"‘My good ram, what is it
that makes you the last to leave my cave this morning? You are not
wont to let the ewes go before you, but lead the mob with a run
whether to flowery mead or bubbling fountain, and are the first to
come home again at night; but now you lag last of all. Is it because
you know your master has lost his eye, and are sorry because that
wicked Noman and his horrid crew have got him down in his drink and
blinded him? But I will have his life yet. If you could understand
and talk, you would tell me where the wretch is hiding, and I would
dash his brains upon the ground till they flew all over the cave. I
should thus have some satisfaction for the harm this no-good Noman
has done me.’
"As spoke he drove the ram
outside, but when we were a little way out from the cave and yards, I
first got from under the ram's belly, and then freed my
comrades; as for the sheep, which were very fat, by constantly
heading them in the right direction we managed to drive them down to
the ship. The crew rejoiced greatly at seeing those of us who had
escaped death, but wept for the others whom the Cyclops had killed.
However, I made signs to them by nodding and frowning that they were
to hush their crying, and told them to get all the sheep on board at
once and put out to sea; so they went aboard, took their places, and
smote the gray sea with their oars. Then, when I had got as far out
as my voice would reach, I began to jeer at the Cyclops.
"‘Cyclops,’ said I,
‘you should have taken better measure of your man before eating
up his comrades in your cave. You wretch, do you intend by violence
[biê] to eat up your visitors in your own cave?
You might have known that your derangement would find you out, and
now Zeus and the other gods have punished you.’
"He got more and more furious as
he heard me, so he tore the top from off a high mountain, and flung
it just in front of my ship so that it was within a little of hitting
the end of the rudder. The sea quaked as the rock fell into it, and
the wash of the wave it raised carried us back towards the mainland,
and forced us towards the shore. But I snatched up a long pole and
kept the ship off, making signs to my men by nodding my head, that
they must row for their lives, whereon they laid out with a will.
When we had got twice as far as we were before, I was for jeering at
the Cyclops again, but the men begged and prayed of me to hold my
tongue.
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
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