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Enter the Cyclops from the cave with bloodied mask.
Cyclops
Alas! My bright eye is all turned to cinder! Chorus-Leader
A lovely song: please sing it for me again, Cyclops! Cyclops
[665] Alas, alack! How I have been maltreated, how undone! But you will never escape this cave with impunity, you cowards. For I shall take my stand in the entrance and fit my hands to it. Chorus-Leader
Why do you shout so, Cyclops? Cyclops
I am ruined! Chorus-Leader
[670] You do look ugly. Cyclops
And miserable as well! Chorus-Leader
Did you fall in a drunken stupor into the coals? Cyclops
Noman destroyed me. Chorus-Leader
No one, then, has done you wrong. Cyclops
Noman has blinded my eye. Chorus-Leader
So you are not blind. Cyclops
<How sharp the pain!>1 Chorus-Leader
And how could no one make you blind? Cyclops
[675] You mock me. But this Noman, where is he? Chorus-Leader
Nowhere, Cyclops. Cyclops
Know well, it was my guest who destroyed me, the abominable guest, who drowned me with the drink he gave me. Chorus-Leader
Yes, wine is a dangerous thing and hard to wrestle against. Cyclops
Tell me, for heaven's sake, have they fled or are they still in the house? Chorus-Leader
[680] They are standing here quietly under the overhang of the cliff. Cyclops
To my left or my right? Chorus-Leader
To your right. The Cyclops moves from the entrance. Thereafter Odysseus and his men slip silently out.
Cyclops
Where? Chorus-Leader
Right next to the cliff. Have you got them? The Cyclops collides with the rock cliff.
Cyclops
Yes, got pain on top of pain! I've hit my head and broken it. Chorus-Leader
And what's more, they've given you the slip. Cyclops
[685] Didn't you say somewhere over here? Chorus-Leader
No. I mean over here. Cyclops
And where is that? Chorus-Leader
Turn round this way, to your left. Cyclops
Oh, I am mocked. You taunt me in my troubles. Chorus-Leader
I shall no more. He's right in front of you. Cyclops
Knave, where in the world are you? Odysseus
At some distance, [690] where I can keep watch over the body of Odysseus here. Cyclops
What? This is a new name you use. Odysseus
The very one my father gave me, [Odysseus,]2 and you were destined, it seems, to pay the penalty for your ungodly feast. For my burning Troy to the ground would have been a sorry deed [695] if I had not punished you for the murder of my companions. Cyclops
Oh, oh, an ancient prophecy is now being fulfilled! It said that I would be blinded at your hands when you had set out from Troy. But it also prophesied that you would pay the penalty for this [700] by drifting about on the sea for a long time. Odysseus
You can go hang, say I! And I have already done what you say I shall do. But now I shall go to the beach and launch my ship homeward over the Sicilian Sea.Exit Odysseus and his men by Eisodos B. Cyclops
Oh no you won't, for I shall break off a piece of this crag, [705] hurl it, and crush you, companions and all, to bits. I'm going up to the hill-top, blind though I am, by climbing through my tunnel.3Exit Cyclops into the cave. Exeunt Chorus by Eisodos B.
Chorus-Leader
As for us, we shall be ship-mates with Odysseus and ever after serve in Dionysus' train.
1 The transmitted words are unintelligible and none of the conjectures is wholly satisfactory. This translation gives one possible sense.
2 The repeated name looks suspicious. It may have ousted an expression like‘（a name） derived from “anger,”’ an allusion to the derivation of Odysseus' name from ὀδυσσασθαι, ‘to be angry at’ or ‘to hate.’
3 The cave is imagined to have a back entrance looking over the sea.
Euripides. Euripides, with an English translation by David Kovacs. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. forthcoming.
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