It’s on this shore that, after long, hard trials,
the weary Macareus of Neritus,
a comrade of industrious Ulysses,
Latin [137–59]
had stopped. The sight of Achaemenides,
alive and sound, amazed him. Long ago
Ulysses’ men had left behind their friend—
abandoned him on rocky Aetna—when
they fled the Cyclops. And he asked: “What chance
or god has saved you, Achaemenides?
And how can you, a Greek, have journeyed here
upon a Trojan boat? Where is it bound?”
And Achaemenides, no longer dressed
in savage, shaggy fashion, in poor rags
that thorns helped pin together—he was back
to his own self—replied: “I swear this ship
is dearer to me than are Ithaca
and my own home; and I respect Aeneas
as much as I revere my father; if
I lie, may I be doomed to see once more
foul Polyphemus and the human gore
that drips down from his jaws. I never can—
however much I try—repay the debt
I owe Aeneas. How can I forget
that if I speak and breathe and see the sky
and flashing sun, it is because of him?
Aeneas kept my soul from ending in
the Cyclops’ mouth; and even if I should
now leave behind the light of life, I shall
be buried in a tomb, not in the guts
of Polyphemus. What fear took my heart
(if I, in panic, still had any soul
or senses left) when I saw you sail off
across the deep, deserting me! I would
have shouted, but I was afraid my cries
might let the blind Cyclops discover me.
Indeed, Ulysses’ clamor almost wrecked
the ship on which you left. I saw it all:
I saw the Cyclops tear a giant rock
off from the mountainside; I saw him toss
that rock into the sea; he did not stop—
Latin [160–82]
his massive arm kept flinging those great rocks
as from a catapult; and—I forgot
that I was not aboard—I feared those stones
would stir a wave or wind with force enough
to sink your ship. And when, at last, you fled
and, sailing off, escaped atrocious death,
the groaning Cyclops prowled the slopes of Aetna;
he groped among the woods, and since he could
not see, he often struck against sharp rocks,
and stretching out his bleeding arms, he cursed
the race of Greeks and howled: ‘Oh, would that chance
might bring Ulysses or one of his men,
so I could vent my wrath—could eat his guts
and tear his living flesh with these bare hands
and inundate my gullet with his blood
and feel his mangled members shuddering
between my teeth! For then how slight a thing—
indeed no thing at all—would blindness be!’
He shouted this—and more—ferociously.
“And livid horror filled me as I watched
his face still smeared with slaughter, his fierce hands,
the empty socket of his eye, his limbs
and beard encrusted with the blood of men.
It’s death I had before my eyes, and yet
it was the least of all my fears. I thought:
he’ll grab me now, and he will stuff his guts
with mine; and with my mind I still could see
that scene when he snatched two of my dear friends
and dashed them three and then four times against
the ground; and like a shaggy lion, he crouched
over my comrades, bent on stuffing down
their flesh, white-marrowed bones, their innards, and
their limbs still warm; and terror took my soul;
I paled with horror as I watched him crunch
and spit out bleeding fare, and vomit chunks
of flesh mixed in with wine. Such was the fate
I pictured for my sorry self. For days
Latin [183–214]
on end, I hid; at every sound, I quaked;
I was afraid of death—but longed for it.
Alone and helpless, desperate, I ate
acorns and leaves and grass: I held at bay
starvation. There was nothing to await
but suffering and death until—at length—
I saw this ship far off; and so I begged—
with signs and gestures—to be led away;
I hurried to the beach, and they took pity
on me; that Trojan ship received a Greek.
I’ve told my tale, dear friend; now tell me all
the trials you faced, the perils that befell
your chief, Ulysses, and the company
that sailed away with you across the sea.”