The wind that carried west from Ilion

brought me to Ismaros, on the far shore,

a strongpoint on the coast of the Kikones.

I stormed that place and killed the men who fought.

Plunder we took, and we enslaved the women,

to make division, equal share to all -

but on the spot I told them: 'Back, and quickly!

Out to sea again!' My men were mutinous,

fools on stores of wine.

Then I sent out two picked men and a runner

to learn what race of men that land sustained.

They fell in, soon enough, with Lotos Eaters,

who showed no will to do us harm, only

offering the sweet Lotos to our friends...

I drove them, all three wailing, to the ships,

tied them down under their rowing benches,

and called the rest: 'All hands aboard:

come, clear the beach and no one taste

the Lotos, or you lose your hope of home.'

In the next land we found were Kyklopes,

giants, louts, without a low to bless them.

In ignorance leaving the gruitage of the earth in mysters

to the immortal gods, they neither plow

now sow by hand, nor till the ground, though grain -

wild wheat and barley - grows untended, and

wine-grapes, in clusters, ripen in heaven's rain.

Kyklopes have no muster and no meeting,

no consultation or old tribal ways,

but each one dwells in his own mountain cave

dealing out rough justice to wife and child,

indifferent to what the others do.

'Old shipmates, friends,

the rest of you stand by; I'll make the crossing

in my own ship, with my own company,

and find out what the mainland natives are -

for they may be wild savages, and lawless,

or hospitable and god fearing men.'

Ah, how sound that was! Yet I refused. I wished

to see the caveman, what he had to offer -

no pretty sight, it turned out, for my friends.

Neither reply not pity came from him,

but in one stride he clutched at my companions

and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies

to beat their brains out, spattering the floor.

Then he dismembered them and made his meal,

gaping and crunching like a mountain lion -

everything: innards, flesh, and marrow bones.

We cried aloud, lifting our hands to Zeus,

powerless, looking on at this, appalled;

but Kyklops went on filling up his belly

with manflesh and great gulps of whey.

' Kyklops, try some wine.

Here's liquor to wash down your scraps of men.

Taste it, and see the kind of drink we carried

under our planks. I meant it for an offering

if you would help us home. But you are mad,

unbearable, a bloody monster! After this,

will any other traveller come to see you?'

Now, by the gods, I drove my bid hand spike

deep in the embers, charring it again,

and cheered my men along with battle talk

to keep their courage up: no quitting now.

The pike of olive, green though it had been,

reddened and glowed as if about to catch.

I drew it from the coals and my four fellows

gave me a hand, lugging it near the Kyklops

as more than natural force nerved them; straight

forward they sprinted, lifted it, and rammed it

deep in his crater eye...

But I kept thinking how to win the game:

death sat there huge; how could we slip away?

I drew on all my wits, and ran through tactics,

reasoning as a man will for dear life,

until a trick came - and it pleased me well.

The Kyklops' rams were handsome, fat, with heavy

fleeces, a deep violet.

When Dawn spread out her finger tips of rose

and rams began to stir, moving for pasture,

and peals of bleating echoed round the pens

where dams with udders full called for a milking.

Blinded, and sick with pain from his head wound,

the master stroked each ram, then let it pass,

but my men riding on the pectoral fleece

the giant's blind hands blundering never found.

The blind thing in his doubled fury broke

a hilltop in his hands and heaved it after us.

Ahead of our black prow it struck and sank

whelmed in a spumming geyser, a giant wave

that washed the ship stern foremost back to shore.

'O hear me, lord, blue girdler of the islands,

if I am thine indeed, and thou art father:

grant that Odysseus, raider of cities, never

see his home: Laertes' son, I mean,

who kept his hall on Ithaka. Should destiny

intend that he shall see his roof again

among his family in his father land,

far be that day, and dark the years between.

Let him lose all companions, and return

under strange sail to bitter days at home.'

Here we put in, lodged in the town and palace,

while Aiolos played host to me. He kept me

one full month to hear the tale of Troy,

the ships and the return of the Akhaians,

all which I told him point by point in order.

When in return I asked his leave to sail

and asked provisioning, he stinted nothing,

adding a bull's hide sewn from neck to tail

into a mights bag, bottling storm winds...

Then every wind

roared into hurricane; the ships went pitching

west with many cries; our land was lost.

Roused up, despairing in that gloom, I thought:

'Should I go overside for a quick finish

or clench my teeth and stay among the living?'

Down in the bilge I lay, pulling my sea cloak

over my head, while the rough gale blew the ships

and rueful crews clear back to Aiolia.

In the gloom they saw

a woman like a mountain crag, the queen -

and loathed the sight of her. But she, for greeting,

called from the meeting ground her lord and master,

Antiphates, who came to drink their blood.

He seized one man and tore him on the spot,

make a meal of him; the other two

leaped out of doors and ran to join the ships.

