535

Cyclops. How does the God like living in a skin?
Ulysses. He is content wherever he is put.
Cyclops. Gods should not have their body in a skin.
Ulysses. If he gives joy, what is his skin to you?
Cyclops. I hate the skin, but love the wine within.
Ulysses. Stay here now drink, and make your spirit glad.
Cyclops. Should I not share this liquor with my brothers?
Ulysses. Keep it yourself, and be more honoured so.

Cyclops. I were more useful, giving to my friends. 540
Ulysses. But village mirth breeds contests, broils, and blows.
Cyclops. When I am drunk none shall lay hands on me.—
Ulysses. A drunken man is better within doors.
Cyclops. He is a fool, who drinking, loves not mirth.
Ulysses. But he is wise, who drunk, remains at home. 545
Cyclops. What shall I do, Silenus? Shall I stay?

Silenus. Stay-for what need have you of pot companions?
Cyclops. Indeed this place is closely carpeted
With flowers and grass.

Silenus.

And in the sun-warm noon

"Tis sweet to drink. Lie down beside me now,
Placing your mighty sides upon the ground.
Cyclops. What do you put the cup behind me for?
Silenus. That no one here may touch it.
Cyclops.
You want to drink ;-here place it in the midst.
And thou, O stranger, tell how art thou called?

Thievish one!

Ulysses. My name is Nobody. What favour now Shall I receive to praise you at your hands? Cyclops. I'll feast on you the last of your companions. Ulysses. You grant your guest a fair reward, O Cyclops. Cyclops. Ha! what is this? Stealing the wine, you rogue Silenus. It was this stranger kissing me because I looked so beautiful.

Cyclops.

You shall repent

For kissing_the_coy wine that loves you not.
Silenus. By Jupiter! you said that I am fair.
Cyclops. Pour out, and only give me the cup full.
Silenus. How is it mixed? let me observe.

Cyclops.

Give it me so.

Silenus.

Not till I see you wear

That coronal, and taste the cup to you.

Cyclops. Thou wily traitor!

Silenus.

550

555

!

561

565

Curse you!

But the wine is sweet.

Ay, you will roar if you are caught in drinking.
Cyclops. See now, my lip is clean and all my beard.
Silenus. Now put your elbow right and drink again.
As you see me drink-

Cyclops. How now?
Silenus.

Ye Gods, what a delicious gulp! 537 Stay here now. drink B.; stay here, now drink 1824.

570

580

Cyclops. Guest, take it;-you pour out the wine for me. 575 Ulysses. The wine is well accustomed to my hand. Cyclops. Pour out the wine! Ulysses. I pour; only be silent. Cyclops. Silence is a hard task to him who drinks. Ulysses. Take it and drink it off; leave not a dreg. Oh, that the drinker died with his own draught! Cyclops. Papai! the vine must be a sapient plant. Ulysses. If you drink much after a mighty feast, Moistening your thirsty maw, you will sleep well; If you leave aught, Bacchus will dry you up. Cyclops. Ho! ho! I can scarce rise. What pure delight! The heavens and earth appear to whirl about Confusedly. I see the throne of Jove And the clear congregation of the Gods. Now if the Graces tempted me to kiss I would not-for the loveliest of them all I would not leave this Ganymede.

Silenus.

I am the Ganymede of Jupiter.

Polypheme,

586

590

Cyclops. By Jove, you are; I bore you off from Dardanus.

Ulysses. Come, boys of Bacchus, children of high race,

This man within is folded up in sleep,

And soon will vomit flesh from his fell maw;

No preparation needs, but to burn out

The brand under the shed thrusts out its smoke,

The monster's eye;-but bear yourselves like men.

Chorus. We will have courage like the adamant rock,
All things are ready for you here; go in,
Before our father shall perceive the noise.

Ulysses. Vulcan, Aetnean king! burn out with fire

The shining eye of this thy neighbouring monster!
And thou, O Sleep, nursling of gloomy Night,
Descend unmixed on this God-hated beast,
And suffer not Ulysses and his comrades,
Returning from their famous Trojan toils,
To perish by this man, who cares not either
For God or mortal; or I needs must think
That Chance is a supreme divinity,
And things divine are subject to her power.

Chorus.

595

600

605

610

Fire will burn his lamp-like eyes

615

In revenge of such a feast!

A great oak stump now is lying
In the ashes yet undying.

606 God-hated 1824; God-hating (as an alternative) B.

Come, Maron, come!
Raging let him fix the doom,
Let him tear the eyelid up
Of the Cyclops-that his cup
May be evil!

