The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
CHORUS: Go! But what needs this serious haste, O father? _75
SILENUS: I see a Grecian vessel on the coast, And thence the rowers with some general Approaching to this cave.--About their necks Hang empty vessels, as they wanted food, And water-flasks.--Oh, miserable strangers! _80 Whence come they, that they know not what and who My master is, approaching in ill hour The inhospitable roof of Polypheme, And the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying?
Be silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear _85 Whence coming, they arrive the Aetnean hill.
ULYSSES: Friends, can you show me some clear water-spring, The remedy of our thirst? Will any one Furnish with food seamen in want of it?
Ha! what is this? We seem to be arrived _90 At the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe This sportive band of Satyrs near the caves.
First let me greet the elder.--Hail!
SILENUS: Hail thou, O Stranger! tell thy country and thy race.
ULYSSES: The Ithacan Ulysses and the king _95 Of Cephalonia.
SILENUS: Oh! I know the man, Wordy and shrewd, the son of Sisyphus.
ULYSSES: I am the same, but do not rail upon me.--
SILENUS: Whence sailing do you come to Sicily?
ULYSSES: From Ilion, and from the Trojan toils. _100
SILENUS: How, touched you not at your paternal sh.o.r.e?
ULYSSES: The strength of tempests bore me here by force.
SILENUS: The self-same accident occurred to me.
ULYSSES: Were you then driven here by stress of weather?
SILENUS: Following the Pirates who had kidnapped Bacchus. _105
ULYSSES: What land is this, and who inhabit it?--
SILENUS: Aetna, the loftiest peak in Sicily.
ULYSSES: And are there walls, and tower-surrounded towns?
SILENUS: There are not.--These lone rocks are bare of men.
ULYSSES: And who possess the land? the race of beasts? _110
SILENUS: Cyclops, who live in caverns, not in houses.
ULYSSES: Obeying whom? Or is the state popular?
SILENUS: Shepherds: no one obeys any in aught.
ULYSSES: How live they? do they sow the corn of Ceres?
SILENUS: On milk and cheese, and on the flesh of sheep. _115
ULYSSES: Have they the Bromian drink from the vine's stream?
SILENUS: Ah! no; they live in an ungracious land.
ULYSSES: And are they just to strangers?--hospitable?
SILENUS: They think the sweetest thing a stranger brings Is his own flesh.
ULYSSES: What! do they eat man's flesh? _120
SILENUS: No one comes here who is not eaten up.
ULYSSES: The Cyclops now--where is he? Not at home?
SILENUS: Absent on Aetna, hunting with his dogs.
ULYSSES: Know'st thou what thou must do to aid us hence?
SILENUS: I know not: we will help you all we can. _125
ULYSSES: Provide us food, of which we are in want.
SILENUS: Here is not anything, as I said, but meat.
ULYSSES: But meat is a sweet remedy for hunger.
SILENUS: Cow's milk there is, and store of curdled cheese.
ULYSSES: Bring out:--I would see all before I bargain. _130
SILENUS: But how much gold will you engage to give?
ULYSSES: I bring no gold, but Bacchic juice.
SILENUS: Oh, joy!
Tis long since these dry lips were wet with wine.
ULYSSES: Maron, the son of the G.o.d, gave it me.
SILENUS: Whom I have nursed a baby in my arms. _135
ULYSSES: The son of Bacchus, for your clearer knowledge.
SILENUS: Have you it now?--or is it in the s.h.i.+p?
ULYSSES: Old man, this skin contains it, which you see.
SILENUS: Why, this would hardly be a mouthful for me.
