Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/218

210 Them answer'd, then, Polypheme from his cave. Oh, friends! I die! and Outis gives the blow. To whom with accents wing'd his friends without. If no man harm thee, but thou art alone, And sickness feel'st, it is the stroke of Jove, And thou must bear it; yet invoke for aid Thy father Neptune, Sovereign of the floods. So saying, they went, and in my heart I laugh'd That by the fiction only of a name, Slight stratagem! I had deceived them all. Then groan'd the Cyclops wrung with pain and grief, And, fumbling, with stretch'd hands, removed the rock From his cave's mouth, which done, he sat him down Spreading his arms athwart the pass, to stop Our egress with his flocks abroad; so dull, It seems, he held me, and so ill-advised. I, pondering what means might fittest prove To save from instant death, (if save I might) My people and myself, to ev'ry shift Inclined, and various counsels framed, as one Who strove for life, conscious of woe at hand. To me, thus meditating, this appear'd The likeliest course. The rams well-thriven were, Thick-fleeced, full-sized, with wool of sable hue. These, silently, with osier twigs on which The Cyclops, hideous monster, slept, I bound,