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.
- Close against the rock. Hast caught them?
- Trouble on trouble! I have run my skull against the rock and cracked it.
- Aye, and they are escaping thee.
- This way, was it not? ’Twas this way thou saidst.
- No, not this way.
- Which then?
- They are getting round thee on the left.
- Alas! I am being mocked; ye jeer me in my evil plight.
- They are no longer there; but facing thee that stranger stands.
- Master of villainy, where, oh! where art thou?
- Some way from thee
- I am keeping careful guard over the person of Odysseus.
- What, a new name! hast changed thine?
- Yes, Odysseus the name my father gave me. But thou wert doomed to pay for thy unholy feast; for I should have seen Troy burned to but sorry purpose,
- unless I had avenged on thee the slaughter of my comrades.
- Woe is me! ’tis an old oracle coming true; yes, it said I should have my eye put out by thee on thy way home from Troy; but it likewise foretold that thou wouldst surely pay for this,
- tossing on the sea for many a day.
- Go hang! E’en as I say,[*]() so have I done. And now will I get me to the beach and start my hollow ship across the sea of Sicily to the land of my fathers.
- Thou shalt not; I will break a boulder off this rock
- and crush thee, crew and all, beneath my throw. Blind though I be, I will climb the hill, mounting through yonder tunnel.