Consult our safety, and put off to sea.

Their wholesome counsel rashly I declined,

Curious to view the man of monstrous kind,

And try what social rites a savage lends:

Dire rites, alas! and fatal to my friends


“Then first a fire we kindle, and prepare

For his return with sacrifice and prayer;

The loaden shelves afford us full repast;

We sit expecting. Lo! he comes at last,

Near half a forest on his back he bore,

And cast the ponderous burden at the door.

It thunder’d as it fell. We trembled then,

And sought the deep recesses of the den.

New driven before him through the arching rock,

Came tumbling, heaps on heaps, the unnumber’d flock.

Big-udder’d ewes, and goats of female kind

(The males were penn’d in outward courts behind);

Then, heaved on high, a rock’s enormous weight

To the cave’s mouth he roll’d, and closed the gate

(Scarce twenty four-wheel’d cars, compact and strong,

The massy load could bear, or roll along).

He next betakes him to his evening cares,

And, sitting down, to milk his flocks prepares;

Of half their udders eases first the dams,

Then to the mother’s teat submits the lambs;

Half the white stream to hardening cheese be press’d,

And high in wicker-baskets heap’d: the rest,

Reserved in bowls, supplied his nightly feast.

His labour done, he fired the pile, that gave

A sudden blaze, and lighted all the cave.

We stand discover’d by the rising fires;

Askance the giant glares, and thus inquires:


“‘What are ye, guests? on what adventure, say,

Thus far ye wander through the watery way?

Pirates perhaps, who seek through seas unknown

The lives of others, and expose your own?’


“His voice like thunder through the cavern sounds;

My bold companions thrilling fear confounds,

Appall’d at sight of more than mortal man!

At length, with heart recover’d, I began:


“‘From Troy’s famed fields, sad wanderers o’er the main,

Behold the relics of the Grecian train: