Book 9

1 Odysseus of many wiles answered him: “Lord Alcinous, most renowned of all the people, it is a fine thing, truly, to listen to a bard like this one, whose voice is like the voice of the gods. For I say that nothing comes to pass that is more delightful than when gladness holds a whole people, and the banqueters throughout the house sit in their rows listening to the bard, and beside them the tables are loaded with bread and meat, and the wine steward draws wine from the mixing bowl and carries it round and pours it into the cups. This, to my mind, seems the loveliest thing there is. But your heart has turned to asking about my grievous sorrows, so that I may weep and groan still more. What then shall I tell you first, and what last? For the gods of heaven have given me sorrows in plenty. Now first I will tell you my name, so that you too may know it, and so that afterward, if I escape the pitiless day, I may be your guest-friend, though the house I live in is far away. I am Odysseus, son of Laertes, known to all men for every kind of stratagem, and my fame reaches the sky. I live in clear-seen Ithaca. There is a mountain on it, Neriton, with quivering leaves, standing out clear; and around it lie many islands very close to one another, Dulichium and Same and wooded Zacynthus. Ithaca itself lies low, farthest out in the sea toward the dark, and the others lie apart, toward the dawn and the sun. It is rugged, but a good nurse of young men; and I for my part can see nothing sweeter than a man’s own land. Calypso, bright among goddesses, kept me there with her in her hollow caves, longing to have me for her husband; and in the same way Circe, the crafty woman of Aeaea, held me back in her halls, longing to have me for her husband. But they never persuaded the heart in my breast. So true it is that nothing is sweeter than a man’s own country and his parents, even if he lives far off in a rich house, in a foreign land, away from his parents. But come, let me tell you also of my homecoming, full of sorrows, which Zeus laid on me as I came from Troy.”

39 The wind that carried me from Ilion brought me to the Cicones, to Ismarus. There I sacked the city and killed the men. From the city we took their wives and a great store of goods and divided them, so that no one, as far as it lay with me, should go away cheated of his fair share. Then I urged that we should flee with a swift foot, but they, the great fools, would not listen. There much wine was being drunk, and they slaughtered many sheep along the shore, and shambling cattle with curving horns. And all this while the Cicones who had got away went and called to other Cicones, their neighbors, who were more numerous and better men, living inland, men who knew how to fight from chariots and, when there was need, on foot. They came in the early morning, as many as the leaves and flowers that grow in their season. Then an evil doom from Zeus stood beside us, ill-fated as we were, so that we should suffer many pains. They drew up their lines and fought the battle beside the swift ships, and the two sides struck at each other with bronze-tipped spears. As long as it was morning and the sacred day was growing, we held our ground and beat them off, many more as they were; but when the sun turned toward the hour for unyoking oxen, then the Cicones bent the Achaeans back and overpowered them. From each ship six of my well-greaved companions perished; the rest of us escaped death and doom.

62 From there we sailed on, grieving at heart, glad to have escaped death, though we had lost our dear companions. But my curved ships would not go on until we had called three times on each of our poor companions who had died on the plain, cut down by the Cicones. Then Zeus the cloud-gatherer roused the North Wind against the ships in an unearthly storm, and covered land and sea alike with clouds, and night rushed down from the sky. The ships were driven headlong, and the force of the wind tore their sails into three and four pieces. These we lowered into the ships, fearing destruction, and rowed the ships hard toward the land. There for two nights and two days on end we lay, eating our hearts out with weariness and grief. But when lovely-haired Dawn brought the third day to its fullness, we set up the masts and hoisted the white sails and sat still, and the wind and the helmsmen kept the ships on course. And I would have come home to my native land unharmed; but as I was rounding Malea, the swell and the current and the North Wind drove me off course and past Cythera.

82 From there for nine days I was carried by deadly winds over the fish-filled sea; but on the tenth we set foot on the land of the Lotus-Eaters, who eat a food of flowers. There we went ashore and drew water, and at once my companions took their meal beside the swift ships. When we had tasted food and drink, I sent some of my companions ahead to go and find out what men these were who ate bread upon the earth, choosing two men and sending a third with them as herald. They went at once and mingled with the Lotus-Eaters. And the Lotus-Eaters did not plot destruction for our companions; they gave them lotus to taste. But whoever of them ate the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus no longer wanted to bring back word or to come home; they wanted to stay there among the Lotus-Eaters, feeding on lotus, and forget their homecoming. These men I brought back to the ships by force, weeping, and dragged them under the benches in the hollow ships and tied them there. Then I ordered the rest of my faithful companions to make haste and board the swift ships, so that none of them might eat the lotus and forget his homecoming. Quickly they went aboard and sat down at the oarlocks, and sitting in order they struck the gray sea with their oars.

