book nine in the one-eyed giant cave odysseus the great teller of tales launched out on his story alcina's majesty shining among your island people what a fine thing it is to listen to such a bard as we have hear the man sings like a god the crown of life i'd say there's nothing better than when deep joy holds way throughout the realm and banquet is up and down the palace sit in ranks enthralled to hear the bard and before them all the tables heat with bread and meats and drawing wine from a mixing bowl the steward makes his rounds and keeps the wine cups flowing this to my mind is the best that life can offer but now you're set on probing the bitter pains i've borne so i'm to weep and grieve it seems still more well then what shall i go through first what shall i say for last what pains the gods have given me my share now let me begin by telling you my name so you may know it well and i in times to come if i can escape the fatal day will be your host your sworn friend though my home is far from here i am odysseus son of let's known to the world for every kind of craft my fame has reached the skies sunny ithaca is my home atop her stands our sea mark mount narraton's leafy ridges shimmering in the wind around her ring of island circle side by side julichen same wooded synthesis too but mine lies low and away the farthest out to sea rearing into the western dusk while the others face the east and breaking day mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons and i myself i know no sweeter sight on earth than a man's own native country true enough calypso the lustrous goddess tried to hold me back deep in her arching caverns craving me for a husband so did cersei holding me just as warmly in her halls the bewitching queen of aea keen to have me too but they never won the heart inside me never so nothing is as sweet as a man's own country his own parents even though he settled down in some luxurious house off in a foreign land and far from those who bore him no more come let me tell you about the voyage fraught with hardship zeus inflicted on me homeward bound from troy the wind drove me out of illium onto ismarus the saucony stronghold there i sacked the city killed the men but as for the wives and plunder that rich hall we dragged away from the place we shared it round so no one not on my account would go deprived of his fair share of spoils then i urged them to cut and run set sail but would they listen not those mutinous fools there was too much wine to swill too many sheep to slaughter down along the beach and shambling longhorn cattle and all the while the saucony sought out other saucones called for help from their neighbors living inland a larger force and stronger soldiers too skilled hands at fighting men from chariots skilled when a crisis broke to fight on foot out of the morning mist they came against us packed as the leaves and spears that flower forth in spring and zoos presented us with disaster me and my comrades doomed to suffer blow on mortal blow lining up both armies battled it out against our swift ships both raped each other with hurtling bronze lances long as morning rose and the blessed day grew stronger we stood and fought them off masked as they were but then when the sun wheeled past the hour for our nuking oxen the saucones broke our lines and beat us down at last out of each ship six men at arms were killed the rest of us rode away from certain doom from there we sailed on glad to escape our death yet sick at heart for the dear companions we had lost but i would not let our rolling ships set sail until the crews had raised the triple cry saluting each poor comrade cut down by the fiercercones on that plane now zeus who masses the storm clouds hit the fleet with the north winder howling demonic gale shrouding over in thunder heads the earth and sea at once a night swept down from the sky and the ships went plunging headlong on our sails slashed to rags by the hurricane's blast we struck them cringing at death we rode our ships to the nearest shoreline pulled with all our power there for two nights two days we lay by no let up eating our hearts out bent with pain and bone tired when dawn with her lovely locks brought on the third day then stepping the mast and hoisting white sails high we lounged at the orlox letting wind and helmsman keep us true on course and now at long last i might have reached my native land unscathed but just as i doubled malia's cape a tide rip and the north wind drove me way off course careering past cyphera nine whole days i was born along by rough deadly winds on the fish infested sea then on the tenth hour squadron reached the land of the lotus eaters people who eat the lotus mellow fruit and flower we disembarked on the coast drew water there and crewman snatched a meal by the swift ships once we'd had our fill of food and drink i sent a detail ahead two picked men and a third a runner to scout out who might live their men like us perhaps who live on bread so off they went and soon enough they mingled among the natives lotus eaters lotus eaters who had no notion of killing my companions not at all they simply gave them the lotus to taste instead any crewmen who ate the lotus the honey sweet fruit lost all desire to send a message back much less return their only wish to linger there with the lotus eaters grazing on lotus all memory of the journey home dissolved forever but i brought them back back to the hollow ships and streaming tears i forced them hauled them under the rowing benches lashed them fast and shouted out commands to my other steady comrades quick no time to lose embark in the racing ships so none could eat the lotus forget the voyage home they swung aboard at once they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke from there we sailed on our spirits now at a low