Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ODYSSEY: BOOK 9. PHAECIAN NIGHTS: 2. OF CYCLOPS AND THE RAM, by HOMER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ODYSSEY: BOOK 9. PHAECIAN NIGHTS: 2. OF CYCLOPS AND THE RAM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: But when the mother of morning, rose-fingered day-dawn, shone
Last Line: And then first from the ram I loosed me, and my fellows presently.
Subject(s): Mythology - Classical


But when the Mother of Morning, Rose-fingered Day-Dawn, shone,
Then all the rams of the cattle fared out to the field to begone,
While the ewes unmilked and bleating about the folds must go,
For their udders were swollen to bursting. But their King, all worn with woe,
With his hand was ever groping the backs of all the sheep
As they stood up there before him; but the fool no heed did keep
How under the breasts of the fleecy-fair sheep were bound the men.
But the last of the flock, the ram, came forth from the door of the den,
With his plenteous wool encumbered, and with me and my wily thought:
So to him spake the stark Polyphemus, as a hold of him he caught:
'Dear ram, why then I prithee of the flock art thou the last
To come forth from the den? aforetime ne'er left behind thou wast,
But first of all to be cropping the tender flower of the grass,
Still striding big; and foremost to the river wouldst thou pass.
And, first of all wert thou yearning in the eventide to hie
To the fold: but now art thou latest. Is it so that thou mournest the eye
Of thy Master, which he the losel a while ago did blind
With his miserable fellows, when with wine he had vanquished my mind?
That Noman, who, I swear it, hath not yet 'scaped his bane.
Oh, if but as me thou wert minded, and a voice of speech mightest gain
To tell me where in the wide-world the man my might doth shun,
Then here and there o'er the rock-den his blood and brains should run
As against the ground I dashed him, and some solace should I have
For all the heap of evil which the nought-worth Noman gave.'
So saying, away without doors the ram from his hand he sent,
And a little way from the rock-den and the garth thereof we went;
And then first from the ram I loosed me, and my fellows presently.





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