105 From there we sailed on, grieving at heart. And we came to the land of the Cyclopes, overbearing and lawless men, who trust in the immortal gods and neither plant anything with their hands nor plow; all things grow for them unsown and untilled, wheat and barley and vines that bear wine from heavy clusters, and the rain of Zeus makes them grow. They have no assemblies for counsel and no laws; they live on the peaks of high mountains in hollow caves, and each one lays down the law for his children and his wives, and they take no heed of one another.

116 Now there is a small island that stretches out beyond the harbor, neither close to the land of the Cyclopes nor far off, a wooded island; and wild goats past counting live on it. For no path of men keeps them away, and no hunters go there, men who suffer hardships in the woods as they range over the mountain peaks. Nor is it taken up by flocks or by plowed fields; unsown and unplowed all its days, it is empty of men and feeds bleating goats. For the Cyclopes have no red-cheeked ships, and there are no shipwrights among them who could build well-benched ships to make every voyage to the cities of men, as men so often cross the sea to one another in ships. Such men would have made the island a well-settled place for them as well. For it is not a poor land at all; it would bear every crop in its season. There are meadows on it by the shores of the gray sea, well watered and soft, where vines would never fail. There is level plowland; men could reap a deep harvest there, always in its season, for the soil underneath is very rich. There is a harbor with good anchorage, where there is no need of a mooring rope, nor of casting anchor stones or tying stern cables: you run the ships ashore and wait until the sailors’ hearts urge them on and the winds blow fair. At the head of the harbor bright water flows, a spring beneath a cave, and poplars grow around it. There we sailed in, and some god was guiding us through the murky night, for nothing could be seen ahead. A thick mist lay around the ships, and no moon shone out from the sky; it was shut in by clouds. No one caught sight of the island with his eyes, nor did we see the long waves rolling in toward the shore, until we ran our well-benched ships aground. When the ships were beached we lowered all the sails, and we ourselves stepped out on the shore where the waves break; and there we fell asleep and waited for bright Dawn.

152 When early-born Dawn appeared, the rose-fingered, we wandered over the island, marveling at it. And the nymphs, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis, roused the mountain goats, so that my companions might have a meal. At once we took our curved bows and our long-socketed hunting spears from the ships, and, divided into three bands, we began to shoot; and soon the god gave us game to our hearts’ content. Twelve ships followed me, and to each fell nine goats by lot; for me alone they chose out ten.

161 So all day long until the sun went down we sat feasting on meat beyond measure and sweet wine. For the red wine in the ships was not yet used up; some was still left, since each crew had drawn off plenty in jars when we took the sacred citadel of the Cicones. And we looked across at the land of the Cyclopes, who were close by, and saw their smoke and heard their voices and the voices of their sheep and goats. When the sun went down and darkness came on, then we lay down to sleep on the shore where the waves break. When early-born Dawn appeared, the rose-fingered, then I called an assembly and spoke among them all:

172 “The rest of you stay here now, my faithful companions, while I with my own ship and my own companions go and find out about these men, who they are: whether they are violent and savage and unjust, or kind to strangers, with minds that fear the gods.”

177 So I spoke and went on board, and ordered my companions to come aboard themselves and loose the stern cables. Quickly they went aboard and sat down at the oarlocks, and sitting in order they struck the gray sea with their oars. But when we came to the place, which was close at hand, there at the far edge of the land, near the sea, we saw a cave, high, roofed over with laurels. Many flocks, sheep and goats, used to sleep there at night, and around it a high courtyard wall had been built of stones sunk deep in the earth and of tall pines and oaks with lofty crowns. There a monstrous man used to sleep, who herded his flocks alone, far off. He did not go about with the others; he lived apart, and his mind was lawless. For he was a monstrous wonder, and he did not look like a man who eats bread, but like a wooded peak of the high mountains, standing out alone, apart from the others.

