A full revenge for your unnatural feast;
I should have done ill to have burned down Troy
And not revenged the murder of my comrades.
Cyclops. Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished; 705
It said that I should have my eyesight blinded
By your coming from Troy, yet it foretold
That you should pay the penalty for this
By wandering long over the homeless sea.
Ulysses. I bid thee weep—consider what I say; 710
I go towards the shore to drive my ship
To mine own land, o'er the Sicilian wave.
Cyclops. Not so, if, whelming you with this huge stone,
I can crush you and all your men together;
I will descend upon the shore, though blind, 715
Groping my way adown the steep ravine.
Chorus. And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now,
Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives.
EPIGRAMS
[These four Epigrams were published—nos. II and IV without title—by Mrs. Shelley, Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed.]
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO
Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;—
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
II.—KISSING HELENA
FROM THE GREEK OF PLATO
Kissing Helena, together
With my kiss, my soul beside it
Came to my lips, and there I kept it,—
For the poor thing had wandered thither,
To follow where the kiss should guide it, 5
Oh, cruel I, to intercept it!
III.—SPIRIT OF PLATO
FROM THE GREEK
Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-ypaven home
Floatest thou?—
I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,
Ascending heaven; Athens doth[1] inherit 5
His corpse below.
- ↑ Spirit of Plato—5 doth Boscombe MS. ; does ed. 1839.
