| Homer, Odyssey (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hom. Od.]. | ||
| <<Hom. Od. 9.360 | Hom. Od. 9.450 (GreekEnglish) | >>Hom. Od. 9.535 |
9.420But I took counsel how all might be the very best, if I might haply find some way of escape from death for my comrades and for myself. And I wove all manner of wiles and counsel, as a man will in a matter of life and death; for great was the evil that was nigh us. And this seemed to my mind the best plan.
9.425Rams there were, well-fed and thick of fleece, fine beasts and large, with wool dark as the violet. These I silently bound together with twisted withes on which the Cyclops , that monster with his heart set on lawlessness, was wont to sleep. Three at a time I took. The one in the middle in each case bore a man,
9.430and the other two went, one on either side, saving my comrades. Thus every three sheep bore a man. But as for me—there was a ram, far the best of all the flock; him I grasped by the back, and curled beneath his shaggy belly, lay there face upwards
9.435with steadfast heart, clinging fast with my hands to his wondrous fleece. So then, with wailing, we waited for the bright dawn.
“As soon as early Dawn appeared, the rosy-fingered, then the males of the flock hastened forth to pasture and the females bleated unmilked about the pens,
9.440for their udders were bursting. And their master, distressed with grievous pains, felt along the backs of all the sheep as they stood up before him, but in his folly he marked not this, that my men were bound beneath the breasts of his fleecy sheep. Last of all the flock the ram went forth,
9.445burdened with the weight of his fleece and my cunning self. And mighty Polyphemus, as he felt along his back, spoke to him, saying:
“‘Good ram, why pray is it that thou goest forth thus through the cave the last of the flock? Thou hast not heretofore been wont to lag behind the sheep, but wast ever far the first to feed on the tender bloom of the grass,
9.450moving with long strides, and ever the first didst reach the streams of the river, and the first didst long to return to the fold at evening. But now thou art last of all. Surely thou art sorrowing for the eye of thy master, which an evil man blinded along with his miserable fellows, when he had overpowered my wits with wine,
9.455even Noman, who, I tell thee, has not yet escaped destruction. If only thou couldst feel as I do, and couldst get thee power of speech to tell me where he skulks away from my wrath, then should his brains be dashed on the ground here and there throughout the cave, when I had smitten him, and my heart
9.460should be lightened of the woes which good-for-naught Noman has brought me.’
Cyclops with mocking words:
9.475“‘Cyclops , that man, it seems, was no weakling, whose comrades thou wast minded to devour by brutal strength in thy hollow cave. Full surely were thy evil deeds to fall on thine own head, thou cruel wretch, who didst not shrink from eating thy guests in thine own house. Therefore has Zeus taken vengeance on thee, and the other gods.’
9.480“So I spoke, and he waxed the more wroth at heart, and broke off the peak of a high mountain and hurled it at us, and cast it in front of the dark-prowed ship. note And the sea surged beneath the stone as it fell,
9.485and the backward flow, like a flood from the deep, bore the ship swiftly landwards and drove it upon the shore. But I seized a long pole in my hands and shoved the ship off and along the shore,
9.490and with a nod of my head I roused my comrades, and bade them fall to their oars that we might escape out of our evil plight. And they bent to their oars and rowed. But when, as we fared over the sea, we were twice as far distant, then was I fain to call to the Cyclops , though round about me my comrades, one after another, sought to check me with gentle words:
“‘Reckless one, why wilt thou provoke to wrath a savage man,
9.495who but now hurled his missile into the deep and drove our ship back to the land, and verily we thought that we had perished there? And had he heard one of us uttering a sound or speaking, he would have hurled a jagged rock and crushed our heads and the timbers of our ship, so mightily does he throw.’
Cyclops , if any one of mortal men shall ask thee about the shameful blinding of thine eye, say that Odysseus, the sacker of cities, blinded it,
| Homer, Odyssey (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hom. Od.]. | ||
| <<Hom. Od. 9.360 | Hom. Od. 9.450 (GreekEnglish) | >>Hom. Od. 9.535 |