193 Then I ordered the rest of my faithful companions to stay there beside the ship and guard it, and I chose out the twelve best of my companions and set out. I had with me a goatskin of dark wine, sweet wine, which Maron gave me, the son of Euanthes, priest of Apollo, the god who watched over Ismarus. He gave it because we had protected him, with his child and his wife, out of reverence; for he lived in a wooded grove of Phoebus Apollo. And he gave me glorious gifts: he gave me seven talents of well-wrought gold, and he gave me a mixing bowl all of silver, and besides that he drew off wine for me into twelve jars in all, sweet and unmixed, a drink for gods. Not one of the servants or the maids in his house knew of it, only he himself and his dear wife and a single housekeeper. Whenever they drank that honey-sweet red wine, he would fill one cup with it and pour it into twenty measures of water, and a sweet smell rose from the mixing bowl, a wondrous smell; then you would have found it no pleasure to hold back. I filled a great skin with this wine and took it, and provisions too, in a leather bag; for my proud heart foresaw at once that I would meet a man clothed in great strength, a savage, who knew nothing rightly of justice or of laws.

216 Quickly we came to the cave, but we did not find him inside; he was pasturing his fat flocks in the meadow. We went into the cave and looked at everything in wonder. The racks were laden with cheeses, and the pens were crowded with lambs and kids. Each kind was penned apart: the firstlings by themselves, the middle ones by themselves, and the newborn by themselves again. And all the vessels were swimming with whey, the pails and the bowls, well made, that he milked into. Then my companions begged me, first, to take some of the cheeses and go back, and then to drive the kids and lambs quickly out of the pens to the swift ship and sail away over the salt water. But I would not listen to them (it would have been far better if I had), because I wanted to see the man himself, and whether he would give me guest gifts. But when he appeared he was not going to be a lovely sight for my companions.

231 There we lit a fire and made an offering, and we ourselves took some of the cheeses and ate, and waited for him, sitting inside, until he came back with his flocks. He was carrying a heavy load of dry wood to have for his supper, and he threw it down inside the cave with a crash; and we shrank back in fear into the farthest corner of the cave. Then he drove his fat flocks into the wide cave, all those that he milked, and left the males outside, the rams and the he-goats, out in the deep courtyard. Then he lifted a great door-stone high and set it in place, a massive thing; twenty-two good four-wheeled wagons could not have heaved it from the ground, so huge was the towering rock he set against the doorway. Then he sat down and milked the ewes and the bleating goats, all in due order, and put her young beneath each one. At once he curdled half of the white milk, gathered it, and laid it in woven baskets; and the other half he set in pails, so that he could take it and drink, and have it for his supper. And when he had busily finished his chores, then he kindled the fire and caught sight of us, and asked:

252 “Strangers, who are you? From where do you sail the watery ways? Is it on some business, or do you wander at random over the sea, like pirates, who roam about risking their lives and bringing harm to men of other lands?”

256 So he spoke, and our hearts were broken within us, terrified as we were of his deep voice and of the monster himself. But even so I answered him and said:

259 “We are Achaeans, driven off course on our way from Troy by winds of every kind over the great gulf of the sea; we were making for home, but we have come by another road, by other ways. So, I suppose, Zeus wished to devise it. We declare that we are men of Agamemnon, son of Atreus, whose fame is now the greatest under heaven, so great a city did he sack and so many people did he destroy. And we in our turn have come to your knees, in the hope that you will give us a guest gift or some other present, as is the right of strangers. Respect the gods, mighty one; we are your suppliants. Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and strangers, Zeus the god of strangers, who walks beside revered strangers.”

272 So I spoke, and he answered me at once with a pitiless heart: “You’re a fool, stranger, or you’ve come from far away, telling me to fear the gods or keep clear of them. The Cyclopes care nothing for Zeus who holds the aegis, or for the blessed gods, since we are far stronger. I wouldn’t spare you or your companions to keep clear of the hatred of Zeus, unless my own heart told me to. But tell me where you moored your well-made ship when you came. At the far end of the land, or close by? I’d like to know.”

281 So he spoke, testing me, but I knew too much to be taken in, and I answered him again with crafty words:

283 “Poseidon the Earth-shaker smashed my ship. He drove it onto the rocks at the borders of your land, dashing it against a headland, and the wind carried it in from the sea. But I with these men here escaped sheer destruction.”

