents
or otherwise treat us kindly: that’s lawful for strangers.
Beware of the Gods, great man. We’re here and we’re lowly.
Zeus is the God of guests who cares for the downcast
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stranger. He goes along with guests in your household.’
Scorn for the Gods
“I spoke that way but he answered cruelly and swiftly,
‘How foolish you are, strange man, or you came from a long way,
telling me now to be scared of a God or avoid him.
We Kuklops disdain your Zeus, sporting his big shield,
and all the blissful Gods. We’re far better than they are!
I’d never be scared by an angry Zeus into sparing
your life or your friends, unless my spirit commanded.
‘Tell me where you moored your well-built ship when you came here.
On land nearby or far off? Help me to know this.’
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A Wily Answer
“He spoke that way to test me. But knowing a good deal
I was not fooled. The words I gave him were wily:
♦ ‘The Earth-Shaker Poseidon broke up my vessel.
He threw her on rocks along the coast at your land’s end
after winds and the God drove her from sea to a headland.
These men and I got out from under a steep doom.’
Fast and Revolting Death
“I spoke that way, his ruthless heart had no answer,
he stood up fast and lunged at my men with his two hands,
grappled two of them, struck them hard on the dirt floor
like puppies and splattered their brains, drenching the cave-sand.
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Then he tore them apart to make them his dinner.
He ate like a mountain-fed lion, leaving out nothing,
devouring organs and muscles, bones and their marrow.
We cried out loudly to Zeus, holding our hands up,
watching his brutal work. But our spirits were helpless.
Thinking Twice
“After the Kuklops filled his cavernous belly
devouring the men’s flesh and drinking his pure milk,
he lay and slept in the cave, stretched in the sheep-pen.
“Now in my own great heart I planned to approach him
closely and draw my sharp sword from its thigh-sheath:
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I’d stab his chest, my hand probing his midriff
to grasp the liver. But no: some other Spirit
stopped me. The rest of us too would go to a steep doom
since no one’s hands could move away the gigantic
stone—the cave’s high door—where the Kuklops had placed it.
So now we lay and moaned there, waiting for bright Dawn.
Two More Killings
“When newborn Dawn came on with her rose-fingered daylight,
the Kuklops built a fire. Milking all of the handsome
sheep and goats in order, he gave each lamb to its mother
to suckle. But after he briskly ended his work there
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again he clutched two men and made them his breakfast.
Done with that meal, ready to herd fat sheep from the cavern,
he lifted the huge door-stone with ease and replaced it
the way a man might simply cover a quiver.
The Kuklops whistled loudly, guiding his fattened
flocks to mountain country. He left me brooding on evil,
taking revenge—if Athene would give me that honor.
A Heated and Pointed Shaft
“This was the best plan that came to my mind now.
The Kuklops had lain a large club by the sheepfold,
a length of green olive-wood, left there to dry out
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and take up later. We checked it ourselves and we figured
the club was large as the mast on a black vessel of twenty
oars, a wide-beam freighter crossing the vast sea.
That’s how long and broad it looked in our own eyes.
I went up close to it now and cut off a six-foot
length. I gave it to war-friends and told them to scrape it
and make it smooth. I approached and sharpened the endpoint
myself then took it at once to harden in bright fire.
At length we hid it well under a dung-heap—
the cave was grossly piled with plenty of droppings.
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The Pick of Chance
“I told them to cast lots: which of my war-friends
would dare to raise that shaft, standing beside me,
and stab the Kuklops’ eye, slumbering sweetly?
The lots fell on those whom I myself would have chosen,
four good men. I counted myself the fifth one among them.
Two More Killings
“He came at dusk, herding his fine-fleeced sheep-flock.
He promptly drove his fattened flocks in the wide cave—
all of them—not one sheep was left in the wide yard.
Was that his own idea? Or maybe a God’s will.
Then he raised the massive door-stone and set it.
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He sat and milked all the ewes and noisy
goats in order. He gave each lamb to its mother.
“Soon as he briskly ended his chores in the cavern
again he clutched two men to make them his dinner.
An Offer of Wine
“I spoke to the Kuklops now, standing beside him,
my hands lifting an ivy-wood bowl of the dark wine.
‘Kuklops! Drink my wine now that you’ve eaten
my men’s flesh. See what a fine vintage was hiding
aboard our ship. I brought you this gift and was hoping
you’d pity and send us home. But you’re unbearably savage.
