The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 159

SILENUS: Nay, master, something new is very pleasant After one thing forever, and of late _230 Very few strangers have approached our cave.

ULYSSES: Hear, Cyclops, a plain tale on the other side.

We, wanting to buy food, came from our ship Into the neighbourhood of your cave, and here This old Silenus gave us in exchange _235 These lambs for wine, the which he took and drank, And all by mutual compact, without force.

There is no word of truth in what he says, For slyly he was selling all your store.

SILENUS: I? May you perish, wretch--

ULYSSES: If I speak false! _240

SILENUS: Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee, By mighty Triton and by Nereus old, Calypso and the glaucous Ocean Nymphs, The sacred waves and all the race of fishes-- Be these the witnesses, my dear sweet master, _245 My darling little Cyclops, that I never Gave any of your stores to these false strangers;-- If I speak false may those whom most I love, My children, perish wretchedly!

CHORUS: There stop!

I saw him giving these things to the strangers. _250 If I speak false, then may my father perish, But do not thou wrong hospitality.

CYCLOPS: You lie! I swear that he is juster far Than Rhadamanthus--I trust more in him.

But let me ask, whence have ye sailed, O strangers? _255 Who are you? And what city nourished ye?

ULYSSES: Our race is Ithacan--having destroyed The town of Troy, the tempests of the sea Have driven us on thy land, O Polypheme.

CYCLOPS: What, have ye shared in the unenvied spoil _260 Of the false Helen, near Scamander's stream?

ULYSSES: The same, having endured a woful toil.

CYCLOPS: Oh, basest expedition! sailed ye not From Greece to Phrygia for one woman's sake?

ULYSSES: 'Twas the G.o.ds' work--no mortal was in fault. _265 But, O great Offspring of the Ocean-King, We pray thee and admonish thee with freedom, That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee, And place no impious food within thy jaws.

For in the depths of Greece we have upreared _270 Temples to thy great Father, which are all His homes. The sacred bay of Taenarus Remains inviolate, and each dim recess Scooped high on the Malean promontory, And aery Sunium's silver-veined crag, _275 Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever, The Gerastian asylums, and whate'er Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept From Phrygian contumely; and in which You have a common care, for you inhabit _280 The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots Of Aetna and its crags, spotted with fire.

Turn then to converse under human laws, Receive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts; _285 Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.

Priam's wide land has widowed Greece enough; And weapon-winged murder leaped together Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless, _290 And ancient women and gray fathers wail Their childless age;--if you should roast the rest-- And 'tis a bitter feast that you prepare-- Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded; Forgo the l.u.s.t of your jaw-bone; prefer _295 Pious humanity to wicked will: Many have bought too dear their evil joys.

SILENUS: Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops. _300

CYCLOPS: Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man's G.o.d, All other things are a pretence and boast.

What are my father's ocean promontories, The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?

Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove's thunderbolt, _305 I know not that his strength is more than mine.

As to the rest I care not.--When he pours Rain from above, I have a close pavilion Under this rock, in which I lie supine, Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast, _310 And drinking pans of milk, and gloriously Emulating the thunder of high Heaven.

And when the Thracian wind pours down the snow, I wrap my body in the skins of beasts, Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on. _315 The earth, by force, whether it will or no, Bringing forth gra.s.s, fattens my flocks and herds, Which, to what other G.o.d but to myself And this great belly, first of deities, Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know _320 The wise man's only Jupiter is this, To eat and drink during his little day, And give himself no care. And as for those Who complicate with laws the life of man, I freely give them tears for their reward. _325 I will not cheat my soul of its delight, Or hesitate in dining upon you:-- And that I may be quit of all demands, These are my hospitable gifts;--fierce fire And yon ancestral caldron, which o'er-bubbling _330 Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.

Creep in!--

ULYSSES: Ai! ai! I have escaped the Trojan toils, I have escaped the sea, and now I fall Under the cruel grasp of one impious man. _335 O Pallas, Mistress, G.o.ddess, sprung from Jove, Now, now, a.s.sist me! Mightier toils than Troy Are these;--I totter on the chasms of peril;-- And thou who inhabitest the thrones Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove, _340 Upon this outrage of thy deity, Otherwise be considered as no G.o.d!

CHORUS (ALONE): For your gaping gulf and your gullet wide, The ravin is ready on every side, The limbs of the strangers are cooked and done; _345 There is boiled meat, and roast meat, and meat from the coal, You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun, An hairy goat's-skin contains the whole.

Let me but escape, and ferry me o'er The stream of your wrath to a safer sh.o.r.e. _350 The Cyclops Aetnean is cruel and bold, He murders the strangers That sit on his hearth, And dreads no avengers To rise from the earth. _355 He roasts the men before they are cold, He s.n.a.t.c.hes them broiling from the coal, And from the caldron pulls them whole, And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone With his cursed teeth, till all be gone. _360 Farewell, foul pavilion: Farewell, rites of dread!

The Cyclops vermilion, With slaughter uncloying, Now feasts on the dead, _365 In the flesh of strangers joying!

NOTE: _344 ravin Rossetti; spelt ravine in B., editions 1824, 1839.

ULYSSES: O Jupiter! I saw within the cave Horrible things; deeds to be feigned in words, But not to be believed as being done.

NOTE: _369 not to be believed B.; not believed 1824.

CHORUS: What! sawest thou the impious Polypheme _370 Feasting upon your loved companions now?

ULYSSES: Selecting two, the plumpest of the crowd, He grasped them in his hands.--

CHORUS: Unhappy man!

ULYSSES: Soon as we came into this craggy place, Kindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth _375 The knotty limbs of an enormous oak, Three waggon-loads at least, and then he strewed Upon the ground, beside the red firelight, His couch of pine-leaves; and he milked the cows, And pouring forth the white milk, filled a bowl _380 Three cubits wide and four in depth, as much As would contain ten amphorae, and bound it With ivy wreaths; then placed upon the fire A brazen pot to boil, and made red hot The points of spits, not sharpened with the sickle _385 But with a fruit tree bough, and with the jaws Of axes for Aetnean slaughterings.

And when this G.o.d-abandoned Cook of h.e.l.l Had made all ready, he seized two of us And killed them in a kind of measured manner; _390 For he flung one against the brazen rivets Of the huge caldron, and seized the other By the foot's tendon, and knocked out his brains Upon the sharp edge of the craggy stone: Then peeled his flesh with a great cooking-knife _395 And put him down to roast. The other's limbs He chopped into the caldron to be boiled.

And I, with the tears raining from my eyes, Stood near the Cyclops, ministering to him; The rest, in the recesses of the cave, _400 Clung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear.

When he was filled with my companions' flesh, He threw himself upon the ground and sent A loathsome exhalation from his maw.

Then a divine thought came to me. I filled _405 The cup of Maron, and I offered him To taste, and said:--'Child of the Ocean G.o.d, Behold what drink the vines of Greece produce, The exultation and the joy of Bacchus.'

He, satiated with his unnatural food, _410 Received it, and at one draught drank it off, And taking my hand, praised me:--'Thou hast given A sweet draught after a sweet meal, dear guest.'

And I, perceiving that it pleased him, filled Another cup, well knowing that the wine _415 Would wound him soon and take a sure revenge.

And the charm fascinated him, and I Plied him cup after cup, until the drink Had warmed his entrails, and he sang aloud In concert with my wailing fellow-seamen _420 A hideous discord--and the cavern rung.

I have stolen out, so that if you will You may achieve my safety and your own.

But say, do you desire, or not, to fly This uncompanionable man, and dwell _425 As was your wont among the Grecian Nymphs Within the fanes of your beloved G.o.d?

Your father there within agrees to it, But he is weak and overcome with wine, And caught as if with bird-lime by the cup, _430 He claps his wings and crows in doting joy.

You who are young escape with me, and find Bacchus your ancient friend; unsuited he To this rude Cyclops.

NOTES: _382 ten cj. Swinburne; four 1824; four cancelled for ten (possibly) B.

_387 I confess I do not understand this.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

_416 take]grant (as alternative) B.

CHORUS: Oh my dearest friend, That I could see that day, and leave for ever _435 The impious Cyclops.

ULYSSES: Listen then what a punishment I have For this fell monster, how secure a flight From your hard servitude.

CHORUS: O sweeter far Than is the music of an Asian lyre _440 Would be the news of Polypheme destroyed.

ULYSSES: Delighted with the Bacchic drink he goes To call his brother Cyclops--who inhabit A village upon Aetna not far off.

CHORUS: I understand, catching him when alone _445 You think by some measure to dispatch him, Or thrust him from the precipice.

NOTE: _446 by some measure 1824; with some measures B.

ULYSSES: Oh no; Nothing of that kind; my device is subtle.

CHORUS: How then? I heard of old that thou wert wise.

ULYSSES: I will dissuade him from this plan, by saying _450 It were unwise to give the Cyclopses This precious drink, which if enjoyed alone Would make life sweeter for a longer time.

When, vanquished by the Bacchic power, he sleeps, There is a trunk of olive wood within, _455 Whose point having made sharp with this good sword I will conceal in fire, and when I see It is alight, will fix it, burning yet, Within the socket of the Cyclops' eye And melt it out with fire--as when a man _460 Turns by its handle a great auger round, Fitting the framework of a ship with beams, So will I, in the Cyclops' fiery eye Turn round the brand and dry the pupil up.