Troy had fallen. After ten years' siege by a hundred thousand of Greece’s mightiest warriors, the ramparts built by Poseidon had still proved impregnable to assault; the fell arrows of Heracles added to this host had failed to accomplish what Heracles himself had done single-handed. But finally, at the appointed time, stratagem had succeeded where force had proved of no avail: the monstrous wooden horse, within which crouched wily Odysseus and his chosen band, had wrought Ilium’s downfall,—leaving the world even till this day a pregnant proverb: to beware the enemy bearing gifts.
Among the Greeks summoned by King Menelaus to recapture Helen the incomparable, there was none to equal Odysseus as a combined warrior, leader and counsellor. To him had been awarded the celestial arms of Achilles; it was he who secretly stole away the Palladium, the guardian image whose presence made Troy invulnerable; through his counsel and under his leadership, the fateful wooden horse had brought the final victory.
He had done his utmost to evade the call to Troy in the first place, for the oracle had foretold that if he went, it would be twenty years before he should again see his beloved isle of Ithaca.
It had already taken half of this daunting term to complete the object of the expedition. But now the Trojan stronghold was a fiery memory. Helen was restored to her rightful husband. There remained merely the voyage of a few hundred miles back, through the island-studded Ægean and around the Peloponnesus, to bring him once more to his own kingdom, to that patient Penelope who awaited his return, and the baby son, (now a baby no longer but the “discreet” Telemachus), to whom his sire was but a name. Surely the soothsayer must have erred: it could not take years for his galleys to cover the distance over which his heart and thoughts sped so swiftly.
Yet it was with a solemn countenance that the hero made offerings to the Gods, and bade his followers loose the sails of his twelve stout ships before the southwest breeze. For none knew better than he how little might the utmost human skill and wisdom avail against the decrees of Olympus.
No such forebodings clouded the minds of his islanders. The thought of home, after these years of toil and peril, ran through their veins like an elixir. With shouts of joy, as dawn broke fresh and clear, each crew raced its long-keeled, high-prowed galley down the sloping beach. Dripping, they scrambled aboard, every man to his thwart. In unison the oars hit the water with powerful strokes, to the measure of an exultant chant. The yards were hoisted, sails unclewed, lowered and made fast. Under the following wind and the rowers' vigor, the vermillion-cheeked galleys leaped like live things across the quiet waters that curled about their prows.
It was not so quiet as they passed out of the protected harbor, for the stiff breeze was beginning to make the leaping waves blossom into white; but with yards braced and oars bending, they stood away stoutly into the northwest. Between Lemnos and Imbros they passed, forced ever more to northward by the growing wind, till they could see the wooded heights of Samothrace to leeward; and while most of the unthinking rejoiced to feel the plunging vessels speed so fast through the waves, Odysseus was far from satisfied, realizing that they were now headed almost directly away from their proper course.
He was glad enough as darkness began to fall, to see ahead the mountainous shore of Thrace, and to beach his vessels beneath the stars on the sandy strip, near the mouth of a cove, which his careful eye had noted.
Morning showed them hard by the chief town of the Ciconians, who inhabited those shores. They were barbarians, these Thracians, and proper spoil for warlike Greeks. Launching his galleys and leaving guards aboard, Odysseus led his Ithacans against this city of Ismaurus, sure of an easy victory as had been theirs so often before.
In one swift assault they overwhelmed the place, sacked it, and divided the booty. Then the prudent leader ordered an instant retreat to the waiting vessels.
But his inflamed soldiers, who had drunk deep of Thracian wine, could no longer be controlled. They began to slaughter the crook-horned oxen and the sheep, preparing by the shore for a triumphant carouse. All night the wild feast lasted.
Then, when discipline was relaxed, what had been foreseen by their leader came to pass. The Ciconians who had escaped had called upon their neighbors for aid. At dawn these began to gather, on horseback, in war chariots, on foot, thick as leaves and flowers in spring.
The Greeks now listened to their leader. It was too late to take to the swift ships, but they set themselves in battle array as the enemy burst upon them. Stoutly they fought, while the brass-tipped spears carried death to both sides. For nearly the whole day they managed to hold their ground against the pressing multitude; but towards sunset the numbers of the foe began to tell. The Grecian line was turned; man after man went down; and when they finally fled aboard the galleys in rout, seventy-two of their company were missing.
Glad to have escaped alive, the survivors did not leave till they had performed the last sacred rites, calling aloud three times to each of their slain comrades by name that their spirits might be guided back to Hellas. Then, with aching hearts, they sped from that ill-omened shore, while Odysseus prayed to Zeus for a favoring north wind.
The Cloud-gatherer heard, but answered in anger. The sky to northward grew black and lowering. So suddenly did the storm-clouds overspread the heavens that it seemed as if night had tumbled headlong upon the quaking fleet. Suddenly the wind leaped upon them, hurling the galleys apart as by a giant hand. The sails were torn to tatters by the tempest; the fury of the gale and the overwhelming rain forced the crews below, while the ships pitched and wallowed as they drove before the wind. Seeing that their only chance for life was to get under the lee of some protecting shore, the crews came up once more, each rower staggered to his seat, and they set to work to force their laboring craft towards land.
Two days and nights they toiled, till even their tough hands were blistered and raw, and their exhausted muscles could scarcely grip the oars. They reached the shelter of a promontory at length and rested there, amazed to find themselves still afloat.
By the next morning the gale seemed to have blown itself out, so they hoisted their yards, set sail, and stood south before a following wind and sea.
Again the hopes of all ran high, as they coasted along the mountainous shores of Eubœa, and turned southwest towards the long point of the Peloponnesus.
Still the favoring breeze swept them on. They doubled the dreaded cape of Maleia, and held west, now doubting not at all that in two days at the most their straining eyes would behold the rock cliffs of Ithaca. Only the face of Odysseus was stern and set, as he pondered in his mind the doleful prediction which had clouded his thoughts so many years.
Indeed, he was hardly surprised when, as they swept around the next jutting point, they were suddenly thrown aback by a squall from the north, accompanied by such a head sea that they were forced to put about and run before it, as far back as Cythera.
Even here they could make no harbor but drifted on helplessly before the furious gale. Nine days and nights they were tossed about, not knowing where they were or whither they were being carried.
On the tenth the fury of the wind abated, and they sighted an unknown shore. Odysseus stood in close to land, anchored, and sent a party ashore for fresh water. They prepared food on the beach, and ate and drank greedily after their exhausting vigil.
The leader then despatched two sailors inland, with a third as a herald, to see what manner of folk inhabited these shores.
They did not return, so he set out after them himself. He soon came upon them amid a company of the natives, and perceived that the trouble arose from the friendliness of these, not from any desire to harm the visitors. For this was the famed land of the Lotus-eaters, and after their custom they had given the sailors their own flowery food: straightway the wanderers had lost all remembrance of their errand, of ships, comrades, leader and home; they desired naught save to eat of the lotus forever in this place of pleasant dreams.
Finding that they hearkened neither to his commands nor entreaties, Odysseus dragged them weeping back to the ships by very force, bound them fast, and stowed them under the rowers' benches. In haste he bade his crews embark, lest they too eat of this insidious food; and the moment they were safely aboard, the oars beat the water into foam, as they swept ahead to whatever might next await them.
On they cruised, across strange seas, with no knowledge of how to steer, but impelled ever forward on a chance course. It did not seem to matter particularly when they ran into a fog so thick that they could scarcely see far enough about to keep together.
Murky night settled down upon them. The blore of wind and sea seemed to increase and fill all space; yet there was no sign of rocks or breakers ahead, nor could straining eyes make out anything to steer by. They could but hold on their course, in dread of what any moment might bring, while the all-pervading roar grew ever more threatening.
Then, as if by magic, the tossing galleys suddenly rode peacefully on calm water. The thunderous roar was stilled, so that one might hear the ripple of the curling wavelets about the bows. And presently the staunch galleys slid gently up on a sloping beach.
Still they could see naught about them. But it was enough for those hardened wanderers that they were once more safe for the moment. Lowering all the sails, they stumbled ashore, lay down on the sand, and fell into the heavy sleep of passed fatigue and danger.
Rosy-fingered dawn opened their eyes upon a scene of beauty. They lay at the head of a landlocked basin, through whose narrow entrance, between tall cliffs, they had unwittingly steered safely in the blackness of the night. Close beside them a silvery stream rippled its way to the bay, from a cleft in the rock set about with dark poplars. Lush meadows, suitable for plough land and vineyards, stretched from the shore back to the wooded hills that hemmed in their refuge. Everything that nature unaided could provide was there, awaiting only the labor of men to turn it all into fruitfulness and homes; and the hearts of these storm-tossed mariners relaxed in pleasure as they gazed upon the charming prospect.
On making a circuit of the island, they found its forest-covered rocks even more immediately interesting than the meadows about the harbor. For innumerable wild goats made it their home, and the sight of these bounding figures turned their thoughts to hunting and food.
Bows and hunting spears were quickly brought from the ships; and separating into three bands, they entered ardently upon the chase. Nor was it long before they returned to the beach heavily laden with toothsome game. Nine goats there were for each of the twelve galleys, and to the leader were allotted ten more. Then, until the setting of the sun, they sat and feasted on this welcome meat, with ruddy wine from the ample store which they had brought away in jars as part of the spoil from the citadel of the Ciconians.
There was no sign of human beings on their island. But from the ridge they had marked a much larger one just behind it, with a wide harbor, across the mouth of which their resting-place lay. These rugged shores rose cliff-like from the water, carrying the eye back to higher and higher mountains, till it rested in wonder upon a gigantic peak that seemed to pierce the very sky. From the snows about its crest rose a threatening column of smoke—for this was that veritable Ætna with which all-powerful Zeus had at last overwhelmed the fleeing Typhon who had once driven the gods from Olympus.[54:1]
In the calm of the evening the Greeks could hear across the narrow channel the bleat of sheep and goats, and sounds like those from the dwellings of men, but tremendous and awe-inspiring. Wondering what manner of folk these might be, they laid them down upon the beach and slept.
At dawn Odysseus held a council.
“You, my friends,” said he, “stay here, while I with my own crew explore this neighboring isle. I must first discover whether its people be churlish and savage, or if they observe the sacred rites of hospitality to strangers.”
Quickly the cables were loosed, the rowers took their places at the pins, and the galley leaped forward out of the bay and around the point of the island. In a short time they were entering the harbor on the opposite shore.
Hardly had they passed the outer point when they stopped rowing in wonder. High up above them was a great cave in the face of the mountain. Dense masses of laurel grew all about its entrance. In front was an enclosure, walled in by huge boulders and by massive trunks of tall pine and oak trees. Clearly this was the abode of some creature who kept flocks and herds: but what sort of being must it be who could build such a colossal wall or need such quarters?
Odysseus bade his crew stay on the galley and guard it with their lives. Twelve men, upon whom he could rely, he picked to accompany him. In a goatskin bottle he carried his choicest offering—some of the dark sweet wine given him by the priest of Apollo at Ismaurus, in gratitude for his protection when they had despoiled the Ciconians; it had been reserved for the priest himself and two others only of his household, and so potent was it that, when a cupful was mixed with twenty times as much water, its aroma still filled the nostrils.
Cautiously the adventurer climbed up the ascent, followed by his twelve companions. No human being was in sight as they passed through the enclosure; but when they entered the cave, there were plentiful signs of recent habitation. On one side were pens filled with lambs and kids, the new-born in one, each older group to itself. Milking pails, huge bowls of milk set for cream, others of curd and of whey, and crates filled with cheeses stood all about, in vast size and profusion like everything else.
All they saw was so suggestive of an owner far outside the limits of ordinary men, that his followers at once besought him to make off with as many cheeses, lambs and kids as they could carry aboard, and to hasten quickly from that terrifying abode. But Odysseus refused. Confident in the powers of his tongue and sword, he resolved to await the return of this mighty cave-dweller, both to satisfy his own curiosity and in the hope of receiving the customary gifts. Bitterly was he to regret his decision before many hours had passed.
Meanwhile, under his bidding, the Greeks kindled a fire, made burnt offering to the gods, and satisfied their hunger with some of the cheese. Then they sat about in the gloomy cave, awaiting its master’s home-coming.
Everything combined to make them apprehensive, and the nerves of all save Odysseus soon became taut enough. Hardened as they had become to danger and the unknown, they started in spite of themselves at every sound from the forest and thicket outside. And each time they would cast sidelong glances at one another and at their unmoved leader, striving to appear as unconcerned as he.
The sun in the west had begun to throw a long slanting tongue of light through the rock portal when unmistakable evidence came to their ears. Amid the bleating of returning flocks, there sounded the regular beat of what could only be mighty footsteps—footsteps which made even the solid rock quiver, and for which only the sights about them could have prepared their minds. Nearer and nearer they came, and even those bronzed faces grew pale.
Suddenly the sunlight streaming into the cave was darkened by a vast shape. It did not enter, but tossed in the whole bole of a blasted pine, whose dry limbs crashed and splintered as it fell. The tumbling Greeks sprang back to a dark corner: even their awed imaginations had not conceived of such gigantic strength.
Presently a mass of ewes began to jostle in through the doorway; clearly the rams and he-goats were to be left outside, and these were the milkers of the herd.
Behind them came the monstrous creature, and to the crouching watchers it appeared as if some mountain peak from the range they had seen were walking in upon them. Yet this prodigy, which seemed to fill the whole cave, was built like a man in all respects save one: one great eye only he bore, in the centre of his forehead. Savage and uncouth he was, with matted hair, and yellow tusks at the corner of his mouth like some ancient wild boar. And wise Odysseus knew that this was one of the famed Cyclopes who acknowledged not even the sovereignty of Olympus.
That baleful eye apparently did not perceive the terrified group huddled into the shadow. The monster turned as he entered, and laid hold of a huge stone which stood beside the portal. Such was its size that a score of ox-teams could not have started it from its place; but the intruders saw him wrap his great arms about the mass: the muscles stood out like cables as, lifting the boulder clear from the floor, he placed it in front of the entrance for a door stone, completely blocking the exit.
Dark as it now was within, he at once set to work at milking, placing half the milk in vessels for curdling, and filling with the rest a bowl in which two ordinary men could have stood upright and which would have held ten amphoræ of wine of ten gallons each. This done, he put the lambs and kids beneath their mothers.
Breaking off great limbs of the tree he had brought in as if they were twigs, he kindled a roaring fire. The leaping flames lit up the gloomy cavern. As the giant turned, the baleful glance of his single eye fell upon the cowering Ithacans.
“Ha!” he roared, in a voice that beat upon them like a gale of wind. “Who are you? Where have you come from across the seas? You look to me like some of those sea-rovers who bring no good to those they visit.”
Though his companions, stout men all, seemed utterly overwhelmed by the savage’s voice and aspect, Odysseus made answer boldly:
“We are Achæans, homeward bound from Troy, but driven by adverse winds across the sea. Through many wanderings Zeus has brought us hither. Subjects of Agamemnon are we, most famous of men, so great a city he took. Here by chance, we ask of you food and shelter, and the gift which is the stranger’s due. Even you, O mighty one, must respect the gods. And Zeus is the protector of the stranger and suppliant.”
Rough was the monster’s reply:
“Stupid or ignorant you must be to threaten me with the gods. The Cyclopes care not for Zeus or his ægis: we are mightier than he, and in this world the strong is the master. Not for the wrath of Zeus would I spare you. But where is your ship? On this shore or the far one? Answer.”
Odysseus was not to be beguiled so simply. “Poseidon, the Earth-shaker, wrecked my ship,” he declared, “and cast her on the rocky point at the island’s end. Only I, with these men, escaped.”
Without a word, the Cyclops leaped forward. His hairy arms shot forth. In each huge hand he seized one of the startled seamen. Before the luckless ones had time so much as to call aloud, he had dashed out their brains upon the rocky floor. Then, like some lion of the mountains, he tore them limb from limb and devoured them, washing down his horrible meal with draughts of milk.
Paying no heed to the sighs and tears and calls upon Zeus of the survivors, he stretched his gorged bulk at full length among his flock and slept, filling the cave with the sound of his noisome breathing.
Shaken with wrath at the outrage and the contempt, Odysseus was about to creep upon the sleeping horror and thrust his sharp sword into his vitals. He had marked the very spot, resolving to make sure first by feeling for the heart beat with his hand. But he reflected that this meant certain destruction for all, since they could by no possibility move the enormous door-stone. As best they might then, he and his crushed followers waited for the dawn.
They were not long left in doubt as to the monster’s intentions toward the rest of them. At daybreak he stretched himself, rose yawning, and kindled the fire. Again he milked his herd and cared for them. Again he seized two struggling victims and slaughtered and devoured them for his morning meal.
Moving aside the boulder, he drove out goats and sheep, and replaced the door-stone as one might put the lid on a quiver. They heard his vast footfalls dying away, and his hoarse calls to his flock, as he drove them over the hills to pasturage. Penned up inexorably, they must await his return and its fresh horrors.
Sick at heart as he was, Odysseus thought only of revenge. Earnestly he besought Athene for wisdom. Studying every object in the place, his eye returned again and again to the bole of a green olive tree which lay beside the pen. In size it was fit for the mast of a merchant ship of twenty oars, breasting the open sea; yet clearly the Cyclops was drying it out to use for a club-like staff.
Long did the hero ponder. And at last his jaw set and a grim smile played upon his face. His plan was made.
While his followers bemoaned their fate, he stepped across the cavern, drew his short sword and hacked off a six-foot section of this tree-trunk. Rolling it across to his men, he bade them shape it down. When it was smooth, he pointed the tip and charred it in the blazing fire till the point was hard. This weapon he hid carefully beneath the dry dung with which the cave was littered.
He explained to his wondering comrades that his idea was to thrust this great stake into the giant’s eye while he slept; and he suggested that they choose by lot four of their number who should help him in this daring attack. They did so, and Odysseus noted with satisfaction that chance had given him the very resolute helpers he would have selected. Heartening them as best he could, through the long trying hours of inaction, the leader awaited their jailer’s return.
Towards evening they heard those same portentous sounds of the monster’s coming. The door-stone was lifted aside. In poured the jostling flocks. To the delight of Odysseus not a sheep was left outside: that fitted in exactly with his crafty scheme. He contained himself while the giant performed his evening tasks; even when two more of the Greeks were slain and devoured, he made no sign.
When this ghastly meal was despatched, however, he stepped forward, holding in his hands a bowl filled with the dark Ciconian wine.
“Here, Cyclops,” said he. “Drink after your meal and see what we had aboard our ship. I brought it as an offering, thinking it might move you to send me home. But you defy the laws. How shall a stranger ever come to you again from any people after such a wicked deed?”
The giant drained the bowl at one draught, and a look of pleasure spread over the horrible features.
