The tenth we touch’d, by various errors toss’d,

The land of Lotus and the flowery coast.

We climb’d the beach, and springs of water found,

Then spread our hasty banquet on the ground.

Three men were sent, deputed from the crew

(A herald one) the dubious coast to view,

And learn what habitants possess’d the place.

They went, and found a hospitable race:

Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest,

They eat, they drink, and nature gives the feast

The trees around them all their food produce:

Lotus the name: divine, nectareous juice!

(Thence call’d Lotophagi); which whose tastes,

Insatiate riots in the sweet repasts,

Nor other home, nor other care intends,

But quits his house, his country, and his friends.

The three we sent, from off the enchanting ground

We dragg’d reluctant, and by force we bound.

The rest in haste forsook the pleasing shore,

Or, the charm tasted, had return’d no more.

Now placed in order on their banks, they sweep

The sea’s smooth face, and cleave the hoary deep:

With heavy hearts we labour through the tide,

To coasts unknown, and oceans yet untried.


“The land of Cyclops first, a savage kind,

Nor tamed by manners, nor by laws confined:

Untaught to plant, to turn the glebe, and sow,

They all their products to free nature owe:

The soil, untill’d, a ready harvest yields,

With wheat and barley wave the golden fields;

Spontaneous wines from weighty clusters pour,

And Jove descends in each prolific shower,

By these no statues and no rights are known,

No council held, no monarch fills the throne;

But high on hills, or airy cliffs, they dwell,

Or deep in caves whose entrance leads to hell.

Each rules his race, his neighbour not his care,

Heedless of others, to his own severe.


“Opposed to the Cyclopæan coast, there lay

An isle, whose hill their subject fields survey;

Its name Lachaea, crown’d with many a grove,

Where savage goats through pathless thickets rove: