Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/81

Ch.Then thou'rt not blind.
Cyc. Would ye were so!—
Ch.Why, how could no man blind thee?
Cyc. Ye mock me.—Where is Noman?
Ch.Nowhere, Cyclops.
Cyc. O friends, if ye would know the truth, yon wretch
Cyc. Hath been my ruin—gave me drink, and drowned me!
Ch. Ay—wine is strong, we know, and hard to deal with.

The poet Theocritus, in one of his Idylls, gives us Polyphemus, before his blindness, in love with the beautiful nymph Galatæa, who, having another lover with two eyes in the young shepherd Acis, does not encourage the addresses of the Cyclops. This is part of his remonstrance:—

"I know, sweet maiden, why thou art so coy;
Shaggy and huge, a single eyebrow spans
From ear to ear my forehead, whence one eye
Gleams, and an o'er-broad nostril o'er my lip.
Yet I—this monster—feed a thousand sheep,
That yield me sweetest draughts at milking-tide.
••••••
But thou mistik'st my hair?—Well, oaken logs
Are here, and embers yet a-glow with fire;
Burn, if thou wilt, my heart out, and my eye—
My lonely eye, wherein is my delight."
—Theocritus, Idyll xi. (Calverley's transl.)

This love-story of the Cyclops is better known, perhaps, to English readers, through Handel's Pastoral, 'Acis and Galatæa.'

The imprecation of Polyphemus was heard, and Ulysses was long to suffer the penalty of his bold deed. Yet, but for the weakness of his comrades, he might perhaps have escaped it. For, as they