《奥德赛·卷9》第8节
“‘Cyclops, take and drink wine after thy feast of man’s meat, that thou mayest know what manner of drink this was that our ship held. And lo, I was bringing it thee as a drink offering, if haply thou mayest take pity and send me on my way home, but thy mad rage is past all sufferance. O hard of heart, how may another of the many men there be come ever to thee again, seeing that thy deeds have been lawless?’ “So I spake, and he took the cup and drank it off, and found great delight in drinking the sweet draught, and asked me for it yet a second time: “‘Give it me again of thy grace, and tell me thy name straightway, that I may give thee a stranger’s gift, wherein thou mayest be glad. Yea for the earth, the grain-giver, bears for the Cyclôpes the mighty clusters of the juice of the grape, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase, but this is a rill of very nectar and ambrosia.’ “So he spake, and again I handed him the dark wine. Thrice I bare and gave it him, and thrice in his folly he drank it to the lees. Now when the wine had got about the wits of the Cyclops, then did I speak to him with soft words: “‘Cyclops, thou askest me my renowned name, and I will declare it unto thee, and do thou grant me a stranger’s gift, as thou didst promise. Noman is my name, and Noman they call me, my father and my mother and all my fellows.’ “So I spake, and straightway he answered me out of his pitiless heart: “‘Noman will I eat last in the number of his fellows, and the others before him: that shall be thy gift.’ “Therewith he sank backwards and fell with face upturned, and there he lay with his great neck bent round, and sleep, that conquers all men, overcame him. And the wine and the fragments of men’s flesh issued forth from his mouth, and he vomited, being heavy with wine. Then I thrust in that stake under the deep ashes, until it should grow hot, and I spake to my companions comfortable words, lest any should hang back from me in fear. But when that bar of olive wood was just about to catch fire in the flame, green though it was, and began to glow terribly, even then I came nigh, and drew it from the coals, and my fellows gathered about me, and some god breathed great courage into us. For their part they seized the bar of olive wood, that was sharpened at the point, and thrust it into his eye, while I from my place aloft turned it about, as when a man bores a ship’s beam with a drill while his fellows below spin it with a strap, which they hold at either end, and the auger runs round continually. Even so did we seize the fiery-pointed brand and whirled it round in his eye, and the blood flowed about the heated bar. And the breath of the flame singed his eyelids and brows all about, as the ball of the eye burnt away, and the roots thereof crackled in the flame. And as when a smith dips an axe or adze in chill water with a great hissing, when he would temper it—for hereby anon comes the strength of iron—even so did his eye hiss round the stake of olive. And he raised a great and terrible cry, that the rock rang around, and we fled away in fear, while he plucked forth from his eye the brand bedabbled in much blood. Then maddened with pain he cast it from him with his hands, and called with a loud voice on the Cyclôpes, who dwelt about him in the caves along the windy heights. And they heard the cry and flocked together from every side, and gathering round the cave asked him what ailed him:
注释摘要
奥德修斯此刻仍在费埃克斯人的王庭上，对着国王阿尔基诺斯与满堂宾客追述自己的漂泊往事。他讲到自己和十二名同伴进入了那个独眼巨人的洞穴，亲眼看见巨人把两个同伴像幼犬一样摔死、肢解、吞食。洞门被巨石封死，脱身无路。经过一整夜的恐惧，巨人早上又吃掉两人，然后放牧而出。奥德修斯在洞里发现了那根尚未干燥的橄榄木大棒，削尖、用火硬化，藏在羊粪下面。傍晚巨人回来，又吃掉两…