In the wild wood they found an open glade,

around a smooth stone house - the hall of Kirke -

and wolves and mountain lions lay there, mild

in her soft spell, fed on her drug of evil.

None would attack - oh, it was strange, I tell you -

but switching their long tails they faced our men

like hounds, who look up when their master comes

with tidbits for them - as he will - from table.

Humbly those wolves and lions with mights paws

fawned on our men - who met their yellow eyes

and feared them.

On thrones she seated them, and lounging chairs,

while she prepared a meal of cheese and barley

and amber honey mixd with Pramnian wine,

adding in her own vile pinch, to make them lose

desire or thought of our dear father land.

Scarce had they drunk when she flew after them

with her long stick and shut them in a pigsty -

bodies, voices, heads, and bristles, all

swinish now, though minds were still unchanged.

So, squealing, in they went.

Among them all

the youngest was Elpenor -

no mainstay in a fight nor very clever -

and this one, having climbed on Kirke's roof

to taste the cool night, fell asleep with wine.

Waked by our morning voices, and the tramp

of men below, he started up, but missed

his footing on the long steep backward ladder

and fell that height headlong. The blow smashed

the nape cord, and his ghost fled to the dark.

When you make sail

and put these lodgings of dim Death behind,

you will moor ship, I know, upon Aiaia Island;

there, O my lord, remember me, I pray,

do not abandon me unwept, unburied,

to tempt the gods' wrath, while you sail for home;

but fire my corpse, and all the gear I had,

and build a cairn for me above the breakers -

an unknown sailor's mark for men to come.

Heap up the mound there, and implant upon it

the oar I pulled in life with my companions.

Still with her child indeed she is, poor heart,

still in your palace hall. Forlorn her nights

and days go by, her life used up in weeping.

But no man takes your honored place. Telemakhos

has care of all your garden plots and fields,

and holds the public honor of a magistrate,

feasting and being feasted. But your father

is country bound and comes to town no more.

Let it be a warning

even to you. Indulge a woman never,

and never tell her all you know. Some things

a man may tell, some he should cover up.

My own

lady never let me glut my eyes

on my own son, but bled me to death first.

One thing I will advise, on second thought;

stow it away and ponder it.

Land your ship

in secret on your island; give no warning.

The day of faithful wives is gone forever.

I carved

a massive cake of beeswax into bits

and rolled them in my hands until they softened -

no long task, for a burning heat came down

from Helios, lord of high noon. Going forward

I carried wax along the line, and laid it

thick on their ears. They tied me up, then, plumb

amidships, back to the mast, lashed to the mast,

and took themselves to rowing.

But scarcely had that island

faded in blue air than I saw smoke

and white water, with sound of waves in tumult -

a sound the men heard, and it terrified them.

Oars flew from their hands; and blades went knocking

wild alongside till the ship lost way,

with no oarblades to drive her through the water.

I happened to glance aft at ship and oarsmen

and caught sight of their arms and legs, dangling

high overhead. Voices came down to me

in anguish, calling my name for the last time...

She ate them as their shrieked there, in her den,

in the dire grapple, reaching still for me -

and deathly pity ran me through

at that sight - far the worst I ever suffered,

questing the passes of the strange sea.

To this my fighters nodded. Yes. But now

we had a month of onshore gales, blowing

day in, day out - south winds, or south by east.

As long as bread and good red wine remained

to keep the men up, and appease their craving,

they would not touch the cattle. But in the end,

when all the barley in the ship was gone,

hunger drove them to scour the while shore

with angling hooks, for fishes and sea fowl,

whatever fell into their hands; and lean days

wore their bellies thin.

Come, we'll cut out the noblest of these cattle

for sacrifice to the gods who own the sky;

and once at home, in the old country of Ithaka,

if ever that day comes -

we'll build a costly temple and adorn it

with every beauty for the Lord of Noon.

But if he flares up over his heifers lost,

wishing our ship destroyed, and if the gods

make cause with him, why, then I say: Better

open your lungs to a big sea once for all

than waste to skin and bones on a lonely island!

On the after deck

the mast had hit the steersman a slant blow

bashing the skull in, knocking him overside,

as the brave soul fled the body, like a diver.

With crack on crack of thunder, Zeus let fly

a bolt against the ship, a direct hit,

so that she bucked, in reeking fumes of sulphur,

and all the men were flung into the sea.

They came up 'round the wreck, bobbing a while

like petrels on the waves.

There, as the whirlpool drank the tide, a billow

tossed me, and I sprang for the great fig tree,

catching on like a bat under a bough.

Nowhere had I to stand, no way of climbing,

the root and bole being far below, and far

above my head the branches and their leaves,

massed, overshadowing Kharybdis pool.

But I clung grimly, thinking my mast and keel

would come back to the surface when she spouted.