No More Learning

I slew him not sleeping--
For there we all had perished, since it past
Our powers to lift aside a log so vast
As barred all our escape.

At morn, he drove forth the flocks, but barred the entry again, having
devoured two more of my comrades. But we made ready a great stake for
thrusting out his one eye. And when he came home at night, driving in
all his sheep,

Two of my soldiers more
At once he snatched up, and to supper went.
Then dared I words to him, and did present
A bowl of wine with these words: "Cyclop! take
A bowl of wine. " "Thy name, that I may make
A hospitable gift; for this rich wine
Fell from the river, that is more divine,
Of nectar and ambrosia. " "Cyclop, see,
My name is No-Man. " Cruel answered he.
"No-Man! I'll eat thee last of all thy friends. "
He slept; we took the spar, made keen before,
And plunged it in his eye. Then did he roar
In claps like thunder.

Other Cyclops gathered, to inquire who had harmed him; but he--

"by craft, not might,
No-Man hath given me death. " They then said right,
"If no man hurt thee, and thyself alone,
That which is done to thee by Jove is done.
"
Then groaning up and down, he groping tried
To find the stone, which found, he put aside,
But in the door sat, feeling if he could,
As the sheep issued, on some man lay hold.

But we, ranging the sheep three abreast, were borne out under their
bellies, and drove them in haste down to our ship; and having put out,
I cried aloud:

"Cyclop! if any ask thee who imposed
Th' unsightly blemish that thine eye enclosed,
Say that Ulysses, old Laertes' son,
Whose seat is Ithaca, who hath won
Surname of city-razer, bored it out. "
At this he brayed so loud that round about
He drove affrighted echoes through the air
In burning fury; and the top he tare
From off a huge rock, and so right a throw
Made at our ship that just before the prow
It overflew and fell, missed mast and all
Exceeding little; but about the fall
So fierce a wave it raised that back it bore
Our ship, so far it almost touched the shore.

So we escaped; but the Cyclop stirred up against us the wrath of his
father Neptune. Thereafter we came to the caves of AEolus, lord of the
winds, and then to the land of the giants called Laestrygones, whence
there escaped but one ship of all our company.

Then to the isle of AEaea we attained,
Where fair-haired, dreadful, eloquent Circe reigned.
Then I sent a company, led by Eurylochus, to search the land.
These in a dale did Circe's house descry;
Before her gates hill-wolves and lions lie;
Which, with her virtuous drugs, so tame she made
That wolf nor lion would no man invade
With any violence, but all arose,
Their huge, long tails wagged, and in fawns would close,
As loving dogs. Amaz'd they stay'd at gate,
And heard within the goddess elevate
A voice divine, as at her web she wrought,
Subtle and glorious and past earthly thought.

She called them in, but Eurylochus, abiding without, saw her feast
them, and then turn them with her wand into swine. From him hearing
these things I hastened thither. But Hermes met me, and gave me of the
herb Moly, to be a protection against her spells, and wise counsel
withal. So when she had feasted me she touched me with her wand.

I drew my sword, and charged her, as I meant
To take her life. When out she cried, and bent
Beneath my sword her knees, embracing mine,
And full of tears, said, "Who, of what high line
Art thou?