Episode #2:  The Escape from the Cyclops

He loosed a hideous roar, the rock walls echoed round

and we scuttled back in terror.

The monster wrenched the spike from his eye

and out it came with a red geyser of blood—

he flung it aside with frantic hands, and mad with pain

he bellowed out for help from his neighbor Cyclops

living round about in caves on windswept crags.

Hearing his cries, they lumbered up from every side

and hulking round his cavern, asked what ailed him:

'What, Polyphemus, what in the world's the trouble?

Roaring out in the godsent night to rob us of our sleep.

Surely no one's rustling your flocks against your will—

surely no one's trying to kill you now by fraud or force!'

'Nobody, friends'—Polyphemus bellowed back from his cave—

'Nobody's killing me now by fraud and not by force!'

'If you're alone/ his friends boomed back at once,

'and nobody's trying to overpower you now—

look, it must be a plague sent here by mighty Zeus

and there's no escape from that.

You'd better pray to your father, Lord Poseidon.'

They lumbered off, but laughter filled my heart

to think how nobody's name—my great cunning stroke—

had duped them one and all. But the Cyclops there,

still groaning, racked with agony,

groped around for the huge slab, and heaving it from the doorway,

down he sat in the cave's mouth, his arms spread wide,

hoping to catch a comrade stealing out with sheep—

such a blithering fool he took me for! But I was already plotting ...

what was the best way out? how could I find

escape from death for my crew, myself as well?

My wits kept weaving, weaving cunning schemes—

life at stake, monstrous death staring us in the face—

till this plan struck my mind as best.

That flock, those well-fed rams with their splendid thick fleece,

sturdy, handsome beasts sporting their dark weight of wool:

I lashed them abreast, quietly, twisting the willow-twigs

the Cyclops slept on—giant, lawless brute—I took them

three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man

while the two rams either side would shield him well.

So three beasts to bear each man, but as for myself?

There was one bellwether ram, the prize of all the flock,

and clutching him by his back, tucked up under

his shaggy belly, there I hung, face upward,

both hands locked in his marvelous deep fleece,

clinging for dear life, my spirit steeled, enduring . . .

So we held on, desperate, waiting Dawn's first light.

As soon as young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more
the rams went rumbling out of the cave toward pasture,
the ewes kept bleating round the pens, unmilked,
their udders about to burst. Their master now,
heaving in torment, felt the back of each animal
halting before him here, but the idiot never sensed
my men were trussed up under their thick fleecy ribs.

 

And last of them all came my great ram now, striding out,
weighed down with his dense wool and my deep plots.
Stroking him gently, powerful Polyphemus murmured,
'Dear old ram, why last of the flock to quit the cave?
In the good old days you'd never lag behind the rest—
you with your long marching strides, first by far                                     
of the flock to graze the fresh young grasses,
first by far to reach the rippling streams,
first to turn back home, keen for your fold
when night comes on—but now you're last of all.
And why? Sick at heart for your master's eye
that coward gouged out with his wicked crew?—
only after he'd stunned my wits with wine—
that, that Nobody . . .

who's not escaped his death, I swear, not yet.

Oh if only you thought like me, had words like me
to tell me where that scoundrel is cringing from my rage!
I'd smash him against the ground, I'd spill his brains—

flooding across my cave—and that would ease my heart

of the pains that good-for-nothing Nobody made me suffer!'

And with that threat he let my ram go free outside.

But soon as we'd got one foot past cave and courtyard,

first I loosed myself from the ram, then loosed my men,

then quickly, glancing back again and again we drove our flock,

good plump beasts with their long shanks, straight to the ship,

and a welcome sight we were to loyal comrades—

we who'd escaped our deaths—

but for all the rest they broke down and wailed.

I cut it short, I stopped each shipmate's cries,

my head tossing, brows frowning, silent signals to hurry,

tumble our fleecy herd on board, launch out on the open sea!

They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks

and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke.

But once offshore as far as a man's shout can carry,

I called back to the Cyclops, stinging taunts:

'So, Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew

you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave—

you with your brute force!  Your filthy crimes

came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal,

daring to eat your guests in your own house—

so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back!'

That made the rage of the monster boil over.

Ripping off the peak of a towering crag, he heaved it so hard

the boulder landed just in front of our dark prow

and a huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under—

a tidal wave from the open sea. The sudden backwash

drove us landward again, forcing us close inshore

but grabbing a long pole, I thrust us off and away,

tossing my head for dear life, signaling crews

to put their backs in the oars, escape grim death.

They threw themselves in the labor, rowed on fast

but once we'd plowed the breakers twice as far,

again I began to taunt the Cyclops—men around me

trying to check me, calm me, left and right:

'So headstrong—why? Why rile the beast again?'

'That rock he flung in the sea just now, hurling our ship

to shore once more—we thought we'd die on the spot!'

'If he'd caught a sound from one of us, just a moan,

he would have crushed our heads and ship timbers with one heave of another flashing, jagged rock!'

'Good god, the brute can throw!'

So they begged, but they could not bring my fighting spirit round.

I called back with another burst of anger,

'Cyclops— if any man on the face of the earth should ask you

who blinded you, shamed you so—say Odysseus,

raider of cities, he gouged out your eye,

Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca!'

So I vaunted and he groaned back in answer,

'Oh no, no—that prophecy years ago . . .

it all comes home to me with a vengeance now!

We once had a prophet here, a great tall man,

Telemus, Eurymus' son, a master at reading signs,

who grew old in his trade among his fellow-Cyclops.

All this, he warned me, would come to pass someday—

that I'd be blinded here at the hands of one Odysseus.

But I always looked for a handsome giant man to cross my path,

some fighter clad in power like armor-plate, but now,

look what a dwarf, a spineless good-for-nothing,

stuns me with wine, then gouges out my eye!

Come here, Odysseus, let me give you a guest-gift

and urge Poseidon the earthquake god to speed you home.

I am his son and he claims to be my father, true,

and he himself will heal me if he pleases—

no other blessed god, no man can do the work!'

'Heal you!'— here was my parting shot—'Would to god I could strip you

of life and breath and ship you down to the House of Death

as surely as no one will ever heal your eye,

not even your earthquake god himself!'

But at that he bellowed out to lord Poseidon,

thrusting his arms to the starry skies, and prayed,

'Hear me— Poseidon, god of the sea-blue mane who rocks the earth!

If I really am your son and you claim to be my father—

come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities,

Laertes' son who makes his home in Ithaca, never reaches home.

Or if he's fated to see his people once again and reach his well-built house

and his own native country, let him come home late

and come a broken man—all shipmates lost,

alone in a stranger's ship—

and let him find a world of pain at home!'

So he prayed, and the god of the sea-blue mane Poseidon heard his prayer.

The monster suddenly hoisted a boulder—far larger—

wheeled and heaved it, putting his weight behind it,

massive strength, and the boulder crashed close,

landing just in the wake of our dark stern,

just failing to graze the rudder's bladed edge.

A huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under,

yes, and the tidal breaker drove us out to our island's

far shore where all my well-decked ships lay moored,

clustered, waiting, and huddled round them, crewmen sat in anguish,

waiting, chafing for our return. We beached our vessel hard ashore on the sand,

we swung out in the frothing surf ourselves,

and herding Cyclops' sheep from our deep holds

we shared them round so no one, not on my account,

would go deprived of his fair share of spoils.

But the splendid ram—as we meted out the flocks

my friends-in-arms made him my prize of honor,

mine alone, and I slaughtered him on the beach

and burnt his thighs to Cronus' mighty son,

Zeus of the thundercloud who rules the world.

But my sacrifices failed to move the god:

Zeus was still obsessed with plans to destroy

my entire fleet and loyal crew of comrades.