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.

  1. Ha! ha! what a trouble it was getting out! This is pleasure unalloyed; earth and sky seem whirling round together; I see the throne of Zeus
  2. and all the godhead’s majesty. Kiss thee! no! There are the Graces trying to tempt me. I shall rest well enough with my Ganymede here; yea, by the Graces, right fairly.
Silenus
  1. What! Cyclops, am I Ganymede, Zeus’s minion?
Cyclops
  1. (attempting to carry him into the cave.) To be sure, Ganymede whom I am carrying off from the halls of Dardanus.
Silenus
  1. I am undone, my children; outrageous treatment waits me.
Chorus
  1. Dost find fault with thy lover? dost scorn him in his cups?
Silenus
  1. Woe is me! most bitter shall I find the wine ere long. [Exit Silenus, dragged away by Cyclops.
Odysseus
  1. Up now, children of Dionysus, sons of a noble sire, soon will yon creature in the cave, relaxed in slumber as ye see him, spew from his shameless maw the meat. Already the brand inside his lair is vomiting a cloud of smoke; and the only reason we prepared it was to burn
  2. the Cyclops’ eye; so mind thou quit thee like a man.
Chorus
  1. I will have a spirit as of rock or adamant; but go inside, before my father suffers any shameful treatment; for here thou hast things ready.
Odysseus
  1. O Hephaestus, lord of Aetna, rid thyself for once and all of a troublesome neighbour
  2. by burning his bright eye out. Come, Sleep, as well, offspring of sable Night, come with all thy power on the monster god-detested; and never after Troy’s most glorious toils destroy Odysseus and his crew
  3. by the hands of one who recketh naught of God or man; else must we reckon Chance a goddess, and Heaven’s wall inferior to hers. [Odysseus re-enters the cave.
Chorus
  1. Tightly the pincers shall grip the neck
  2. of him who feasts upon his guest; for soon will he lose the light of his eye by fire; already the brand, a tree’s huge limb,
  3. lurks amid the embers charred.
  4. Oh! come ye then and work his doom, pluck out the maddened Cyclops’ eye, that he may rue his drinking.
  5. And I too fain would leave the Cyclops’ lonely land and see king Bromius, ivy-crowned, the god I sorely miss. Ah! shall I ever come to that?
Odysseus
  1. (leaving the cave cautiously.) Silence, ye cattle! I adjure you;
  2. close your lips; make not a sound! I’ll not let a man of you so much as breathe or wink or clear his throat, that yon pest awake not, until the sight in the Cyclops’ eye has passed through the fiery ordeal.