“Give me more, friend,” he said. “And tell me your name that I may please you with a stranger’s gift. The Cyclops' fruitful fields bear grapes with delicious wine in their heavy clusters; but this is truly nectar and ambrosia.”
Odysseus refilled the bowl with the sparkling wine, and again the giant gulped it down. A third time it was replenished, and quickly emptied. Noticing that the potent drink was beginning to affect even that huge body, Ulysses answered his question:
“You ask my name: I will tell it, and do you fulfil your promise of a stranger’s gift. My name is Noman. Noman am I called by mother, father and all my comrades.”
With a drunken chuckle the Cyclops answered:
“Noman I will eat last, after all his comrades: that is the stranger’s gift.”
With that, he sank back, overcome by the wine. In a few moments he was sleeping, gorged and intoxicated, horrible to see and hear.
The moment had come. Odysseus seized the clumsy stake, and thrust the point into the embers of the fire, urging his men to be of stout heart and take their one chance.
When the point of the green olive trunk was aglow and ready to burst into flame, he snatched it from the fire. His four helpers took it like a battering-ram. Odysseus himself, standing on a projecting point of rock, grasped the butt firmly.
At the word of command, as if they were boring a ship-beam with a drill, the four plunged the smouldering point into the giant’s eye with all their strength, while their leader twisted the weapon violently.
The effect was startling. Blood bubbled around the point. The great eye-ball hissed like water into which a smith has plunged hot iron to temper it. With a roar that almost deafened them, the giant came to life, and his mighty upheaval hurled the men hither and thither. He wrenched the stake from his eye and hurled it from him in a frenzy. But the breathless and terrified sailors perceived with relief that the work had been well done: the monster was blind.
Beside himself with pain and anger he shouted at the top of his voice to his fellow Cyclopes who lived in the other caves along the windy heights. The hearts of the Greeks stood still with fear as they felt the earth quiver beneath running feet, and heard the cries of the gathering giants.
Presently a mighty voice from without demanded:
“What has happened to you, Polyphemus, that you rend the night with your screams and keep us all from sleep? Is someone carrying off your flocks? Are you being murdered by craft or force?”
“Friends,” fairly blubbered the giant. “Noman is murdering me by craft. Force there is none.”
“If no man harms you,” came the reply, “the ill must come from Zeus and that you cannot fly. Pray to your father Poseidon.”
Despite the calls and curses of the wounded one, the terrific company strode off, never suspecting the truth; and Odysseus laughed in his heart at the success of his simple stratagem.
Groaning in agony, Polyphemus groped about with his hands till he found the door-stone, moved it aside and seated himself with hands outstretched, to lay hold of his enemies in case they tried to escape with the sheep.
But Odysseus had foreseen this contingency, and now set quickly about the final move of his careful plan. He had observed that some of the rams were of a specially fine breed, very large, and covered with a long, heavy blue fleece. Separating these from the rest, he quietly bound them together in groups of three with willow withes from the Cyclops' bed. The middle one of each of these three carried a man beneath him, guarded on each side by an unridden animal. The largest of the flock he selected to carry himself, hanging beneath his shaggy belly and gripping his back from each side with arms and hands completely buried in the enormous fleece. Having made their preparations in absolute silence, they anxiously awaited the coming of the day.
As the first ruddy streaks of dawn became visible through the cave mouth, the rams hastened out, eager for pasture, while the unmilked ewes bleated in distress about the enclosure.
Polyphemus, moaning and muttering threats, ran his hands over the back of every sheep before he would permit it to go out. Stupidly, he never thought of feeling beneath, where the trembling seamen hung in dread of being detected.
One after another passed safely out of that gloomy cavern into the fresh freedom of the morning. Last of all came the great leader ram with its human freight.
