The Adventures of the Cicons, Lotophagi, and Cyclops.
Ulysses begins the relation of his adventures; how, after the destruction of Troy, he with his companions made an incursion on the Cicons, by whom they were repulsed; and meeting with a storm, were driven to the coast of the Lotophagi. From thence they sailed to the land of the Cyclops, whose manners and situation are particularly characterised. The giant Polyphemus and his cave described; the usage Ulysses and his companions met with there; and lastly, the method and artifice by which he escaped.
THEN HEN thus Ulysses. Thou, whom first in sway,
As first in virtue, these thy realms obey;
How sweet the products of a peaceful reign!
The heaven-taught poet, and enchanting strain;
The well-fill'd palace, the perpetual feast,
A land rejoicing, and a people blest!
How goodly seems it ever to employ
Man's social days in union and in joy;
The plenteous board high-heap'd with cates divine,
And o'er the foaming bowl the laughing wine!
Amid these joys, why seeks thy mind to know
Th' unhappy series of a wanderer's woe?
Remembrance sad, whose image to review,
Alas! must open all my wounds anew!
And oh, what first, what last shall I relate,
Of woes unnumber'd sent by Heaven and Fate?
Know first the man (tho' now a wretch distrest)
Who hopes thee, monarch, for his future guest.
Behold Ulysses! no ignoble name,
Earth sounds my wisdom, and high heaven my fame.
My native soil is Ithaca the fair,
Where high Neritus waves his woods in air;
Dulichium, Same, and Zacynthus crown'd
With shady mountains, spread their isles around
(These to the north and night's dark regions run,
Those to Aurora and the rising sun).
Low lies our isle, yet blest in fruitful stores;
Strong are her sons, though rocky are her shores;
And none, ah none so lovely to my sight,
Of all the lands that heaven o'erspreads with light!
In vain Calypso long constrain'd my stay,
With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay;
With all her charms as vainly Circe strove,
And added magic to secure my love.
In pomps or joys, the palace or the grot,
My country's image never was forgot,
My absent parents rose before my sight,
And distant lay contentment and delight.
Hear then the woes which mighty Jove ordain'd
To wait my passage from the Trojan land.
The winds from Ilion to the Cicons' shore,
Beneath cold Ismarus our vessels bore.
We boldly landed on the hostile place,
And sack'd the city, and destroy'd the race,
Their wives made captive, their possessions shar'd,
And every soldier found a like reward.
I then advis'd to fly; not so the rest,
Who stay'd to revel, and prolong the feast:
The fatted sheep and sable bulls they slay,
And bowls flow round, and riot wastes the day. 50
Meantime the Cicons to their holds retir'd,
Call on the Cicons with new fury fir'd;
With early morn the gather'd country swarms,
And all the continent is bright with arms;
Thick as the budding leaves or rising flowers
O'erspread the land, when spring descends in showers:
All expert soldiers, skill'd on foot to dare,
Or from the bounding courser urge the war.
Now fortune changes (so the Fates ordain);
Our hour was come to taste our share of pain.
Close at the ships the bloody fight began,
Wounded they wound, and man expires on man.
Long as the morning sun increasing bright
O'er heaven's pure azure spread the growing light,
Promiscuous death the form of war confounds,
Each adverse battle gor'd with equal wounds;
But when his evening wheels o'erhung the main,
Then conquest crown'd the fierce Ciconian train.
Six brave companions from each ship we lost,
The rest escape in haste, and quit the coast.
With sails outspread we fly th' unequal strife,
Sad for their loss, but joyful of our life.
Yet as we fled, our fellows' rites we paid,
And thrice we call'd on each unhappy shade.
Meanwhile the God whose hand the thunder forms, Drives clouds on clouds, and blackens heaven with
Wide o'er the waste the rage of Boreas sweeps,
And night rush'd headlong on the shaded deeps.
Now here, now there, the giddy ships are borne,
And all the rattling shrouds in fragments torn. 80
We furl'd the sail, we ply'd the labouring oar,
Took down our masts, and row'd our ships to shore.
Two tedious days and two long nights we lay,
O'erwatch'd and batter'd in the naked bay.
But the third morning when Aurora brings,
We rear the masts, we spread the canvas wings;
Refresh'd, and careless on the deck reclin'd,
We sit, and trust the pilot and the wind.
Then to my native country had I sail'd;
But the cape doubled, adverse winds prevail'd.
Strong was the tide, which, by the northern blast
Impell'd, our vessels on Cythera cast.
Nine days our fleet th' uncertain tempest bore
Far in wide ocean, and from sight of shore:
The tenth we touch'd, by various errors tost,
The land of Lotos 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
(An herald one), the dubious coast to view,
And learn what habitants possest 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;
Lotos, the name; divine, nectareous juice!
(Thence call'd Lotophagi); which whoso 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 th' 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 plac'd in order, on their banks, they sweep 115
The sea's smooth face, and cleave the hoary deep;
With heavy hearts we labour through the tide,
To coasts unknown, and oceans yet untry'd.
The land of Cyclops first; a savage kind, Nor tam'd by manners, nor by laws confin'd: 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, 125 And Jove descends in each prolific shower. By these no statutes 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.
Oppos'd to the Cyclopean coasts, there lay An isle, whose hills their subject fields survey; Its name Lachæa, crown'd with many a grove, Where savage goats through pathless thickets
No needy mortals here, with hunger bold,
Or wretched hunters through the wintery cold
Pursue their flight: but leave them safe to bound
From hill to hill, o'er all the desert ground.
Nor knows the soil to feed the fleecy care,
Or feels the labours of the crooked share;
But uninhabited, untill'd, unsown
It lies, and breeds the bleating goat alone.
For there no vessel with vermilion prore,
Or bark of traffic, glides from shore to shore;
The rugged race of savages, unskill'd
The seas to traverse, or the ships to build,
Gaze on the coast, nor cultivate the soil;
Unlearn'd in all th' industrious arts of toil.
Yet here all products and all plants abound,
Sprung from the fruitful genius of the ground;
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