Through various seas, by various perils toss’d,

And forced by storms, unwilling on your coast;

Far from our destined course and native land,

Such was our fate, and such high Jove’s command!

Nor what we are befits us to disclaim,

Atrides’ friends (in arms a mighty name),

Who taught proud Troy and all her sons to bow;

Victors of late, but humble suppliants now!

Low at thy knee thy succour we implore;

Respect us, human, and relieve us, poor.

At least, some hospitable gift bestow;

’Tis what the happy to the unhappy owe;

’Tis what the gods require: those gods revere;

The poor and stranger are their constant care;

To Jove their cause, and their revenge belongs,

He wanders with them, and he feels their wrongs.”


“‘Fools that ye are (the savage thus replies,

His inward fury blazing at his eyes),

Or strangers, distant far from our abodes,

To bid me reverence or regard the gods.

Know then, we Cyclops are a race above

Those air-bred people, and their goat-nursed Jove;

And learn, our power proceeds with thee and thine,

Not as he wills, but as ourselves incline.

But answer, the good ship that brought ye o’er,

Where lies she anchor’d? near or off the shore?’


“Thus he. His meditated fraud I find

(Versed in the turns of various human-kind):

And, cautious thus: ‘Against a dreadful rock,

Fast by your shore the gallant vessel broke.

Scarce with these few I ’scaped; of all my train,

Whom angry Neptune, whelm’d beneath the main,

The scattered wreck the winds blew back again.’


“He answer’d with his deed: his bloody hand

Snatch’d two, unhappy! of my martial band;

And dash’d like dogs against the stony floor:

The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.

Torn limb from limb, he spreads his horrid feast,

And fierce devours it like a mountain beast:

He sucks the marrow, and the blood he drains,

Nor entrails, flesh, nor solid bone remains.

We see the death from which we cannot move,