Metamorphoses

Ovid

Ovid. Metamorphoses. More, Brookes, translator. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co., 1922.

  1. Sibylla with such words beguild their way
  2. from Stygian realms up to the Euboean town.
  3. Trojan Aeneas, after he had made
  4. due sacrifice in Cumae, touched the shore
  5. that had not yet been given his nurse's name.
  6. There Macareus of Neritus had come,
  7. companion of long tried Ulysses, there
  8. he rested, weary of his lengthened toils.
  9. He recognized one left in Aetna's cave,
  10. greek Achaemenides, and, all amazed
  11. to find him yet alive, he said to him,
  12. “What chance, or what god, Achaemenides,
  13. preserves you? Why is this barbarian ship
  14. conveying you a Greek? What land is sought?”
  15. No longer ragged in the clothes he wore
  16. and his own master, wearing clothes not tacked
  17. with sharp thorns, Achaemenides replied,
  18. “Again may I see Polyphemus' jaws
  19. out-streaming with their slaughtered human blood;
  20. if my own home and Ithaca give more
  21. delight to me than this barbarian bark,
  22. or if I venerate Aeneas less
  23. than my own father. If I should give my all,
  24. it never could express my gratitude,
  25. that I can speak and breath, and see the heavens
  26. illuminated by the gleaming sun—
  27. how can I be ungrateful and forget all this?
  28. Because of him these limbs of mine were spared
  29. the Cyclops' jaws; and, though I were even now
  30. to leave the light of life, I should at worst
  31. be buried in a tomb—not in his maw.
  32. “What were my feelings when (unless indeed
  33. my terror had deprived me of all sense) left there,
  34. I saw you making for the open sea?
  35. I wished to shout aloud, but was afraid
  36. it would betray me to the enemy.
  37. The shoutings of Ulysses nearly caused
  38. destruction of your ship and there I saw
  39. the Cyclops, when he tore a crag away
  40. and hurled the huge rock in the whirling waves;
  41. I saw him also throw tremendous stones
  42. with his gigantic arms. They flew afar,
  43. as if impelled by catapults of war,
  44. I was struck dumb with terror lest
  45. the waves or stones might overwhelm the ship,
  46. forgetting that I still was on the shore!
  47. “But when your flight had saved you from that death
  48. of cruelty, the Cyclops, roaring rage,
  49. paced all about Mount Aetna, groping through
  50. its forests with his outstretched arms. Deprived
  51. of sight, he stumbled there against the rocks,
  52. until he reached the sea; and stretching out
  53. his gore stained arms into its waters there,
  54. he cursed all of the Grecian race, and said,
  55. ‘Oh! that some accident would carry back
  56. Ulysses to me, or but one of his
  57. companions; against whom my rage
  58. might vent itself, whose joints my hand might tear
  59. whose blood might drench my throat, whose living limbs
  60. might quiver in my teeth. How trifling then,
  61. how insignificant would be the loss,
  62. of my sight which he took from me!’
  63. “All this
  64. and more he said. A ghastly horror took
  65. possession of me when I saw his face
  66. and every feature streaming yet with blood,
  67. his ruthless hands, and the vile open space
  68. where his one eye had been, and his coarse limbs,
  69. and his beard matted through with human blood.
  70. “It seemed as if Death were before my eyes,
  71. yet that was but the least part of my woe.
  72. I seemed upon the point of being caught,
  73. my flesh about to be the food of his.
  74. Before my mind was fixed the time I saw
  75. two bodies of my loved companions
  76. dashed three or four times hard against the ground,
  77. when he above them, like a lion, crouched,
  78. devouring quickly in his hideous jaws,
  79. their entrails and their flesh and their crushed bones,
  80. white marrowed, and their mangled quivering limbs.
  81. A trembling fear seized on me as I stood
  82. pallid and without power to move from there,
  83. while I recalled him chewing greedily,
  84. and belching out his bloody banquet from
  85. his huge mouth—vomiting crushed pieces mixed
  86. with phlegmy wine—and I feared such a doom
  87. in readiness, awaited wretched me.
  88. “Most carefully concealed for many days,
  89. trembling at every sound and fearing death,
  90. although desiring death; I fed myself
  91. on grass and acorns, mixed with leaves; alone
  92. and destitute, despondent unto death,
  93. awaiting my destruction I lost hope.
  94. In that condition a long while, at last
  95. I saw a ship not far off, and by signs
  96. prayed for deliverance, as I ran in haste,
  97. down to the shore. My prayers prevailed on them.
  98. A Trojan ship took in and saved a Greek!
  99. “And now, O dearest to me of all men,
  100. tell me of your adventures, of your chief
  101. and comrades, when you sailed out on the sea.”