Euripides Cyclops 63

Silenus

Hush, children! and bid our servants fold the flocks in the rock-roofed cavern.

Chorus

(To Servants.) Away! (To Silenus.) But prithee, why such haste, father?

Silenus

I see the hull of a ship from Hellas at the shore, and men, that wield the oar, on their way to this cave with some chieftain. About their necks they carry empty vessels and pitchers for water; they are in want of food. Luckless strangers!

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who can they be? They know not what manner of man our master Polyphemus is, to have set foot here in his cheerless abode and come to the jaws of the cannibal Cyclops in an evil hour. But hold ye your peace, that we may inquire

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whence they come to the peak of Sicilian Aetna.

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Odysseus

Pray tell us, sirs, of some river-spring whence we might draw a draught to slake our thirst, or of someone willing to sell victuals to mariners in need.

Why, what is this? We seem to have chanced upon a city of the Bromian god;

here by the caves I see a group of Satyrs. To the eldest first I bid All hail!

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Silenus

All hail, sir! tell me who thou art, and name thy country.

Odysseus

Odysseus of Ithaca, king of the Cephallenians’ land.

Silenus

I know him for a prating knave, one of Sisyphus’ shrewd offspring.

Odysseus

I am the man; abuse me not.

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Silenus

Whence hast thou sailed hither to Sicily?

Odysseus

From Ilium and the toils of Troy.

Silenus

How was that? didst thou not know the passage to thy native land?

Odysseus

Tempestuous winds drove me hither against my will.

Silenus

God wot! thou art in the same plight as I am.

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Odysseus

Why, wert thou too drifted hither against thy will?

Silenus

I was, as I pursued the pirates who carried Bromius off.

Odysseus

What land is this and who are its inhabitants?

Silenus

This is mount Aetna, the highest point in Sicily.

Odysseus

But where are the city-walls and ramparts?

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Silenus

There are none; the headlands, sir, are void of men.

Odysseus

Who then possess the land? the race of wild creatures?

Silenus

The Cyclopes, who have caves, not roofed houses.

Odysseus

Obedient unto whom? or is the power in the people’s hands?

Silenus

They are rovers; no man obeys another in anything.

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Odysseus

Do they sow Demeter’s grain, or on what do they live?

Silenus

On milk and cheese and flesh of sheep.

Odysseus

Have they the drink of Bromius, the juice of the vine?

Silenus

No indeed! and thus it is a joyless land they dwell in.

Odysseus

Are they hospitable and reverent towards strangers?

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Silenus

Strangers, they say, supply the daintiest meat.

Odysseus

What, do they delight in killing men and eating them?

Silenus

No one has ever arrived here without being butchered.

Odysseus

Where is the Cyclops himself? inside his dwelling?

Silenus

He is gone hunting wild beasts with hounds on Aetna.

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Odysseus

Dost know then what to do, that we may be gone from the land?

Silenus

Not I, Odysseus; but I would do anything for thee.

Odysseus

Sell us food, of which we are in need.

Silenus

There is nothing but flesh, as I said.

Odysseus

Well, even that is a pleasant preventive of hunger.

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Silenus

And there is cheese curdled with fig-juice, and the milk of kine.

Odysseus

Bring them out; a man should see his purchases.

Silenus

But tell me, how much gold wilt thou give me in exchange?

Odysseus

No gold bring I, but Dionysus’ drink.

Silenus

Most welcome words! I have long been wanting that.

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Odysseus

Yes, it was Maron, the god’s son, who gave me a draught.

Silenus

What! Maron whom once I dandled in these arms?

Odysseus

The son of the Bacchic god, that thou mayst learn more certainly.

Silenus

Is it inside the ship, or hast thou it with thee?

Odysseus

This, as thou seest, is the skin that holds it, old sir.

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Silenus

Why, that would not give me so much as a mouthful.

Odysseus

This, and twice as much again as will run from the skin.

Silenus

Fair the rill thou speakest of, delicious to me.

Odysseus

Shall I let thee taste the wine unmixed, to start with?

Silenus

A reasonable offer; for of a truth a taste invites the purchase.

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Odysseus

Well, I haul about a cup as well as the skin.

Silenus

Come, let it gurgle in, that I may revive my memory by a pull at it.

Odysseus

There then!

Silenus

Ye gods! what a delicious scent it has!

Odysseus

What! didst thou see it?

Silenus

No, i’ faith, but I smell it.

Odysseus

Taste it then, that thy approval may not stop at words.

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Silenus

Zounds! Bacchus is inviting me to dance; ha! ha!

Odysseus

Did it not gurgle finely down thy throttle?

Silenus

Aye that it did, to the ends of my fingers.

Odysseus

Well, we will give thee money besides.

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Silenus

Only undo the skin, and never mind the money.

