[Footnote:  Tennyson in the “Lotus-eaters” has charmingly expressed the dreamy, languid feeling which the lotus food is said to have produced.

   “How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream
    With half-shut eyes ever to seem
    Falling asleep in a half dream! 
    To dream and dream, like yonder amber light
    Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
    To hear each others’ whispered speech;
    Eating the Lotos, day by day,
    To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
    And tender curving lines of creamy spray: 
    To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
    To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
    To muse and brood and live again in memory,
    With those old faces of our infancy
    Heaped over with a mound of grass,
    Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass.”]

They next arrived at the country of the Cyclopes.  The Cyclopes were giants, who inhabited an island of which they were the only possessors.  The name means “round eye,” and these giants were so called because they had but one eye, and that placed in the middle of the forehead.  They dwelt in caves and fed on the wild productions of the island and on what their flocks yielded, for they were shepherds.  Ulysses left the main body of his ships at anchor, and with one vessel went to the Cyclopes’ island to explore for supplies.  He landed with his companions, carrying with them a jar of wine for a present, and coming to a large cave they entered it, and finding no one within examined its contents.  They found it stored with the richest of the flock, quantities of cheese, pails and bowls of milk, lambs and kids in their pens, all in nice order.  Presently arrived the master of the cave, Polyphemus, bearing an immense bundle of firewood, which he threw down before the cavern’s mouth.  He then drove into the cave the sheep and goats to be milked, and, entering, rolled to the cave’s mouth an enormous rock, that twenty oxen could not draw.  Next he sat down and milked his ewes, preparing a part for cheese, and setting the rest aside for his customary drink.  Then, turning round his great eye, he discerned the strangers, and growled out to them, demanding who they were, and where from.  Ulysses replied most humbly, stating that they were Greeks, from the great expedition that had lately won so much glory in the conquest of Troy; that they were now on their way home, and finished by imploring his hospitality in the name of the gods.  Polyphemus deigned no answer, but reaching out his hand seized two of the Greeks, whom he hurled against the side of the cave, and dashed out their brains.  He proceeded to devour them with great relish, and having made a hearty meal, stretched himself out on the floor to sleep.  Ulysses was tempted to seize the opportunity and plunge his sword into him as he slept, but recollected that it would only expose them all to certain destruction, as the rock with which