Cyclops
Euripides
Euripides. The Plays of Euripides, Translated into English Prose from the Text of Paley. Vol. II. Coleridge, Edward P., translator. London: George Bell and Sons, 1891.
- Are the bowls too full of milk?
- Aye, so that thou canst swill off a whole hogshead, so it please thee.
- Sheeps’ milk or cows’ milk or a mixture of both?
- Whichever thou wilt; don’t swallow me, that’s all.
- Not I; for you would start kicking in the pit of my stomach and kill me by your antics. (Catching sight of Odysseus and his followers.) Ha! what is this crowd I see near the folds? Some pirates or robbers have put in here. Yes, I really see the lambs from my caves
- tied up there with twisted osiers, cheese-presses scattered about, and old Silenus with his bald pate all swollen with blows.
- Oh! oh! poor wretch that I am, pounded to a fever.
- By whom? who has been pounding thy head, old sirrah?
- These are the culprits, Cyclops, all because I refused to let them plunder thee.
- Did they not know I was a god and sprung from gods?
- That was what I told them, but they persisted in plundering thy goods, and, in spite of my efforts, they actually began to eat the cheese and carry off the lambs; and they said they would
- tie thee in a three-cubit pillory and tear out thy bowels by force at thy navel, and flay thy back thoroughly with the scourge; and then, after binding thee, fling thy carcase down among the benches of their ship to sell to some one
- for heaving up stones, or else throw thee into a mill.
- Oh, indeed! Be off then and sharpen my cleavers at once; heap high the faggots and light them; for they shall be slain forthwith and fill this maw of mine,
- what time I pick my feast hot from the coals, waiting not for carvers, and fish up the rest from the cauldron boiled and sodden; for I have had my fill of mountain-fare and sated myself with banquets of lions and stags, but ’tis long I have been without human flesh.
- Truly, master, a change like this is all the sweeter after everyday fare; for just of late there have been no fresh arrivals of strangers at these caves.
- Hear the strangers too in turn, Cyclops. We had come near the cave from our ship,
- wishing to procure provisions by purchase, when this fellow sold us the lambs and handed them over for a stoup of wine to drink himself,—a voluntary act on both sides,—there was no violence employed at all. No, there is not a particle of truth in the story he tells,
- now that he has been caught selling thy property behind thy back.
- I? Perdition catch thee!