Odysseus

Bring out the cheeses then and lambs.

Silenus

I will do so, with small thought of any master. For let me have a single cup of that and I would turn madman,

giving in exchange for it the flocks of every Cyclops and then throwing myself into the sea from the Leucadian rock, once I have been well drunk and smoothed out my wrinkled brow. For if a man rejoice not in his drinking, he is mad; for in drinking there is love

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with all its frolic, and dancing withal, and oblivion of woe. Shall not I then purchase so rare a drink, bidding the senseless Cyclops and his central eye go hang? Exit Silenus.

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Chorus

Hearken, Odysseus, let us hold some converse with thee.

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Odysseus

Well, do so; ours is a meeting of friends.

Chorus

Did you take Troy and capture the famous Helen?

Odysseus

Aye, and we destroyed the whole family of Priam.

Chorus

After capturing your blooming prize,

were all of you in turn her lovers? for she likes variety in husbands; the traitress! the sight of a man with embroidered breeches on his legs and a golden chain about his neck so fluttered her,

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that she left Menelaus, her excellent little husband. Would there had never been a race of women born into the world at all, unless it were for me alone!

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Silenus

(reappearing with food.) Lo! I bring you fat food from the flocks, king Odysseus, the young of bleating sheep

and cheeses of curdled milk without stint. Carry them away with you and be gone from the cave at once, after giving me a drink of merry grape-juice in exchange.

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Chorus

Alack! yonder comes the Cyclops; what shall we do?

Odysseus

Then truly are we lost, old sir! whither must we fly?

Silenus

Inside this rock, for there ye may conceal yourselves.

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Odysseus

Dangerous advice of thine, to run into the net!

Silenus

No danger; there are ways of escape in plenty in the rock.

Odysseus

No, never that; for surely Troy will groan and loudly too, if we flee from a single man, when I have oft withstood

with my shield a countless host of Phrygians. Nay, if die we must, we will die a noble death; or, if we live, we will maintain our old renown at least with credit.

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Cyclops

A light here! hold it up! what is this? what means this idleness, your Bacchic revelry? Here have we no Dionysus,

nor clash of brass, nor roll of drums. Pray, how is it with my newly-born lambs in the caves? are they at the teat, running close to the side of their dams? Is the full amount of milk for cheeses milked out in baskets of rushes?

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How now? what say you? One of ye will soon be shedding tears from the weight of my club; look up, not down.

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Chorus

There! my head is bent back till I see Zeus himself; I behold both the stars and Orion.

Cyclops

Is my breakfast quite ready?

Chorus

’Tis laid; be thy throat only ready.

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Cyclops

Are the bowls too full of milk?

Chorus

Aye, so that thou canst swill off a whole hogshead, so it please thee.

Cyclops

Sheeps’ milk or cows’ milk or a mixture of both?

Chorus

Whichever thou wilt; don’t swallow me, that’s all.

Cyclops

Not I; for you would start kicking in the pit of my stomach and kill me by your antics. (Catching sight of Odysseus and his followers.) Ha! what is this crowd I see near the folds? Some pirates or robbers have put in here. Yes, I really see the lambs from my caves

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tied up there with twisted osiers, cheese-presses scattered about, and old Silenus with his bald pate all swollen with blows.

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Silenus

Oh! oh! poor wretch that I am, pounded to a fever.

Cyclops

By whom? who has been pounding thy head, old sirrah?

Silenus

These are the culprits, Cyclops, all because I refused to let them plunder thee.

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Cyclops

Did they not know I was a god and sprung from gods?

Silenus

That was what I told them, but they persisted in plundering thy goods, and, in spite of my efforts, they actually began to eat the cheese and carry off the lambs; and they said they would

tie thee in a three-cubit pillory and tear out thy bowels by force at thy navel, and flay thy back thoroughly with the scourge; and then, after binding thee, fling thy carcase down among the benches of their ship to sell to some one

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for heaving up stones, or else throw thee into a mill.

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Cyclops

Oh, indeed! Be off then and sharpen my cleavers at once; heap high the faggots and light them; for they shall be slain forthwith and fill this maw of mine,

what time I pick my feast hot from the coals, waiting not for carvers, and fish up the rest from the cauldron boiled and sodden; for I have had my fill of mountain-fare and sated myself with banquets of lions and stags, but ’tis long I have been without human flesh.

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Silenus

Truly, master, a change like this is all the sweeter after everyday fare; for just of late there have been no fresh arrivals of strangers at these caves.

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Odysseus

Hear the strangers too in turn, Cyclops. We had come near the cave from our ship,

wishing to procure provisions by purchase, when this fellow sold us the lambs and handed them over for a stoup of wine to drink himself,—a voluntary act on both sides,—there was no violence employed at all. No, there is not a particle of truth in the story he tells,

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now that he has been caught selling thy property behind thy back.

