ULYSSES.

Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace, And keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe, Or spit, or e'en wink, lest ye wake the monster,

Until his eye be tortured out with fire.

CHORUS.

Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air.

ULYSSES.

Come now, and lend a hand to the great stake
Within-it is delightfully red hot.

CHORUS.

You then command who first should seize the stake To burn the Cyclops' eye, that all may share

In the great enterprise.

SEMI-CHORUS I.

We are too few,

We cannot at this distance from the door

Thrust fire into his eye.

SEMI-CHORUS II.

And we just now

Have become lame; cannot move hand or foot.

CHORUS.

The same thing has occurred to us, our ancles Are sprained with standing here, I know not how.

ULYSSES.

What, sprained with standing still?

CHORUS.

And there is dust

Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence.

ULYSSES.

Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me then?

CHORUS.

With pitying my own back and my back bone,

And with not wishing all my teeth knocked out,
This cowardice comes of itself-but stay,

I know a famous Orphic incantation

To make the brand stick of its own accord
Into the skull of this one-eyed son of Earth.

ULYSSES.

Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now

I know ye better.—I will use the aid

Of my own comrades-yet though weak of hand
Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken
The courage of my friend's with your blithe words.

CHORUS.

This I will do with peril of my life,

And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops.
Hasten and thrust,

And parch up to dust,

The eye of the beast,
Who feeds on his guest.
Burn and blind

The Etnean hind!

Scoop and draw,

But beware lest he claw

Your limbs near his maw.

CYCLOPS.

Ah me! my eye-sight is parched up to cinders.

CHORUS..

What a sweet pæan! sing me that again!

CYCLOPS.

Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me!
But wretched nothings, think ye not to flee
Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet,

Will bar the way and catch you as you pass.

1

You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?

First

gave me wine and then burnt out my eyes,

For wine is strong and hard to struggle with.
Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in

CHORUS.

my ills.

Not there! he is a little there beyond you.

CYCLOPS.

Detested wretch! where are you?

ULYSSES.

Far from you

I keep with care this body of Ulysses.

CYCLOPS.

What do you say? You proffer a new name.

ULYSSES.

My father named me so; and I have taken
A full revenge for your unnatural feast;

I should have done ill to have burned down Troy
And not revenged the murder of my comrades.

CYCLOPS.

Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished;
It said that I should have my eyesight blinded
By you coming from Troy, yet it foretold
That you should pay the penalty for this
By wandering long over the homeless sea.

ULYSSES.

I bid thee weep-consider what I say,
I go towards the shore to drive my ship
To mine own land, o'er the Sicilian wave.

CYCLOPS.

Not so, if whelming you with this huge stone
I can crush you and all your men together;
I will descend upon the shore, though blind,
Groping my way adown the steep ravine.

CHORUS.

And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now,
Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.