finished his chores and cannibal repast, graciously accepted the wine which Ulysses offered him.  Pleased with its taste, he even promised the giver a reward if he would only state his name.  The wily Ulysses declaring he was called Noman, the giant facetiously promised to eat him last, before he fell into a drunken sleep.  Then Ulysses and his four men, heating the pointed pine, bored out the eye of Polyphemus, who howled with pain: 

  “Sudden I stir the embers, and inspire
  With animating breath the seeds of fire;
  Each drooping spirit with bold words repair,
  And urge my train the dreadful deed to dare. 
  The stake now glow’d beneath the burning bed
  (Green as it was) and sparkled fiery red. 
  Then forth the vengeful instrument I bring;
  With beating hearts my fellows form a ring. 
  Urged by some present god, they swift let fall
  The pointed torment on his visual ball. 
  Myself above them from a rising ground
  Guide the sharp stake, and twirl it round and round. 
  As when a shipwright stands his workmen o’er,
  Who ply the wimble, some huge beam to bore;
  Urged on all hands it nimbly spins about,
  The grain deep-piercing till it scoops it out;
  In his broad eye so whirls the fiery wood;
  From the pierced pupil spouts the boiling blood;
  Singed are his brows; the scorching lids grow black;
  The jelly bubbles, and the fibres crack.”

His fellow-Cyclops, awakened by his cries, gathered without his cave, asking what was the matter.  But, hearing him vehemently howl that Noman was hurting him, they all declared he was evidently being punished by the gods and left him to his plight!

When morning came, the groaning Cyclops rolled aside the rock, standing beside it with arms outstretched to catch his prisoners should they attempt to escape.  Seeing this, Ulysses tied his men under the sheep, and, clinging to the fleece of the biggest ram, had himself dragged out of the cave.  Passing his hand over the backs of the sheep to make sure the strangers were not riding on them, Polyphemus recognized by touch his favorite ram, and feelingly ascribed its slow pace to sympathy with his woes.

  The master ram at last approach’d the gate,
  Charged with his wool and with Ulysses’ fate. 
  Him, while he pass’d, the monster blind bespoke: 
  “What makes my ram the lag of all the flock? 
  First thou wert wont to crop the flowery mead,
  First to the field and river’s bank to lead,
  And first with stately step at evening hour
  Thy fleecy fellows usher to their bower. 
  Now far the last, with pensive pace and slow
  Thou movest, as conscious of thy master’s woe! 
  Seest thou these lids that now unfold in vain,
  (The deed of Noman and his wicked train?)
  Oh! didst thou feel for thy afflicted lord,
  And would but fate the power of speech afford;
  Soon might’st thou tell me where