O, BACCHUS, what a world of toil, both now
And ere these limbs were overworn with age,
Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled'st
The mountain-nymphs who nurst thee, driven afar
By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;
Then in the battle of the sons of Earth,
When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,
No unpropitious fellow-combatant,
And driving through his shield my winged spear,
Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,
Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!
And now I suffer more than all before.
For when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea
With all my children quaint in search of you;
And I myself stood on the beaked prow
And fix'd the naked mast, and all my boys.
Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
Made white with foam the green and purple sea, -
And so we sought you, king. We were sailing,
Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,
And drove us to this wild Ætnean rock;
The one-eyed children of the Ocean God,

The man-destroying Cyclopses inhabit,

On this wild shore, their solitary caves,

And one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us

To be his slaves; and so, for all delight

Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,

We keep this lawless giant's wandering flocks.
My sons indeed, on far declivities,

Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,
But I remain to fill the water-casks,

Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering
Some impious and abominable meal
To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!
And now I must scrape up the litter'd floor
With this great iron rake, so to receive
My absent master and his evening sheep
In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see
My children tending the flocks hitherward.
Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures
Even now the same, as when with dance and song
You brought young Bacchus to Athæa's halls?

The wanton wretch! she was bewitch'd to see
The many-colour'd anklets and the chain
Of woven gold which girt the neck of Paris,
And so she left that good man Menelaus.
There should be no more women in the world
But such as are reserved for me alone. -

See, here are sheep, and here are goats, Ulysses,
Here are unsparing cheeses of press'd milk;
Take them; depart with what good speed ye may;
First leaving my reward, the Bacchic dew
Of joy-inspiring grapes.

ULYSSES.

Ah me! Alas!

What shall we do? the Cyclops is at hand! Old man, we perish! whither can we fly?

SILENUS.

Hide yourselves quick within that hollow rock.

ULYSSES.

'T were perilous to fly into the net.

SILENUS.

The cavern has recesses numberless; Hide yourselves quick.

ULYSSES.

That will I never do!

The mighty Troy would be indeed disgraced
If I should fly one man. How many times
Have I withstood, with shield immoveable,
Ten thousand Phrygians!-if I needs must die,
Yet will I die with glory; -if I live,
The praise which I have gain'd will yet remain.

SILENUS.

What, ho! assistance, comrades, haste assistance! The CYCLOPS, SILENUS, ULYSSES; CHORUS.

CYCLOPS.

What is this tumult? Bacchus is not here,
Nor tympanies nor brazen castanets.
How are my young lambs in the cavern? Milking
Their dams or playing by their sides? And is
The new cheese press'd into the bull-rush baskets?
Speak! I'll beat some of you till you rain tears-
Look up, not downwards when I speak to you.

See! I now gape at Jupiter himself, I stare upon Orion and the stars.

CYCLOPS.

Well, is the dinner fitly cook'd and laid?

SILENUS.

4

'T was the Gods' work-no mortal was in fault. But, O great offspring of the ocean-king,

We pray thee and admonish thee with freedom,
That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee,
And place no impious food within thy jaws.
For in the depths of Greece we have uprear'd
Temples to thy great father, which are all
His homes. The sacred bay of Tænarus
Remains inviolate, and eaclı dim recess
Scoop'd high on the Malean promontory,
And aery Sunium's silver-veined crag,
Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever,
The Gerastian asylums, and whate'er
Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept
From Phrygian contumely; and in which
You have a common care, for you inhabit
The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots
Of Ætna and its crags, spotted with fire.
Turn then to converse under human laws,
Receive us shipwreck'd suppliants, and provide
Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts;
Nor fixing upon oxen-piercing spits
Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.
Priam's wide land has widow'd Greece enough;
And weapon-winged murder heap'd together
Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless,

And ancient women and grey fathers wail
Their childless age; -if you should roast the rest,
And 't is a bitter feast that you prepare,
Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded;
Forego the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer
Pious humanity to wicked will:
Many have bought too dear their evil joys.

SILENUS.

Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel
Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue
You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops!

CYCLOPS.

Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man's God,
All other things are a pretence and boast.
What are my father's ocean promontories,
The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?
Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove's thunderbolt,
I know not that his strength is more than mine.
As to the rest I care not:-When he pours
Rain from above, I have a close pavilion
Under this rock, in which I lie supine,
Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast,
And drinking pans of milk; and gloriously
Emulating the thunder of high heaven.
And when the Thracian wind pours down the snow,
I wrap my body in the skins of beasts,
Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on.
The earth, by force, whether it will or no,
Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and herds,
Which, to what other God but to myself
And this great belly, first of deities,
Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know
The wise man's only Jupiter is this,
To eat and drink during his little day,
And give himself no care. And as for those
Who complicate with laws the life of man,
I freely give them tears for their reward.
I will not cheat my soul of its delight,
Or hesitate in dining upon you:-
And that I may be quit of all demands,
These are my hospitable gifts; fierce fire
And yon ancestral cauldron, which o'erbubbling,
Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.
Creep in!-

ULYSSES.

Ay! ay! I have escaped the Trojan toils,
I have escaped the sea, and now I fall
Under the cruel grasp of one impious man.
O Pallas, mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,
Now, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy
Are these. I totter on the chasms of peril;-
And thou who inhabitest the thrones
Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove,
Upon this outrage of thy deity,
Otherwise be consider'd as no God!

CHORUS (alone).

For your gaping gulf, and your gullet wide,
The ravine is ready on every side,

The limbs of the strangers are cook'd and done,

There is boil'd meat, and roast meat, and meat from the

coal,

You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for fun,

A hairy goat's-skin contains the whole.

Let me but escape, and ferry me o'er

The stream of your wrath to a safer shore.