’Then we kindled a fire, and made burnt-offering, and ourselves likewise took of the cheeses, and did eat, and sat waiting for him within till he came back, shepherding his flocks.  And he bore a grievous weight of dry wood, against supper time.  This log he cast down with a din inside the cave, and in fear we fled to the secret place of the rock.  As for him, he drave his fat flocks into the wide cavern, even all that he was wont to milk; but the males both of the sheep and of the goats he left without in the deep yard.  Thereafter he lifted a huge doorstone and weighty, and set it in the mouth of the cave, such an one as two and twenty good four-wheeled wains could not raise from the ground, so mighty a sheer rock did he set against the doorway.  Then he sat down and milked the ewes and bleating goats, all orderly, and beneath each ewe he placed her young.  And anon he curdled one half of the white milk, and massed it together, and stored it in wicker-baskets, and the other half he let stand in pails, that he might have it to take and drink against supper time.  Now when he had done all his work busily, then he kindled the fire anew, and espied us, and made question: 

’"Strangers, who are ye?  Whence sail ye over the wet ways?  On some trading enterprise or at adventure do ye rove, even as sea-robbers over the brine, for at hazard of their own lives they wander, bringing bale to alien men.”

’So spake he, but as for us our heart within us was broken for terror of the deep voice and his own monstrous shape; yet despite all I answered and spake unto him, saying: 

’"Lo, we are Achaeans, driven wandering from Troy, by all manner of winds over the great gulf of the sea; seeking our homes we fare, but another path have we come, by other ways:  even such, methinks, was the will and the counsel of Zeus.  And we avow us to be the men of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, whose fame is even now the mightiest under heaven, so great a city did he sack, and destroyed many people; but as for us we have lighted here, and come to these thy knees, if perchance thou wilt give us a stranger’s gift, or make any present, as is the due of strangers.  Nay, lord, have regard to the gods, for we are thy suppliants; and Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and sojourners, Zeus, the god of the stranger, who fareth in the company of reverend strangers.”

’So I spake, and anon he answered out of his pitiless heart:  “Thou art witless, my stranger, or thou hast come from afar, who biddest me either to fear or shun the gods.  For the Cyclopes pay no heed to Zeus, lord of the aegis, nor to the blessed gods, for verily we are better men than they.  Nor would I, to shun the enmity of Zeus, spare either thee or thy company, unless my spirit bade me.  But tell me where thou didst stay thy well-wrought ship on thy coming?  Was it perchance at the far end of the island, or hard by, that I may know?”

’So he spake tempting me, but he cheated me not, who knew full much, and I answered him again with words of guile: