Dialogi Marini

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 1. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

Posidon You must have slept pretty soundly, my boy, or you would have jumped up in the middle of it. Well, and how did Odysseus get off? He couldn’t move that stone away, I know.

Cyclops I took that away myself, so as to catch him as he went out. I sat down in the doorway, and felt about for him with my hands. I just let the sheep go out to pasture, and told the ram everything I wanted done.

Posidon Ah! and they slipped out under the sheep? But you should have set the other Cyclopes on to him.

Cyclops I did call them, and they came: but when they asked me who it was that was playing tricks with me, I said ‘Noman’; and then they thought I was mad, and went off home again.

v.1.p.93

The villain! that name of his was just a trick! And what I minded most was the way in which he made game of my misfortune: ‘Not even Papa can put this right,’ he said.

Posidon Never mind, my boy; I will be even with him. I may not be able to cure blindness, but he shall know that I have something to say to mariners. He is not home yet.