287 So I spoke, and with a pitiless heart he made no answer, but sprang up and laid his hands on my companions, seized two of them together, and dashed them to the ground like puppies; and their brains ran out on the ground and soaked the earth. He cut them up limb by limb and made his supper of them, and ate like a mountain-bred lion, leaving nothing, entrails and flesh and marrowy bones. We wept and held up our hands to Zeus at the sight of these cruel deeds, and helplessness took hold of our hearts. And when the Cyclops had filled his huge belly, eating human flesh and drinking unmixed milk after it, he lay down inside the cave, stretched out among his flocks. Then I planned in my great heart to go up close, draw the sharp sword from beside my thigh, and stab him in the chest where the midriff holds the liver, feeling for the place with my hand. But a second thought held me back. For there we too would have perished in sheer destruction: we could never have pushed back with our hands, from the high doorway, the massive stone he had set there. So then, groaning, we waited for bright Dawn.

307 When early-born Dawn appeared, the rose-fingered, he kindled the fire and milked his famous flocks, all in due order, and put her young beneath each one. And when he had busily finished his chores, again he seized two men together and made his morning meal of them. When he had eaten, he drove his fat flocks out of the cave, easily lifting away the great door-stone; and then he set it back again, as a man sets the lid on a quiver. With loud whistling the Cyclops turned his fat flocks toward the mountain, and I was left behind, brooding on evil, to see whether I could somehow take vengeance on him, and Athena would grant me glory.

318 And this seemed to my mind the best plan. Beside the pen there lay a great club of the Cyclops, olive wood, still green; he had cut it to carry once it was dry. Looking at it, we judged it as large as the mast of a black ship of twenty oars, a broad merchant ship that crosses the great gulf of the sea: so long it was and so thick to look at. I went up and cut off about a fathom’s length of it and gave it to my companions and told them to shave it down. They made it smooth, and I stood by and sharpened the tip, and then at once took it and hardened it in the blazing fire. Then I laid it carefully away, hiding it under the dung that lay in great heaps throughout the cave. And I told the others to cast lots, to see which of them would dare to lift the stake with me and grind it into his eye when sweet sleep came over him. The lot fell on the very ones I myself would have wanted to choose, four of them, and I was counted with them as the fifth. In the evening he came, herding his fleecy flocks. At once he drove his fat flocks into the wide cave, all of them, and left none out in the deep courtyard, either because he suspected something, or because a god had ordered it so. Then he lifted a great door-stone high and set it in place, and sat down and milked the ewes and the bleating goats, all in due order, and put her young beneath each one. And when he had busily finished his chores, again he seized two men together and made his supper of them. And then I went up close to the Cyclops and spoke to him, holding in my hands an ivy-wood bowl of dark wine:

347 “Cyclops, here, drink wine, now that you have eaten human flesh, so that you may know what kind of drink our ship held hidden. I was bringing it to you as a drink offering, in the hope that you would take pity on me and send me home; but your raging is past all bearing. Cruel one, how will any other man of all the many in the world ever come to you again, since what you have done is against all that is right?”

353 So I spoke, and he took it and drank it off, and he was wonderfully pleased with the sweet drink as he drank, and asked me for more a second time:

355 “Be kind and give me more, and tell me your name, right now, so I can give you a guest gift that will please you. The grain-giving land bears wine from heavy clusters for the Cyclopes too, and the rain of Zeus makes it grow for them; but this is a trickle of ambrosia and nectar.”

360 So he spoke, and again I handed him the sparkling wine. Three times I brought it and gave it to him, and three times he drank it off in his folly. Then, when the wine had got round the wits of the Cyclops, I spoke to him with honeyed words:

364 “Cyclops, you ask me my famous name, and I will tell it to you; and you give me a guest gift, as you promised. Nobody is my name. Nobody they call me, my mother and my father and all my companions.”¹

368 So I spoke, and he answered me at once with a pitiless heart: “Nobody I will eat last of all, after his companions; the others first. That will be your guest gift.”

