“There is only food for one day more, and that sparse,” said Eurylochus. “For my part, my limbs are heavy as brass and the strength is all gone from me. I could not move an oar now. Man needs meat and wine or the fires of hunger burn the sinews and dry the blood. Brown meat and red wine! I could fill my belly till the skin cracked!”
“The rich brown meat, mate! Dost mind the soft kids on Circe’s island? By Zeus, I can taste them now!”
“Ay and the fat cows, roast till the blood ran out of them like liquid life.”
“I can even smell the smell of the roasting meat now. A welcome smell to a hungry man.”
“Would that we had never left Circe. ’Twas a kind queen, meet for our master! but her girls were kindly in love also.”
“To Hades with the girls!” said Eurylochus. “Thy talk of meat makes me heave with desire.”
He looked round cautiously before he continued.
“Friends,” he said in a low, rapid whisper, “tell me, are ye purposing to starve in the midst of plenty? Saw ye ever such fat oxen and cows as graze in the pastures above?”
“Never did I see such cattle,” answered another hungry wight. “Gods! they would make a feast for kings.”
“And yet pain and sickness is all over us, and we lust for food till we know not what we do!”