ebb and reach the land of the high and mighty cyclops lawless brutes who trust so to the everlasting gods they never plant with their own hands or blow the soil unsewn and plowed the earth teams with all they need wheat barley and vines swelled by the reins of zeus to yield a big full-bodied wine from clustered grapes they have no meeting place for council no laws either no up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns each a law to himself ruling his wives and children not a care in the world for any neighbor now a level island stretches flat across the harbour not close inshore to the cyclops coast not too far out thick with woods where the wild goats breed by hundreds no trampling of men to start them from their lairs no hunters roughing it out on the woody ridges stalking quarry ever raid their haven no flocks brows no plow lands roll with wheat unplowed unsewn forever empty of humankind the island just feeds droves of bleating goats for the cyclops have no ships with crimson prows no shipwrights there to build them good trim craft that could sail them out to foreign ports of call as most men risk the seas to trade with other men such artisans would have made this island to a decent place to live in no mean spot it could bear you any crop you like in season the water meadows along the low foaming shore run soft and moist and your vines would never flag the land's clear for plowing harvest on harvest a man could reap a healthy stand of grain the subsoils dark and rich there's a snug deep water harbour there what's more no need for mooring gear no anchor stones to heave no cables to make fast just beat your keels ride out the days till your shipmate spirit stirs for open sea and a fair wind blows and last at the harbour's head there's a spring that rushes fresh from beneath a cave and black poplars flourish round its mouth well here we landed and surely a god steered us in through the pitch black knight not that he ever showed himself with thick fog swirling around the ships the moon wrapped in clouds and not a glimmer stealing through that gloom not one of us glimpsed the island scanning hard or the long comas rolling us slowly toward the coast not till our ships had run their keels ashore beaching our vessel smoothly striking sail the crew swung out on the low shelving sand and there we fell asleep awaiting dawn's first light when young dawn with her rose red fingers shone once more we all turned out intrigued to tour the island the local nymphs the daughters of zeus himself flushed mountain goats so the crews could make their meal quickly we fetched our curved bows and hunting spears from the ships and splitting up into three bands we started shooting and soon enough some god had sent us bags of game to warm our hearts a dozen vessels sailed in my command and to each crew nine goats were shared out and mine alone took ten then all day long till the sun went down we sat and feasted well on sides of meat and rounds of heavy wine the good red stock in our vessels holds had not run out there was still plenty left the men had carried off a generous store in jars when we stormed and sacked the saucony's holy city now we stared across at the cyclops shore so near we could even see their smoke hear their voices their bleeding sheep and goats and then when the sun had set a night came on we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge when young dawn with her rose red fingers shone once more i called a master briskly commanding all the hands the rest of you stay here my friends in arms i'll go across with my own ship and crew and probe the natives living over there what are they violent savage lawless or friendly to strangers god fearing men with that i boarded ship and told the crew to embark at once and cast off cables quickly they swung aboard they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke but as soon as we reached the coast i mentioned no long trip we spied a cavern just at the shore gaping above the surf towering overgrown with laurel and here big flocks sheep and goats were stalled to spend the night and around its mouth a yard was walled up with quarried boulders sunk deep in the earth and enormous pines and oak trees looming darkly here was a giant slayer in fact who always pastured his sheep flocks far afield and never mixed with others a grim loner dead set in his own lawless ways here was a piece of work by god a monster built like no mortal who ever sucked on bread no like a shaggy peak i'd say a man mountain rearing head and shoulders over the world now then i told most of my good trusty crew to wait to sit tight by the ship and guard her well while i picked out my dozen finest fighters and off i went but i took a skin of wine along the ruddy irresistible wine that marin gave me once you aunt's son a priest of apollo lord of ismarus because we'd rescued him his wife and children reverent as we were he lived you see in apollo's holy grove and so in return he gave me splendid gifts he handed me seven bars of well wrought gold a mixing bowl of solid silver then this wine he drew it off in generous wine jars 12 in all all unmixed and such a bouquet a drink fit for the gods no made or man of his household knew that secret store only himself his loving wife and a single servant whenever they drink the deep red mellow vintage 20 cups of water heat stir in one of wine and what an aroma wafted from the bowl what magic what a god send no joy in holding back when that was poured filling a great goat skin now i took this wine provisioned two in a leather sack a sudden foreboding told my writing spirit i'd soon come up against some giant clad in power like armor play to savage death to justice blind to law our party quickly made its way to his cave but we failed to find our host himself inside he was off in his pasture