Euripides' CYCLOPS Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

44 pages - You are on Page 21

Odysseus: Alas! escaped from the troubles of Troy and the sea, my
barque now strands upon the whim and forbidding heart of this savage.
O Pallas, mistress mine, goddess-daughter of Zeus, help me, help me
now; for I am come to toils and depths of peril worse than all at
Ilium; and thou, O Zeus, the stranger's god, who hast thy dwelling
'mid the radiant stars, behold these things; for, if thou regard them
not, in vain art thou esteemed the great god Zeus, though but a thing
of naught. (He follows the Cyclops reluctantly. Silenus also goes
in.)

Chorus: (singing) Ope wide the portal of thy gaping throat, Cyclops;
for strangers' limbs, both boiled and grilled, are ready from off
the coals for the to gnaw and tear and mince up small, reclining in
thy shaggy goat-skin coat.

Relinquish not thy meal for me; keep that boat for thyself alone.
Avaunt this cave! avaunt the burnt-offerings, which the godless Cyclops
offers on Aetna's altars, exulting in meals on strangers' flesh!

Oh! the ruthless monster! to sacrifice his guests at his own hearth,
the suppliants of his halls, cleaving and tearing and serving up to
his loathsome teeth a feast of human flesh, hot from the coals.

Odysseus: (reappearing with a look of horror) O Zeus! what can I
say after the hideous sights I have seen inside the cave, things past
belief, resembling more the tales men tell than aught they do?

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