371 He spoke, and sank back and fell on his back, and lay there with his thick neck bent to one side, and sleep that conquers all took hold of him. Out of his throat gushed wine and gobbets of human flesh; he was belching, heavy with wine. Then I thrust the stake deep under the heaped embers until it should grow hot, and spoke to all my companions to give them courage, so that none of them would take fright and shrink back on me. And when the olive stake, green as it was, was about to catch fire and was glowing terribly, then I brought it close, out of the fire, and my companions stood around me, and some god breathed great courage into us. They took the olive stake, sharp at the point, and drove it into his eye, while I, leaning on it from above, twirled it round, as when a man bores a ship’s timber with a drill, and the men below keep it spinning with a strap, holding it at either end, and it runs round steadily without stopping. So we took the fire-pointed stake and twirled it in his eye, and the blood flowed around the hot stake. The blast from the burning eyeball singed his eyelids all round and his brows, and the roots of the eye crackled in the fire. As when a smith dips a great axe or an adze in cold water, and it hisses loudly, to temper it, for that is what gives iron its strength, so his eye hissed around the olive stake. He gave a great, terrible howl, and the rock rang all around, and we shrank away in terror. Then he wrenched the stake out of his eye, all clotted with blood, and flung it from him with his hands, beside himself, and shouted loudly for the Cyclopes who lived around him in caves among the windy heights. They heard his cry and came flocking from every side, and standing around the cave they asked him what was troubling him:

403 “What is so wrong with you, Polyphemus, that you shout like this through the immortal night and keep us from sleeping? Surely no man is driving off your flocks against your will? Surely no one is killing you by cunning or by force?”

407 And strong Polyphemus answered them from inside the cave: “Friends, Nobody is killing me by cunning, not by force!”

409 They answered him, and their words had wings: “Well, if no one is forcing you, alone as you are, it’s a sickness sent by great Zeus, and there’s no escaping that. You’d better pray to your father, lord Poseidon.”

413 So they spoke as they went away, and my own heart laughed within me, because my name and my flawless cunning had fooled him. But the Cyclops, groaning and racked with pain, groped with his hands and took the stone away from the doorway, and sat himself down in the doorway with his arms spread wide, to catch anyone who might try to go out among the sheep; so great a fool, I suppose, he hoped in his heart that I was. But I was planning how everything might turn out best, whether I could find some release from death for my companions and for myself; and I wove every kind of trick and cunning, as a man does when his life is at stake, for great evil was close at hand. And this seemed to my mind the best plan. There were rams, well fed and thick-fleeced, fine big animals, with wool dark as violets. These I silently bound together with the twisted willow withes on which the Cyclops slept, the monster with a lawless mind, taking them in threes. The one in the middle carried a man, and the two on either side went along to keep my companions safe. So three sheep carried each man. But as for me—there was a ram, by far the best of all the flock; I took hold of him by the back and curled myself up under his shaggy belly and lay there; and with my hands I twisted myself into his wonderful fleece and held on fast, with an enduring heart. So then, groaning, we waited for bright Dawn.

437 When early-born Dawn appeared, the rose-fingered, then the males of the flock hurried out to pasture, and the females bleated unmilked around the pens, for their udders were bursting. Their master, worn with cruel pains, felt along the backs of all the sheep as they stood upright; but the fool did not notice that my men were tied under the breasts of the woolly sheep. Last of the flock the ram came out of the door, weighed down by his wool and by me with all my shrewd thinking. Strong Polyphemus felt him over and said to him:

447 “My dear old ram, why are you the last of the flock to come out of the cave like this? You never used to lag behind the sheep; you were always far the first to graze on the soft flowers of the grass, taking long strides, first to reach the flowing rivers, first to want to go back to the fold in the evening. Now you’re the very last. You must be grieving for your master’s eye, which a wicked man blinded, with his miserable companions, after he overpowered my wits with wine: that Nobody, who I tell you has not yet escaped destruction. If only you could think as I do and could find a voice, to tell me where he is skulking from my strength! Then his brains would be dashed out on the ground and spattered all over the cave as I smashed him, and my heart would find some relief from the harm that worthless Nobody has done me.”

461 So he spoke and sent the ram away from him out of the door. When we had gone a little way from the cave and the courtyard, I first loosed myself from under the ram, and then untied my companions. Quickly we drove off the long-shanked flocks, rich with fat, turning them often, until we came to the ship. And a welcome sight we were to our dear companions, we who had escaped death; but for the others they began to groan and wail. I would not let them weep, but nodded to each of them with my brows, and ordered them to throw the many fleecy sheep quickly into the ship and sail away over the salt water. Quickly they went aboard and sat down at the oarlocks, and sitting in order they struck the gray sea with their oars. But when I was as far off as a man can make himself heard when he shouts, then I called out to the Cyclops with taunting words:

475 “Cyclops, so it was not a weakling’s companions you were going to eat in your hollow cave by brute strength! Your evil deeds were bound to catch up with you, cruel one, since you did not shrink from eating guests in your own house. So Zeus has paid you back, and the other gods.”

