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42 42 HOMER

Just o'er the blue-prowed ship. As the mass fell, Heaved in a stormy tumult the great main, Bearing us landward on the refluent swell. 570

I a long barge-pole seize and strive and strain To work our vessel toward the deep again, Still beckoning to my crew to ply the oar ; Who stoop to the strong toil and pull right fain To twice the former distance from the shore. 575

Then stood I forth to hail the Cyclops yet once more.

Me then my friends with dear dissuasions tire On all sides, one and other. " Desperate one ! Why wilt thou to a wild man's wrath add fire ? Hardly but now did we destruction shun, seo

So nigh that hurling had our bark undone. Yea, let a movement of the mouth but show Where through the billows from his rage we run, And he with heads will strew the dark sea-flow. And break our timbered decks — so mightily doth he throw." 585

So spake they, but so speaking could not turn My breast large-hearted ; and again I sent Accents of wrath, his inmost soul to burn : " Cyclops, if mortal man hereafter, bent To know the story of this strange event, 590

Should of thy hideous blindness make demand. Asking whence came this dire disfigurement. Name thou Laertes-born Odysseus' hand, Waster of walls, who dwells in Ithaca's rough land."

Then did he groaning in these words reply : 595

" Gods I the old oracles upon me break —