ranging his sleek flocks so we explored his den gazing wide-eyed at it all the large flat racks loaded with drying cheeses the folds crowded with young lambs and kids split into three groups here the springborne here mid yearlings here the fresh sucklings off to the side each sort was penned apart and all his vessels pales and hammered buckets he used for milking were brimming full with whey from the start my comrades pressed me pleading hard let's make a way with the cheeses then come back hurry drive the lambs and kids from the pens to our swift ship put out to sea at once but i would not give way and how much better it would have been not till i saw him so what gifts he'd give but he proved no lovely sight to my companions there we built a fire set our hands on the cheeses offered some to the gods and ate the bulk ourselves and settled down inside awaiting his return and back he came from pasture late in the day herding his flocks home and lugging a huge load of good dry logs to fuel his fire at supper he flung them down in the cave a jolting crash we scuttled in panic into the deepest dark recess and next he drove his sleek flocks into the open vault all he'd milk at least but he left the males outside rams and billy goats out in the high walled yard then to close his door he hoisted overhead a tremendous massive slab no 22 wagons rugged and four wheeled could budge that boulder off the ground i tell you such an immense stone the monster wedged to block his cave then down he squatted to milk his sheep and bleating goats each in order and put a suckling underneath each dam and half of the fresh white milk he curdled quickly set it aside in wicker racks to press for cheese the other half let stand in pails and buckets ready at hand to wash his supper down as soon as he'd briskly finished all his chores he lit his fire and spied us in the blaze and strangers he thundered out now who are you where did you sail from over the running sea lanes out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates sea wolves raiding at will who risked their lives to plunder other men the hearts insiders shook terrified by his rumbling voice and monstrous hulk nevertheless i found the nerve to answer firmly men of ikea we are unbound now from troy driven far off course by the warring winds over the vast gulf of the sea battling home on a strange tack a route that's off the map and so we've come to you so it must please king zeus plotting heart we're glad to say we're men of a tribe to gamma whose fame is the proudest thing on earth these days so great a city he sacked such multitudes he killed but since we've chanced on you we're at your knees in hopes of a warm welcome even a guest gift the salt that hosts give strangers that's the custom respect the gods my friend we're supplients at your mercy zeus of the strangers guards all guests and supplements strangers are sacred zeus will avenge their rights stranger he grumbled back from his brutal heart you must be a fool stranger or come from nowhere telling me to fear the gods or avoid their wrath we cyclops never blink at zeus and zeus's shield of storm and thunder or any other blessed god we've got more force by far i'd never spare you in fear of zeus's hatred you or your comrades here unless i had the urge but tell me where did you mow your sturdy ship when you arrived up the coast or close in i'd just like to know so he laid his trap but he never caught me no wise to the world i shot back in my crafty way my ship poseidon god of the earthquake smashed my ship he drove it against the rocks at your island far cape dashed it against a cliff as the winds rode us in i and the men you see escaped a sudden death 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 wrapping 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 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 grope for the fatal spot but a fresh thought held me back there at a stroke we'd finish off ourselves as well how could we with our bare-handed back that slab he said to block his caverns gaping more so we lay there groaning waiting dawn's first light when young dawn with her red fingers shone once more the monster relit his fire and milked his handsome use each in order putting a suckling underneath each dam and as soon as he 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 lightly lifting the huge door slab 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 olive wood full of sap he'd locked it off to brandish once it dried looking it over we judged it big enough to be the master of a pitch black ship with her twenty oars a freighter broad in the beam that flows through miles of sea so long so thick it bulked before our eyes well flanking it now i chopped off a fathom's length pushed 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 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 hurting his woolly sheep and he quickly drove the sleek flock into the vaulted cavern rams and all none left outside in the wall yard his own idea perhaps or a god led him on 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 briskly finished all his chores he snatched up two more men and fixed his meal but this time i lifted a carved wooden bowl brim full 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 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 sent me home but your rages are insufferable you barbarian how can any man on earth come visit you after this what you've done outrage is 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 so i can hand my guest a gift to warm his heart our soil yields the cyclops powerful full-bodied wine and the reigns 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 full and then when the wine was swirling around 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 as you 