480 So I spoke, and he grew angrier still at heart. He broke off the top of a great mountain and hurled it, and it came down just ahead of the dark-prowed ship and fell barely short of the tip of the steering oar. The sea surged up under the falling rock, and the backwash, a flood tide from the open sea, carried the ship quickly toward the land and drove it onto the shore. But I took a long pole in my hands and pushed the ship off and away, and urged my companions with nods of my head and ordered them to throw their weight on the oars, so that we might escape from evil; and they bent forward and rowed. But when we were twice as far out over the sea, then I called out to the Cyclops again, though my companions around me, one after another, tried to hold me back with soothing words:

494 “Reckless man, why do you want to provoke a savage? Just now he threw his missile into the sea and drove the ship back to the land, and we thought we were done for there and then. If he had heard any of us make a sound or speak, he would have smashed our heads and our ship’s timbers together with a jagged rock, so far can he throw.”

500 So they spoke, but they did not persuade my great heart, and I called back to him again in anger:

502 “Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks you about the shameful blinding of your eye, tell him it was Odysseus, sacker of cities, who blinded you, the son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca.”

506 So I spoke, and he groaned and answered me: “Ah! So the old prophecy has come true for me after all. There was a prophet here once, a good man and a great one, Telemus son of Eurymus, who excelled in prophecy and grew old prophesying among the Cyclopes. He told me that all this would come to pass some day, that I would lose my sight at the hands of Odysseus. But I was always waiting for some tall, handsome man to come here, clothed in great strength; and now a little man, a worthless weakling, has blinded my eye, after he overpowered me with wine. But come here, Odysseus, so I can set guest gifts before you and urge the famous Earth-shaker to send you on your way. For I am his son, and he declares he is my father. He himself will heal me, if he wishes, and no one else, none of the blessed gods and none of mortal men.”

522 So he spoke, and I answered him: “I wish I could rob you of soul and life and send you down to the house of Hades, as surely as not even the Earth-shaker will heal your eye.”

526 So I spoke, and then he prayed to lord Poseidon, stretching out his hands to the starry sky: “Hear me, Poseidon, earth-holder, dark-haired, if I am truly yours and you declare you are my father: grant that Odysseus, sacker of cities, the son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca, may never reach his home. But if it is his fate to see his own people and reach his well-built house and his native land, may he come late and in misery, having lost all his companions, in another man’s ship, and find troubles in his house.”

536 So he prayed, and the dark-haired god heard him. Then again he lifted a far greater stone, swung it round, and hurled it, putting immeasurable strength into it. It came down just astern of the dark-prowed ship and fell barely short of the tip of the steering oar. The sea surged up under the falling rock, and the wave carried the ship forward and drove it onto the shore.

543 But when we came to the island where the rest of our well-benched ships were waiting all together, and our companions sat around them grieving, always watching for us, we came in and beached our ship on the sand, and we ourselves stepped out on the shore where the waves break. We took the Cyclops’s flocks out of the hollow ship and divided them, so that no one, as far as it lay with me, should go away cheated of his fair share. But the ram my well-greaved companions gave to me alone, as a special prize, when the flocks were divided. On the shore I sacrificed him to Zeus of the dark clouds, son of Cronus, who rules over all, and burned the thigh pieces. But he took no heed of my offerings; he was pondering how all my well-benched ships and my faithful companions might perish.

556 So all day long until the sun went down we sat feasting on meat beyond measure and sweet wine. When the sun went down and darkness came on, then we lay down to sleep on the shore where the waves break. When early-born Dawn appeared, the rose-fingered, then I urged my companions on and ordered them to come aboard themselves and loose the stern cables. Quickly they went aboard and sat down at the oarlocks, and sitting in order they struck the gray sea with their oars.

565 From there we sailed on, grieving at heart, glad to have escaped death, though we had lost our dear companions.

Notes

1. 1. Greek Outis, “Nobody.” The name echoes mētis, “cunning,” the quality for which Odysseus is famous; when the Cyclopes ask whether “no one” (mē tis) is harming Polyphemus (9.405–410), they say the same sound.