But when we had not gone so far but that a man’s shout could be heard, I called to the Cyclops and taunted him:
“Cyclops, you will not eat us by main might in your hollow cave! Your evil deeds, O cruel monster, were sure to find you out; for you shamelessly ate the guests that were within your gates, and now Jupiter and the other gods have requited you as you deserved.”
Thus I spoke, and so great became his anger that he broke off the peak of a great hill and threw it at us, and it fell in front of the dark-prowed ship. And the sea rose in waves from the fall of the rock, and drove the ship quickly back to the shore. Then I caught up a long pole in my hands, and thrust the ship from off the land; and with a motion of the head, I bade them dash in with their oars, so that we might escape from our evil plight. So they bent to their oars and rowed on.
Such is the story which Ulysses told of his adventure with the giant Cyclops. Many and strange were the other adventures through which he passed before he reached his distant home; and all are related in that wonderful poem, the “Odyssey.” This poem has been often translated into the English language. Some of the translations are in the form of poetry, and of these the best are the versions by George Chapman, by Alexander Pope, and by our American poet William Cullen Bryant. The best prose translation is that by Butcher and Lang—and this I have followed quite closely in the story which you have just read.
THE BROOK.
I come from haunts of coot and hern:
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down the valley;
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
