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.
- 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.
- Did you take Troy and capture the famous Helen?
- Aye, and we destroyed the whole family of Priam.
- After capturing your blooming prize,
- were all of you in turn her lovers? for she likes variety in husbands; the traitress! the sight of a man with embroidered breeches on his legs and a golden chain about his neck so fluttered her,
- that she left Menelaus, her excellent little husband. Would there had never been a race of women born into the world at all, unless it were for me alone!
- (reappearing with food.) Lo! I bring you fat food from the flocks, king Odysseus, the young of bleating sheep
- and cheeses of curdled milk without stint. Carry them away with you and be gone from the cave at once, after giving me a drink of merry grape-juice in exchange.