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 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 steak was about to catch fire the glow terrific yes i dragged it from the flames my men clustering around as some god breathed enormous courage through us all hoisting high that olive steak with its stabbing point straight into the monster's eye they round it hard i drove my weight on it from above and bought it home as a shipwright bores has been with the shipwrights drilled that men below whipping the strap back and forth well and the drill keeps twisting faster never stopping so we seized our steak with its fiery tip and board it round and round in the giants i 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 root blazed and hissed as a blacksmith plunges a glowing axe or adds in an ice cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens that's the iron 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 geezer of blood he flung it aside with frantic hands and mad with pain he bellowed out for help from his neighbor cyclops living roundabout in caves on windswept cracks hearing his cries they lumbered up from every side and hulking round his cavern asked what ailed him what polyphemus what in the world's the trouble roaring out in the godsend night to rob us of our sleep 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 boom 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 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 arm spread wide hoping to catch a comrade stealing out with sheep such a blithering fool he took me for but i was already plotting 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 tweaks the cyclops slept on giant lawless brute i took them three by three each ram in the middle bore a man while the two rams either side would shield him well so three beasts to bear each man but as for myself there was one bell with a 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 the use kept bleeding round the pens unmilked their others about to burst their master now heaving in torment felt the back of each animal halting before him here but the idiot never sent my men would trust up under their thick fleecy ribs and last of them all came my great ram now striding out weighed down with his dental 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 rescue 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 your 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 that that nobody who's not escaped his death i swear not yet 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 lose my men then quickly glancing back again and again we drove our flock good plump beasts with their long sharks 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 heard on board launch out on the open sea they swung aboard they sat to the oars in rank and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke but once offshore as far as a man's shout can carry i called back to the cyclops stinging taunts so cyclops no weak coward it was whose crew you been 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 brow and a huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under a tidal wave from the open sea the southern backwash drove us landwood 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 road on fast but once would plot the breakers twice as far again i began to taunt the cyclops men around me trying to check me calm me left and right so head strong why why rile the beast again that rock he flung in the sea just now hurling our ship to shore once more we thought would die on the spot if he'd caught a sound from one of us just a whisper 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 who blinded you shamed you so say odysseus raider of cities he gouged out your eye let son who makes his home in athakka so i vaunted and he groaned back in answer oh no know that prophecy years ago it all comes home to me with a vengeance now we once had a prophet here a great tall man telemus uramus 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 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 look what a dwarf a spineless good for nothing stuns me with wine then gouges out my eye come here odysseus let me give you a guest gift an 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 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 man who rocks the earth if i really am your son and you claim to be my father come grant that odysseus raider of cities let son who makes his home in athakka never reaches home or if he's fated to see his people once again and reach his well-built house 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 manipur side and heard his prayer the monster suddenly hoisted a boulder far larger wheeled and he did putting his weight behind it massive strength and the boulder crashed close 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 islands far shore where all my well-decked ships lay moored clustered waiting and huddled round them crewman 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 holes 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 and burnt his thighs to cronus mighty son zeus of the thundercloud who rules the world but my sacrifices failed to move the god zeus was still obsessed with plans to destroy my entire or swept fleet and loyal crew of comrades now all day long till the sun went down we sat and feasted on sides of meat and heady wine then when the sun had set and night came on we lay down and slept at the water's shelving edge when young dawn with her rose red fingers shone once more i roused the men straightway ordering all crews to man the ships and cast off cables quickly they swung aboard at once they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke and from there we sailed on glad to escape our death yet sick at heart for the comrades we had lost