Idyll 11

11. The Cyclops There is no other remedy for love, Nicias,

no ointment, it seems to me, and no powder,

except the Pierian Muses; a light thing this and sweet

it proves for men, but not easy to find.

I think you know it well, being a physician,

and beyond others dear to the nine Muses.

So at least the Cyclops who lived among us got through it most easily,

old Polyphemus, when he loved Galatea,

his cheeks and temples just beginning to show a beard.

He loved not with apples, nor with roses, nor with curls,

but with sheer frenzy, and counted all else trifling.

Often his sheep came back of themselves to the fold

from the green pasture, while he, singing of Galatea,

wasted away there upon the weedy shore

from dawn, having the most hateful wound beneath his heart

from the great Cyprian, who had fixed her dart in his liver.

But he found the remedy, and sitting upon a high

rock and looking out to sea, he sang like this.

O white Galatea, why do you spurn the one who loves you?

Whiter to look on than curd, softer than a lamb,

more skittish than a calf, sleeker than the unripe grape.

You come, just so, whenever sweet sleep holds me,

and you go straightway off, as soon as sweet sleep releases me,

and you flee like a sheep that has caught sight of the gray wolf.

I fell in love with you, girl, when first

you came with my mother, wishing to pluck hyacinth leaves

from the hill, and I was your guide upon the way.

And I cannot cease, having once seen you, nor even now

since then; but you do not care, no, by Zeus, not at all.

I know, gracious girl, why you flee;

it is because a shaggy brow stretches over all my forehead,

from one ear to the other, one long unbroken line,

and a single eye is on it, and a broad nose over the lip.

But, such as I am, I pasture a thousand head of cattle,

and from them I draw and drink the best milk;

cheese fails me neither in summer nor in autumn,

nor in the depth of winter; my racks are always overloaded.

And I can pipe as no other Cyclops here can,

singing of you, my dear sweet-apple, and of myself together,

often deep in the night. And I am rearing for you eleven fawns,

all marked with a crescent, and four bear-cubs.

Come to me, then, and you shall lack for nothing,

and leave the gray sea to roar against the shore.

You will pass the night more sweetly with me in the cave.

There are bay-trees there, there slender cypresses,

there is dark ivy, there the vine with its sweet fruit,

there is cool water, which leafy Etna sends me

from her white snow, an ambrosial drink.

Who would choose to have the sea and its waves instead of this?

But if I seem to you too shaggy myself,

I have oak logs and a tireless fire beneath the ashes;

and to be burned by you I would endure even my soul

and this one eye, than which nothing is sweeter to me.

Alas, that my mother did not bear me with gills,

so that I might dive down to you and kiss your hand,

if you would not let me kiss your mouth; and I would bring you white lilies

or the soft poppy with its red petals.

But these come in summer, those in winter,

so that I could not bring you all of them at once.

Now, at least, my girl, now I will learn to swim,

if some stranger sailing here in a ship should come,

that I may know what pleasure you find in dwelling in the deep.

Come out, Galatea, and coming out forget,

as I do now sitting here, to go home again.

Be willing to keep flocks with me, and to milk,

and to set cheese, putting in the sharp rennet.

It is my mother alone who wrongs me, and I blame her;

for she has never once spoken a kind word for me to you,

though she sees me growing thin from day to day.

I will say that my head and both my feet

are throbbing, that she may be grieved, since I too am grieved.

O Cyclops, Cyclops, where have your wits flown?

If you would go and plait baskets and cut foliage

to bring your lambs, you would surely show far more sense.

Milk the one at hand. Why pursue the one who flees?

You will find another Galatea, perhaps even fairer.

Many girls bid me play with them through the night,

and they all giggle whenever I give them ear;

clearly I too seem to be somebody in the land.

So Polyphemus shepherded his love

by making music, and got through it more easily than if he had paid in gold.