'Luckless Ulysses' man am I, and Ithaca me bore, Hight Achemenides, who left that Adamastus poor My father (would I still were there!) by leaguered Troy to be. Here while my mates aquake with dread the cruel threshold flee, They leave me in the Cyclops' den unmindful of their friend; A house of blood and bloody meat, most huge from end to end, Mirky within: high up aloft star-smiting to behold Is he himself;--such bane, O God, keep thou from field and fold! 620 Scarce may a man look on his face; no word to him is good; On wretches' entrails doth he feed and black abundant blood. Myself I saw him of our folk two hapless bodies take In his huge hand, whom straight he fell athwart a stone to break As there he lay upon his back; I saw the threshold swim With spouted blood, I saw him grind each bloody dripping limb, I saw the joints amidst his teeth all warm and quivering still. --He payed therefore, for never might Ulysses bear such ill, Nor was he worser than himself in such a pinch bestead: For when with victual satiate, deep sunk in wine, his head 630 Fell on his breast, and there he lay enormous through the den, Snorting out gore amidst his sleep, with gobbets of the men And mingled blood and wine; then we sought the great Gods with prayer And drew the lots, and one and all crowded about him there, And bored out with a sharpened pike the eye that used to lurk Enormous lonely 'neath his brow overhanging grim and mirk, As great a shield of Argolis, or Phoebus' lamp on high; And so our murdered fellows' ghosts avenged we joyously. --But ye, O miserable men, flee forth! make haste to pluck The warping hawser from the shore! 640 For even such, and e'en so great as Polypheme in cave Shuts in the wealth of woolly things and draws the udders' wave, An hundred others commonly dwell o'er these curving bights, Unutterable Cyclop folk, or stray about the heights. Thrice have the twin horns of the moon fulfilled the circle clear While I have dragged out life in woods and houses of the deer, And gardens of the beasts; and oft from rocky place on high Trembling I note the Cyclops huge, hear foot and voice go by. And evil meat of wood-berries, and cornel's flinty fruit 649 The bush-boughs give; on grass at whiles I browse, and plucked-up root So wandering all about, at last I see unto the shore Your ships a-coming: thitherward my steps in haste I bore: Whate'er might hap enough it was to flee this folk of ill; Rather do ye in any wise the life within me spill.'