No More Learning

_335
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, _340
Upon this outrage of thy deity,
Otherwise be considered as no God!

CHORUS (ALONE):
For your gaping gulf and your gullet wide,
The ravin is ready on every side,
The limbs of the strangers are cooked and done; _345
There is boiled meat, and roast meat, and meat from the coal,
You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun,
An 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. _350
The Cyclops Aetnean is cruel and bold,
He murders the strangers
That sit on his hearth,
And dreads no avengers
To rise from the earth. _355
He roasts the men before they are cold,
He snatches them broiling from the coal,
And from the caldron pulls them whole,
And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone
With his cursed teeth, till all be gone. _360
Farewell, foul pavilion:
Farewell, rites of dread!
The Cyclops vermilion,
With slaughter uncloying,
Now feasts on the dead, _365
In the flesh of strangers joying!

NOTE:
_344 ravin Rossetti; spelt ravine in B. , editions 1824, 1839.

ULYSSES:
O Jupiter! I saw within the cave
Horrible things; deeds to be feigned in words,
But not to be believed as being done.

NOTE:
_369 not to be believed B. ; not believed 1824.

CHORUS:
What!
sawest thou the impious Polypheme _370
Feasting upon your loved companions now?

ULYSSES:
Selecting two, the plumpest of the crowd,
He grasped them in his hands. --

CHORUS:
Unhappy man!

. . .

ULYSSES:
Soon as we came into this craggy place,
Kindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth _375
The knotty limbs of an enormous oak,
Three waggon-loads at least, and then he strewed
Upon the ground, beside the red firelight,
His couch of pine-leaves; and he milked the cows,
And pouring forth the white milk, filled a bowl _380
Three cubits wide and four in depth, as much
As would contain ten amphorae, 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 sharpened with the sickle _385
But with a fruit tree bough, and with the jaws
Of axes for Aetnean slaughterings.
And when this God-abandoned Cook of Hell
Had made all ready, he seized two of us
And killed them in a kind of measured manner; _390
For he flung one against the brazen rivets
Of the huge caldron, and seized the other
By the foot's tendon, and knocked out his brains
Upon the sharp edge of the craggy stone:
Then peeled his flesh with a great cooking-knife _395
And put him down to roast. The other's limbs
He chopped into the caldron to be boiled.
And I, with the tears raining from my eyes,
Stood near the Cyclops, ministering to him;
The rest, in the recesses of the cave, _400
Clung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear.
When he was filled with my companions' flesh,
He threw himself upon the ground and sent
A loathsome exhalation from his maw.
Then a divine thought came to me. I filled _405
The cup of Maron, and I offered 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, _410
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, filled
Another cup, well knowing that the wine _415
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 warmed his entrails, and he sang aloud
In concert with my wailing fellow-seamen _420
A hideous discord--and the cavern rung.