’"As for my ship, Poseidon, the shaker of the earth, brake it to pieces, for he cast it upon the rocks at the border of your country, and brought it nigh the headland, and a wind bare it thither from the sea.  But I with these my men escaped from utter doom.”

’So I spake, and out of his pitiless heart he answered me not a word, but sprang up, and laid his hands upon my fellows, and clutching two together dashed them, as they had been whelps, to the earth, and the brain flowed forth upon the ground, and the earth was wet.  Then cut he them up piecemeal, and made ready his supper.  So he ate even as a mountain-bred lion, and ceased not, devouring entrails and flesh and bones with their marrow.  And we wept and raised our hands to Zeus, beholding the cruel deeds; and we were at our wits’ end.  And after the Cyclops had filled his huge maw with human flesh and the milk he drank thereafter, he lay within the cave, stretched out among his sheep.

’So I took counsel in my great heart, whether I should draw near, and pluck my sharp sword from my thigh, and stab him in the breast, where the midriff holds the liver, feeling for the place with my hand.  But my second thought withheld me, for so should we too have perished even there with utter doom.  For we should not have prevailed to roll away with our hands from the lofty door the heavy stone which he set there.  So for that time we made moan, awaiting the bright Dawn.

’Now when early Dawn shone forth, the rosy-fingered, again he kindled the fire and milked his goodly flocks all orderly, and beneath each ewe set her lamb.  Anon when he had done all his work busily, again he seized yet other two men and made ready his mid-day meal.  And after the meal, lightly he moved away the great door-stone, and drave his fat flocks forth from the cave, and afterwards he set it in his place again, as one might set the lid on a quiver.  Then with a loud whoop, the Cyclops turned his fat flocks towards the hills; but I was left devising evil in the deep of my heart, if in any wise I might avenge me, and Athene grant me renown.

’And this was the counsel that showed best in my sight.  There lay by a sheep-fold a great club of the Cyclops, a club of olive wood, yet green, which he had cut to carry with him when it should be seasoned.  Now when we saw it we likened it in size to the mast of a black ship of twenty oars, a wide merchant vessel that traverses the great sea gulf, so huge it was to view in bulk and length.  I stood thereby and cut off from it a portion as it were a fathom’s length, and set it by my fellows, and bade them fine it down, and they made it even, while I stood by and sharpened it to a point, and straightway I took it and hardened it in the bright fire.  Then I laid it well away, and hid it beneath the dung, which was scattered in great heaps in the depths of the cave.  And I bade my company cast lots among them, which of them should risk the adventure with me, and lift