XCV.

"They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow
Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter
With earnest willingness the truth they know;
But if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter
All plausible delusions;-these to you

I give;-if you inquire, they will not stutter; Delight your own soul with them:-any man You would instruct, may profit, if he can.

XCVI.

"Take these and the fierce oxen, Maia's childO'er many a horse and toil-enduring mule, O'er jagg'd-jaw'd lions, and the wild

White-tusked boars, o'er all. by field or pool, Of cattle which the mighty Mother mild

Nourishes in her bosom, thou shalt ruleThou dost alone the veil of death upliftThou givest not-yet this is a great gift."

XCVII.

Thus king Apollo loved the child of May

In truth, and Jove cover'd them with love and joy. Hermes with Gods and men even from that day

Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy, And little profit, going far astray

Through the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy, Of Jove and Maia sprung,-never by me,

Nor thou, nor other songs shall unremember'd be.

THE CYCLOPS;

A SATIRIC DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.

SILENUS.

CHORUS OF SATYRS. ULYSSES.

THE CYCLOPS.

SILENUS.

O, BACCHUS, what a world of toil, both now
And ere these limbs were overworn with age,
Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fledd'st
The mountain-nymphs who nurst thee, driven afar
By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;
Then in the battle of the sons of Earth,
When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,
No unpropitious fellow-combatant,

And driving through his shield my winged spear,
Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,

Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!
And now I suffer more than all before.
For when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea
With all my children quaint in search of you;
And I myself stood on the beaked prow
And fix'd the naked mast, and all my boys
Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
Made white with foam the green and purple
And so we sought you, king. We were sailing
Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,
And drove us to this wild Etnean rock;
The one-eyed children of the Ocean God,

The man-destroying Cyclopses inhabit,
On this wild shore, their solitary caves,

And one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us
To be his slaves; and so, for all delight

Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,
We keep this lawless giant's wandering flocks.
My sons indeed, on far declivities,

Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,
But I remain to fill the water-casks,

Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering
Some impious and abominable meal

To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!
And now I must scrape up the litter'd floor
With this great iron rake, so to receive
My absent master and his evening sheep
In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see
My children tending the flocks hitherward.
Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures
Even now the same, as when with dance and song
You brought young Bacchus to Athaa's halls?

CHORUS OF SATYRS.
STROPHE

Where has he of race divine
Wander'd in' the winding rocks?
Here the air is calm and fine
For the father of the flocks;-
Here the grass is soft and sweet,
And the river-eddies meet
In the trough beside the cave,
Bright as in their fountain wave.
Neither here, nor on the dew
Of the lawny uplands feeding?
Oh, you come!-a stone at you
Will I throw to mend your breeding;
Get along, you horned thing,
Wild, seditious, rambling!

EPODE.*

An Iacchic melody
To the golden Aphrodite
Will I lift, as erst did I
Seeking her and her delight
With the Mænads, whose white feet
To the music glance and fleet.
Bacchus, O beloved! where,
Shaking wide thy yellow hair,
Wanderest thou alone, afar?
To the one-eyed Cyclops, we,
Who by right thy servants are,
Minister in misery,

In these wretched goat-skins clad,
Far from thy delights and thee.

SILENUS.

Be silent, sons; command the slaves to drive The gather'd flocks into the rock-roof'd cave.

CHORUS.

Go-But what needs this serious haste, O father?

SILENUS.

The Antistrophe is omitted.

"Twas the Gods' work-no mortal was in fault.
But, O great offspring of the ocean-king,
We pray thee and admonish thee with freedom,
That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee,
And place no impious food within thy jaws.
For in the depths of Greece we have uprear'd
Temples to thy great father, which are all
His homes. The sacred bay of Tænarus
Remains inviolate, and each dim recess
Scoop'd high on the Malean promontory,
And aery Sunium's silver-veined crag,
Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever,
The Gerastian asylums, and whate'er
Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept
From Phrygian contumely; and in which
You have a common care, for you inhabit
The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots
Of Etna and its crags, spotted with fire.
Turn then to converse under human laws,
Receive us shipwreck'd suppliants, and provide
Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts;
Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spi.s

Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.
Priam's wide land has widow'd Greece enough;
And weapon-winged murder heap'd together
Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless

And ancient women and gray fathers wail
Their childless age;-if you should roast the rest,
And 'tis a bitter feast that you prepare,
Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded,
Forego the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer
Pious humanity to wicked will:

Many have bought too dear their evil joys.

SILENUS.

Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel
Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue
You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops!

CYCLOPS.

Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man's God
All other things are a pretence and boast.
What are my father's ocean promontories,
The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?
Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove's thunderbolt,
I know not that his strength is more than mine.
As to the rest, I care not:-When he pours
Rain from above, I have a close pavilion
Under this rock, in which I lie supine,
Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast,
And drinking pans of milk; and gloriously
Emulating the thunder of high heaven.
And when the Thracian wind pours down the snow
I wrap my body in the skins of beasts,

Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on.
The earth, by force, whether it will or no,
Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and herds,
Which, to what other God but to myself
And this great belly, first of deities,
Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know
The wise man's only Jupiter is this,
To eat and drink during his little day,
And give himself no care. And as for those
Who complicate with laws the life of man,
I freely give them tears for their reward.,
I will not cheat my soul of its delight,
Or hesitate in dining upon you:-
And that I may be quit of all demands,
These are my hospitable gifts;-fierce fire
And yon ancestral caldron, which o'erbubbling,
Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.
Creep in!-

ULYSSES.

Ay! ay! I have escaped the Trojan toils,
I have escaped the sea, and now I fall
Under the cruel grasp of one impious man.
O Pallas, mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,
Now, now, assist me! mightier toils than Troy
Are these.-I totter on the chasms of peril;-
And thou who inhabitest the thrones
Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove,
Upon this outrage of thy deity,
Otherwise be consider'd as no God!

CHORUS (alone).

For your gaping gulf, and your gullet wide,
The ravine is ready on every side,
The limbs of the strangers are cook'd and done,
There is boil'd meat, and roast meat, and meat from

the coal,

You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun,
A hairy goat's-skin contains the whole.
Let me but escape, and ferry me o'er
The stream of your wrath to a safer shore.

Soon as we came into this craggy place,
Kindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth
The knotty limbs of an enormous oak,
Three wagoh-loads at least; and then he strew'd
Upon the ground, beside the red fire-light,

His couch of pine leaves; and he milk'd the cows,
And pouring forth the white milk, fill'd a bowl
Three cubits wide and four in depth, as much
As would contain four amphora, and bound it
With ivy wreaths; then placed upon the fire
A brazen pot to boil, and made red-hot

The points of spits, not sharpen'd with the sickle,
But with a fruit-tree bough, and with the jaws
Of axes for Etnean slaughterings.*
And when this God-abandon'd cook of hell
Had made all ready, he seized two of us
And kill'd them in a kind of measured manner;
For he flung one against the brazen rivets
Of the huge caldron, and seized the other
By the foot's tendon, and knock'd out his brains
Upon the sharp edge of the craggy stone:
Then peel'd his flesh with a great cooking-knife,
And put him down to roast. The other's limbs
He chopp'd into the caldron to be boil'd.
And I with the tears raining from my eyes,
Stood near the Cyclops, ministering to him;
The rest, in the recesses of the cave,
Clung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear.
When he was fill'd with my companions' flesh,
He threw himself upon the ground, and sent
A lothesome exhalation from his maw.
Then a divine thought came to me. I fill'd
The cup of Maron, and I offer'd him

To taste, and said :-"Child of the Ocean God,
Behold what drink the vines of Greece produce,
The exultation and the joy of Bacchus."
He, satiated with his unnatural food,

Received it, and at one draught drank it off,
And taking my hand, praised me: "Thou hast given
A sweet draught after a sweet meal, dear guest."
And I, perceiving that it pleased him, fill'd
Another cup, well knowing that the wine
Would wound him soon, and take a sure revenge
And the charm fascinated him, and I
Plied him cup after cup, until the drink
Had warm'd his entrails, and he sang aloud
In concert with my wailing fellow-seamen
A hideous discord-and the cavern rung.
I have stolen out, so that if you will
You may achieve my safety and your own.
But say, do you desire, or not, to fly
This uncompanionable man, and dwell.

As was your wont, among the Grecian nymphs
Within the fanes of your beloved God?
Your father there within agrees to it;
But he is weak and overcome with wine;
And caught as if with bird-lime by the cup,
He claps his wings and crows in doting joy.
You who are young, escape with me, and find
Bacchus your ancient friend; unsuited he
To this rude Cyclops.

CHORUS.

Oh my dearest friend, That I could see that day, and leave for ever The impious Cyclops!"

ULYSSES.

Listen then what a punishment I have For this fell monster, how secure a flight From your hard servitude.

CHORUS.

Oh sweeter far Than is the music of an Asian lyre Would be the news of Polypheme destroy'd

ULYSSES.

Delighted with the Bacchic drink, he goes To call his brother Cyclops-who inhabit A village upon Etna not far off.

CHORUS.

I understand, catching him when alone
You think by some measure to dispatch him,
Or thrust him from the precipice.

ULYSSES.

O no!
Nothing of that kind; my device is subtle.

CHORUS.
How then? I heard of old that thou wert wise.
ULYSSES.

I will dissuade him from this plan, by saying
It were unwise to give the Cyclopses

This precious drink, which if enjoy'd alone
Would make life sweeter for a longer time.
When vanquish'd by the Bacchic power, he sleeps
There is a trunk of olive-wood within,

Whose point, having made sharp with this good sword
I will conceal in fire, and when I see

It is alight, will fix it, burning yet,
Within the socket of the Cyclops' eye,