“What, my pet!” exclaimed the Cyclops as he felt the creature’s back. “Why are you the hindmost of the flock? You were never a laggard, but always first to crop the tender grass, first to drink at the stream, first to turn homeward at night. Ah, you miss your master’s eye, which that villain and his vile crew have put out. Noman it was—but I will have him yet. If only you could speak and tell me where he is skulking, how quickly would I dash out his brains. That would help some in the misery that scoundrel has brought upon me.”
He freed the ram and it trotted quickly out. The moment they were safely away from the enclosure, Odysseus dropped to earth and helped his comrades to free themselves. Then they hastily drove off the fat rams towards the shore, casting many an anxious glance behind them, for they feared that at any moment the Cyclops might discover the trick and come down upon them.
They reached the ship where their staunch comrades welcomed them as men returned from the dead. Checking their laments for the luckless ones who had perished, Odysseus ordered them to toss the rams aboard as quickly as they might. The rowers leaped to their places; the oars hit the water in unison; the galley sped away from that accursed shore.
When they had reached the limit of hailing distance, Odysseus stood up on the poop and shouted to the cave above:
“Cyclops, those were not a weakling’s comrades upon whom you wrought your brutality. It was destined that your crime should find you out, wretch who dared to devour a guest within your house. For this has Zeus chastised you, Zeus and all the gods of Olympus.”
The giant heard, and knew himself outwitted. Frantic with rage, he sprang forth from the cabin, tore up a boulder that looked like a whole hilltop, and hurled it towards the sound of the taunting voice.
The mass of rock fell in front of the galley; and it sent such a wave surging backward that the vessel was washed clean back to shore.
It would have fared badly then with the adventurers had the giant been able to see their plight, for they were easily within his grasp. But Odysseus seized a setting pole and shoved off again, making signs with his head to the rowers to pull their hardest.
They put twice as wide a space as before between them and the enemy. Then Odysseus rose again to speak to him. Beneath their breath his men implored him to desist:
“O foolhardy one, why rouse this savage who even now drove us back to shore with his missile? We thought all was over then. Had he heard but a whisper he would have crushed us beneath some jagged mass of granite.”
Their leader was not to be moved.
“Cyclops,” he cried proudly, “if ever man asks you of your blinded eye, say it was the deed of Odysseus, spoiler of cities, Laertes' son, whose home is Ithaca.”
At that Polyphemus groaned dolefully.
“Surely the ancient oracles are come upon me! A soothsayer once dwelt here, Telemus the renowned. He told me I should lose my sight through one Odysseus; but I watched for some mighty one—and now this miserable pigmy has blinded me after overcoming me with wine. Nevertheless, come hither, Odysseus, that I may bestow on you the stranger’s gift and beg the Land-shaker to speed you on your journey. His son am I; he can heal me if he will.”
Odysseus laughed in scorn. “Would I might as surely strip you of life and send you to Hades as it is sure the Earth-shaker will never heal your eye.”
Then for the first time in his life the monster prayed, stretching forth his hands to the sky:
“Hear me, thou girder of the land, dark-haired Poseidon. If I am truly thine, and thou art called my father, vouchsafe no coming home to this Odysseus, spoiler of cities, Laertes' son, whose home is Ithaca. Yet if it be his lot to see his friends once more, and reach his stately home and native land, late let him come, in evil plight, with loss of all his crew, on the vessel of a stranger, and may he at his home find trouble.”
He finished. His anger burst forth fiercely once more. Heaving up another rock far larger than the first, he swung it back and forth, put forth his utmost strength and hurled the mountainous mass out to sea. It struck behind the galley, which shot up as if lifted by a tidal wave. Odysseus called his order; the oars struck the water; the tough shafts bent with the strain; but in a few moments the galley was riding safe beyond the whirlpool and speeding toward the outer island.
But through all the rejoicings with which they met their comrades in the other ships, through the feast, and through the propitiatory sacrifice, the heart of Odysseus was heavy within him.
It was with a solemn brow that he loosed sail at dawn next day and set forth to accomplish what remained of his amazing destiny.