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Ruthless creature, why should anyone come here,
all the men not born, after your lawless actions?’
Drunk on Wine
♦ “Soon as I’d spoken he took the wine and gulped it
down with wonder and pleasure. He asked for another.
‘Give me some more and be glad to. Tell me your own name
quickly now: I’ll give you a guest’s gift that will please you.
The Kuklops’ grain-rich soil presents us with cluster
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of large wine-grapes—grown with rain from the Day-God—
but yours is truly a flow of ambrosia and nectar.’
The Name of No-One
“I gave him more of the glowing wine when he’d spoken.
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Three times I brought it: three times he foolishly downed it.
Then as the wine went round in the brain of the Kuklops,
I gave him a kindly answer at last to his question.
‘Kuklops, you asked for my well-known name and I’ll tell you.
But give me the stranger’s present, just as you promised.
♦ My name is No-one: No-one’s the name they have called me—
my Mother and Father, and all the rest of my war-friends.’
Grisly Burps
“I spoke that way but he answered cruelly and swiftly,
‘I’ll dine on No-one myself the last of his war-friends,
the rest go first—there’s a gift for a stranger!’
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“He paused and swayed, plopped and lay on his backside,
thickset neck askew. The master of all men,
Sleep took hold of him. Wine came from his gullet
and bits of men dribbling. He drooled like a wine-drunk.
The Blinding
“Now I drove that shaft into plenty of ashes
until it was hot. I emboldened all of my war-friends
with strong words: they must not cower or hold back.
Soon as the olive-wood point was going to catch fire—
green as it was, the red glow was alarming—
I moved it away from the fire. War-friends were standing
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around me, some Power breathed great daring in each one.
Grasping the olive-wood shaft, now with a sharp tip,
we lanced that eye. Pressing hard from above it,
♦ I turned it around myself like a man with a drill-bit
boring through deck while helpers below him are holding
the strap at both its ends, the drill steadily twisting.
We held the fire-tipped shaft in his eye in the same way,
turning it. Blood gathered and circled the hot tip.
We burned and singed all of the eyelid and eyebrow,
we boiled the pupil, swelled and crackled the eye-roots.
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The way a worker in bronze plunges a big ax
or adze into cold water, making it loudly
hiss and harden—that’s how iron gets stronger—
the eye sizzled around our olive-wood weapon.
A Maddened Call for Help
“He screamed outrageously now, the cave-stone echoed around us,
we scattered in dread as the Kuklops pulled at the hot shaft.
It came from his eye soaked with plenty of warm blood.
His hand flung it away from him. Smarting and maddened,
he called out wildly for Kuklops, those who were living
around him in caves on windy crags of the mountains.
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“They heard his cry, they hurried from this way and that way.
Standing around his cave they asked him what ailed him.
‘How are you hurt, Poluphemos, yelling so loudly
throughout the ambrosial night and waking us all up?’
‘What man could take your livestock without your approval?’
‘Who could kill you relying on cunning or great strength?’
No-One’s Harm
“From out of the cave Poluphemos answered them strongly:
‘My friends, No-one kills me through cunning, hardly by great strength!’
“They answered him now and the words had a feathery swiftness,
‘If no one really harms you, being alone there,
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you cannot avoid sickness sent by the great Zeus.
So you should pray to your Lord and Father Poseidon.’
But How to Get out of the Cave?
“They spoke that way and were gone. I laughed in my own heart,
how my name had fooled him—my plan had been faultless.
But now the Kuklops, moaning and writhing in great pain,
groped with his hands and took the stone from the entrance.
He sat there broadly himself, stretching his hands out
to seize anyone walking outside with his fat sheep.
Somehow his brain was hoping I was that foolish!
I thought through other plans: which was the best one?
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If only I’d find out, freeing myself and my war-friends
from death! I wove them all, measures and good tricks.
Our lives were at stake. A monstrous evil was close by.
Help from the Sheep
“At last one plan struck my mind as the best one.
Rams in the cave had heavy wool and were well fed,
large and handsome, with darkly violet fleeces.
I lashed them together quietly, using some willow
withes the huge and lawless Kuklops had slept on.
I grouped them in threes, a man to be borne by the middle,
a ram on either side guarding each war-friend:
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