Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ODYSSEY: BOOK 9. PHAECIAN NIGHTS: 1. OF NORMAL AND CYCLOPS, by HOMER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ODYSSEY: BOOK 9. PHAECIAN NIGHTS: 1. OF NORMAL AND CYCLOPS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: So I spake, and he took it and drank, and became exceeding fain
Last Line: At my name that had so beguiled him and my worthy rede and proud.
Subject(s): Mythology - Classical


SO I spake, and he took it and drank, and became exceeding fain
Of that sweet drink that I gave him, and besought me of drink again:
'Come give me the drink and be blythe, and straightway tell me thy name,
That a guest-gift I may give thee to gladden thine heart with the same,
Since verily for the Cyclops the corn-kind earth doth shed
The wine in plenteous bunches by the rain of Zeus full-fed:
But this indeed is handsel of the meat and drink divine.'
So he spake, and again I gave him of the dark-red glowing wine,
And thrice I bore and gave it, and the fool thrice drank it out.
But when the heart of the Cyclops the wine had encompassed about,
Then honied words I uttered, and to speaking thus befel:
'Cyclops, my name renowned thou askest, the which I will tell,
But the guest-gift thou wouldst give me, now give me it I pray.
My name is Noman: Noman they called me on a day,
My father and my mother, and all my folk of old.'
So I spake, but straight he answered from cruel heart and cold:
'Noman shall I eat the latest of all his fellows here,
And all the others before him; lo, a guest-gift good and dear!'
Therewith he fell a backward, and there he lay along,
His thick neck wryed and twisted, and Sleep, the tamer strong,
Held him, and forth from his gullet gushed wine with man's flesh blent,
And with the wine all heavy a belching forth he sent.
So then mid the plenteous ashes the olive bar I laid
Until all warm it was waxen, and words to my fellows I said,
And heartened them all, lest any should fear and shrink away.
But now when the spar of olive in the fire as there it lay
'Gan kindle for all its greenness, and brightly glowed the wood,
I fetched it up from the fire, and about my fellows stood,
And a stark and mighty courage the God on us did send;
And they took up the shaft of olive, sharp-pointed at the end,
And into his eye they thrust it, while I, raised up aloft,
Kept turning, e'en as a craftsman the ship-beam boreth oft
With the wimble, and on both sides his men still ply the thong
To each side fixed and steady, and it runneth around for long;
E'en so that shaft fire-hardened we took, and the eye of him
We bored, and about it glowing straightway the blood 'gan swim,
And his eyelid and his eyebrow were singed with the breath that came
From the burning ball as the eye-roots all cracked in the heat of the flame:
As when the smith of an hatchet or great axe taketh hold
And dippeth it, hissing loudly, amidst the water cold,
For its tempering; since thus only and thereby the steel is good --
So hissed the eye of the Cyclops around the olive wood.
But his mighty yells were fearful, and the den rang horribly.
Till we shrank away in terror. Then he tore from out his eye
The shaft of sharpened olive all dabbled about with blood,
And raging, aloof he cast it with his hands from where he stood.
Then he whooped out loud to the Cyclops, they who on either side,
Amid the rocky places of the windy bents abide;
And they heard his cry, and flocking from about there did they stand
Around the den, and were asking what harm was come to hand:
'Polyphemus, what thing grieves thee, that through the deathless night
Thou criest aloud, and hast made us but sleepless folk outright?
Is some one of mortals driving thy flocks against thy will?
Or thyself is some man quelling with might or crafty skill?'
But the stark strong Polyphemus thus answered them again:
'O friends, Noman me slayeth by guile and not by main!'
Then with winged words they bespake him, and answered presently:
'If alone thou art abiding, and no man enforceth thee,
The ill that great Zeus sendeth, no wight may shun the thing.
But put up the prayer to thy father, Poseidon the mighty king.'
And with that word they departed, and my dear heart laughed aloud
At my name that had so beguiled him and my worthy rede and proud.





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