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.
- Shall I let thee taste the wine unmixed, to start with?
- A reasonable offer; for of a truth a taste invites the purchase.
- Well, I haul about a cup as well as the skin.
- Come, let it gurgle in, that I may revive my memory by a pull at it.
- There then!
- Ye gods! what a delicious scent it has!
- What! didst thou see it?
- No, i’ faith, but I smell it.
- Taste it then, that thy approval may not stop at words.
- Zounds! Bacchus is inviting me to dance; ha! ha!
- Did it not gurgle finely down thy throttle?
- Aye that it did, to the ends of my fingers.
- Well, we will give thee money besides.
- Only undo the skin, and never mind the money.
- Bring out the cheeses then and lambs.
- I will do so, with small thought of any master. For let me have a single cup of that and I would turn madman,
- giving in exchange for it the flocks of every Cyclops and then throwing myself into the sea from the Leucadian rock, once I have been well drunk and smoothed out my wrinkled brow. For if a man rejoice not in his drinking, he is mad; for in drinking there is love
- with all its frolic, and dancing withal, and oblivion of woe. Shall not I then purchase so rare a drink, bidding the senseless Cyclops and his central eye go hang? Exit Silenus.
- Hearken, Odysseus, let us hold some converse with thee.
- Well, do so; ours is a meeting of friends.