Page:The story of Greece told to boys and girls.djvu/92

 who hadst no shame to eat thy guests within thy gates, wherefore Zeus hath requited thee and the other gods.'

In his rage Polyphemus took a great rock off the top of a mountain and hurled it in the direction from which the voice came. The rock fell near to the bow of the ship, so that the waters rose and pushed the vessel toward the shore.

But Odysseus seized a pole and swiftly thrust the ship back from the land. Then he bade the sailors pull for the open sea with might and main.

When the ship was once more some distance from the shore, Odysseus taunted the giant yet again with his evil deeds.

'Cyclops,' he cried, 'if any one of mortal men shall ask thee of the unsightly blinding of thine eye, say that it was Odysseus who blinded it, the Waster of Cities, son of Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca.'

Then the giant, in impotent anger, stretched out his hands to the heavens and cried, 'Hear me, Poseidon, girdler of the earth, god of the dark hair, if indeed I be thy son Grant that he may never come to his home, even Odysseus, waster of cities, son of Laertes, whose dwelling is in Ithaca; yet if he is ordained to see his friends and come into his well-builded house and his own country, late may he come, and in evil case, with the loss of all his company, in the ship of strangers, and find sorrows in his house.'

And so it came to pass, even as the Cyclops prayed, for only after many wanderings did Odysseus reach his home, to find it in the hands of those who prayed that the king might never return to Ithaca.