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Polyphemus rips off the tip of the hill and throws it at the Men of Achaea

Mar 14th, 2023 (edited)
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  1. I called back to the Cyclops, stinging taunts:
  2. ‘So, Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew
  3. you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave —
  4. you with your brute force! Your filthy crimes
  5. came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal,
  6. daring to eat your guests in your own house —
  7. so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back!’
  8.  
  9. That made the rage of the monster boil over.
  10. Ripping off the peak of a towering crag, he heaved it
  11. so hard the boulder landed just in front of our dark prow
  12. and a huge swell reared up as the rock went plunging under —
  13. a tidal wave from the open sea. The sudden backwash
  14. drove us landward again, forcing us close inshore
  15. but grabbing a long pole, I thrust us off and away,
  16. tossing my head for dear life, signaling crews
  17. to put their backs in the oars, escape grim death.
  18. They threw themselves in the labor, rowed on fast
  19. but once we’d plowed the breakers twice as far,
  20. again I began to taunt the Cyclops —men around me
  21. trying to check me, calm me, left and right:
  22. So headstrong —why? Why rile the beast again?’
  23.  
  24. ‘That rock he flung in the sea just now, hurling our ship
  25. to shore once more —we thought we’d die on the spot!’
  26.  
  27. ‘If he’d caught a sound from one of us, just a moan,
  28. he would have crushed our heads and ship timbers
  29. with one heave of another flashing, jagged rock!’
  30.  
  31. ‘Good god, the brute can throw!’
  32.  
  33. The Odyssey, Book 9, Translated by Robert Fagles.
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