Oh! I long to dance and revel
With sweet Bromian, long desired,
In loved ivy wreaths attired;
Leaving this abandoned home-
Will the moment ever come?

620

625

Ulysses. Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace, And keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe,

630

Or spit, or e'en wink, lest ye wake the monster,
Until his eye be tortured out with fire.

Chorus. Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air.

Ulysses. Come now, and lend a hand to the great stake Within-it is delightfully red hot.

635

Chorus. You then command who first should seize the stake To burn the Cyclops' eye, that all may share

In the great enterprise.

Semichorus I.

We cannot at this distance from the door

Thrust fire into his eye.

Semichorus II.

We are too far;

And we just now

Have become lame! cannot move hand or foot.

Chorus. The same thing has occurred to us, our ankles
Are sprained with standing here, I know not how.
Ulysses. What, sprained with standing still?

Chorus.

Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence.

Chorus. With pitying my own back and my back-bone,

640

And there is dust

645

Ulysses. Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me then?

And with not wishing all my teeth knocked out,
This cowardice comes of itself-but stay,

I know a famous Orphic incantation

650

To make the brand stick of its own accord

Into the skull of this one-eyed son of Earth.

Ulysses. Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now

I know ye better.-I will use the aid

Of my own comrades. Yet though weak of hand
Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken

655

The courage of my friends with your blithe words.
Chorus. This I will do with peril of my life,
And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops.

Hasten and thrust,
And parch up to dust,
The eye of the beast
Who feeds on his guest.
Burn and blind

The Aetnean hind!

660

665

Scoop and draw,

But beware lest he claw

Your limbs near his maw.

Cyclops. Ah me! my eyesight is parched up to cinders. Chorus. What a sweet paean! sing me that again! Cyclops. Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me! But, wretched nothings, think ye not to flee Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet, Will bar the way and catch you as you pass. Chorus. What are you roaring out, Cyclops? Cyclops.

Chorus. For you are wicked.

Cyclops.

670

I perish! 675

And besides miserable. Chorus. What, did you fall into the fire when drunk? "Twas Nobody destroyed me.

Cyclops.

Chorus.

Can be to blame.

Cyclops.

Who blinded me.
Chorus.

I say 'twas Nobody

Why then no one

Why then you are not blind.

Cyclops. I wish you were as blind as I am.

Chorus.

It cannot be that no one made you blind.

680

Nay,

Cyclops. You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?
Chorus. Nowhere, O Cyclops.

Cyclops. It was that stranger ruined me--the wretch 685 First gave me wine and then burned out my eye,

For wine is strong and hard to struggle with.

Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

Chorus. They stand under the darkness of the rock And cling to it.

Cyclops.

At my right hand or left?

Chorus. Close on your right.

Cyclops.
Chorus.

690

Where?

Near the rock itself.

You have them.

Oh, misfortune on misfortune!

Now they escape you there.

Not on that side.

Cyclops.

I've cracked my skull.
Chorus.

Cyclops. Not there, although you say so.
Chorus.

Cyclops. Where then?
Chorus.
They creep about you on your left. 695
Cyclops. Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in my ills.
Chorus. Not there! he is a little there beyond you.
Cyclops. Detested wretch! where are you?

Ulysses.

I keep with care this body of Ulysses.

Far from you

Cyclops. What do you say? You proffer a new name. 700 Ulysses. My father named me so; and I have taken

693 So B.; Now they escape you there 1824.

A full revenge for your unnatural feast;

I should have done ill to have burned down Troy
And not revenged the murder of my comrades.

Cyclops. Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished;
It said that I should have my eyesight blinded
By your coming from Troy, yet it foretold
That you should pay the

penalty for this

By wandering long over the homeless sea.

Ulysses. I bid thee weep-consider what I say;

I go towards the shore to drive my ship

Cyclops. Not so, if, whelming you with this huge stone,

To mine own land, o'er the Sicilian wave.

I can crush you and all your men together;

I will descend upon the shore, though blind,

Groping my way adown the steep ravine.

Chorus. And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now, Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.

EPIGRAMS

705

710

715

[These four Epigrams were published-nos. II and IV without title -by Mrs. Shelley, Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed.]

I. TO STELLA

FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO

THOU wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.

II. KISSING HELENA

FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO

KISSING Helena, together

With my kiss, my soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it,-
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it,
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!

III. SPIRIT OF PLATO

FROM THE GREEK

EAGLE! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-ypaven home

Floatest thou?

I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,
Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit

5

5

His corpse below.

Spirit of Plato-5 doth Boscombe MS.; does ed. 1839.