All haste assembled, at his well-known roar,

Inquire the cause, and crowd the cavern door.


“‘What hurts thee, Polypheme? what strange affright

Thus breaks our slumbers, and disturbs the night?

Does any mortal, in the unguarded hour

Of sleep, oppress thee, or by fraud or power?

Or thieves insidious thy fair flock surprise?’

Thus they; the Cyclop from his den replies:


“‘Friends, Noman kills me; Noman in the hour

Of sleep, oppresses me with fraudful power.’

‘If no man hurt thee, but the hand divine

Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign:

To Jove or to thy father Neptune pray.’

The brethren cried, and instant strode away.

“Joy touch’d my secret soul and conscious heart,

Pleased with the effect of conduct and of art.

Meantime the Cyclop, raging with his wound,

Spreads his wide arms, and searches round and round:

At last, the stone removing from the gate,

With hands extended in the midst he sate;

And search’d each passing sheep, and felt it o’er,

Secure to seize us ere we reach’d the door

(Such as his shallow wit he deem’d was mine);

But secret I revolved the deep design:

’Twas for our lives my labouring bosom wrought;

Each scheme I turn’d, and sharpen’d every thought;

This way and that I cast to save my friends,

Till one resolve my varying counsel ends.


“Strong were the rams, with native purple fair,

Well fed, and largest of the fleecy care,

These, three and three, with osier bands we tied

(The twining bands the Cyclop’s bed supplied);

The midmost bore a man, the outward two

Secured each side: so bound we all the crew,

One ram remain’d, the leader of the flock:

In his deep fleece my grasping hands I lock,

And fast beneath, in wooly curls inwove,

There cling implicit, and confide in Jove.

When rosy morning glimmer’d o’er the dales,

He drove to pasture all the lusty males:

The ewes still folded, with distended thighs

Unmilk’d lay bleating in distressful cries.