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Silenus

I? Perdition catch thee!

Odysseus

If I am lying, yes.

Silenus

O Cyclops, by thy sire Poseidon, by mighty Triton and Nereus, by Calypso and the daughters of Nereus,

by the sacred billows and all the race of fishes! I swear to thee, most noble sir, dear little Cyclops, master mine, it is not I who sell thy goods to strangers, else may these children, dearly as I love them, come to an evil end.

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Chorus

Keep that for thyself; with my own eyes I saw thee sell the goods to the strangers; and if I lie, perdition catch my sire! but injure not the strangers.

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Cyclops

Ye lie; for my part I put more faith in him than Rhadamanthus, declaring him more just.

But I have some questions to ask. Whence sailed ye, strangers? of what country are you? what city was it nursed your childhood?

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Odysseus

We are Ithacans by birth, and have been driven from our course by the winds of the sea on our way from Ilium, after sacking its citadel.

Cyclops

Are ye the men who visited on Ilium, that bordereth on Scamander’s wave, the rape of Helen, worst of women?

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Odysseus

We are; that was the fearful labour we endured.

Cyclops

A sorry expedition yours, to have sailed to the land of Phrygia for the sake of one woman!

Odysseus

It was a god’s doing; blame not any son of man. But thee do we implore, most noble son of Ocean’s god, speaking as free-born men; be not so cruel as to slay thy friends on their coming to thy cave, nor regard us as food for thy jaws, an impious meal;

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for we preserved thy sire, O king, in possession of his temple-seats deep in the nooks of Hellas; and the sacred port of Taenarus and Malea’s furthest coves remain unharmed; and Sunium’s rock, the silver-veined, sacred to Zeus-born Athena, still is safe,

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and Geraestus, the harbour of refuge; and we did not permit Phrygians to put such an intolerable reproach on Hellas. ¹ Now in these things thou too hast a share, for thou dwellest in a corner of the land of Hellas beneath Aetna’s fire-streaming rock; and although thou turn from arguments,

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still it is a custom amongst mortal men to receive shipwrecked sailors as their suppliants and show them hospitality and help them with raiment; not that these should fill thy jaws and belly, their limbs transfixed with spits for piercing ox-flesh. The land of Priam hath emptied Hellas quite enough,

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drinking the blood of many whom the spear laid low, with the ruin it has brought on widowed wives, on aged childless dames, and hoary-headed sires; and if thou roast and consume the remnant,—a meal thou wilt rue,—why, where shall one turn? Nay, be persuaded by me, Cyclops;

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forego thy ravenous greed and choose piety rather than wickedness; for on many a man ere now unrighteous gains have brought down retribution.

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Silenus

. . . . . I will give thee a word of advice! as for his flesh, leave not a morsel of it, and if thou eat his tongue,

Cyclops, thou wilt become a monstrous clever talker.

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Cyclops

Wealth, manikin, is the god for the wise; all else is mere vaunting and fine words. Plague take the headlands by the sea, on which my father seats himself! Why hast thou put forward these arguments?

I shudder not at Zeus’s thunder, nor know I wherein Zeus is a mightier god than I, sir stranger; what is more, I reck not of him; my reasons hear. When he pours down the rain from above, here in this rock in quarters snug,

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feasting on roast calf’s flesh or some wild game and moistening well my upturned paunch with deep draughts from a tub of milk, I rival the thunderclaps of Zeus with my artillery; and when the north-wind blows from Thrace and sheddeth snow,

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I wrap my carcase in the hides of beasts and light a fire, and what care I for snow? The earth perforce, whether she like it or not, produces grass and fattens my flocks, which I sacrifice to no one save myself

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and this belly, the greatest of deities; but to the gods, not I! For surely to eat and drink one’s fill from day to day and give oneself no grief at all, this is the king of gods for your wise man, but lawgivers go hang, chequering, as they do, the life of man!

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And so I will not cease from indulging myself by devouring thee; and thou shalt receive this stranger’s gift, that I may be free of blame,—fire and my father’s element yonder, and a cauldron to hold thy flesh and boil it nicely in collops.

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So in with you, that ye may feast me well, standing round the altar to honour the cavern’s god. [Enters his cave.

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Odysseus

Alas! escaped from the troubles of Troy and the sea, my barque now strands upon the whim and forbidding heart of this savage.

O Pallas, mistress mine, goddess-daughter of Zeus, help me, help me now; for I am come to toils and depths of peril worse than all at Ilium; and thou, O Zeus, the stranger’s god, who hast thy dwelling ’mid the radiant stars, behold these things;

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for, if thou regard them not, in vain art thou esteemed the great god Zeus, though but a thing of naught. [Follows the Cyclops reluctantly.

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