Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/120

96 I saw, when his enormous hand

Plucked forth two victims from our band,

Swung round, and on the threshold dashed,

While all the floor with blood was splashed:

I saw him grind them, bleeding fresh,

And close his teeth on quivering flesh:

Not unrequited: such a wrong

My wily chieftain brooked not long:

E'en in that dire extreme of ill

Ulysses was Ulysses still.

For when o'ercome with sleep and wine

Along the cave he lay supine,

Ejecting from his monstrous maw

Wine mixed, with gore and gobbets raw,

We pray to Heaven, our parts dispose,

And in a circle round him close,

With sharpened point that eyeball pierce

Which 'neath his brow glared lone and fierce,

Like Argive shield or sun's broad light,

And thus our comrades' death requite.

But fly, unhappy, fly, and tear

Your anchors from the shore:

For vast as Polyphemus there

Guards, feeds, and milks his fleecy carcare [sic]

On the sea's margin make their home

And o'er the lofty mountains roam

A hundred Cyclops more.

Three moons their circuit nigh have made,

Since in wild den or woodland shade

My wretched life I trail,

See Cyclops stalk from rock to rock,

And tremble at their footsteps' shock,

And at their voices quail.

Hard cornel fruits that life sustain,

And grasses gathered from the plain.