Book 14
companion of long tried Ulysses, there
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he rested, weary of his lengthened toils.
He recognized one left in Aetna's cave,
greek Achaemenides, and, all amazed
to find him yet alive, he said to him,
“What chance, or what god, Achaemenides,
preserves you? Why is this barbarian ship
conveying you a Greek? What land is sought?”
No longer ragged in the clothes he wore
and his own master, wearing clothes not tacked
with sharp thorns, Achaemenides replied,
“Again may I see Polyphemus' jaws
out-streaming with their slaughtered human blood;
if my own home and Ithaca give more
delight to me than this barbarian bark,
or if I venerate Aeneas less
than my own father. If I should give my all,
it never could express my gratitude,
that I can speak and breath, and see the heavens
illuminated by the gleaming sun—
how can I be ungrateful and forget all this?
Because of him these limbs of mine were spared
the Cyclops' jaws; and, though I were even now
to leave the light of life, I should at worst
be buried in a tomb—not in his maw.
“What were my feelings when (unless indeed
my terror had deprived me of all sense) left there,
I saw you making for the open sea?
I wished to shout aloud, but was afraid
it would betray me to the enemy.
The shoutings of Ulysses nearly caused
destruction of your ship and there I saw
the Cyclops, when he tore a crag away
and hurled the huge rock in the whirling waves;
I saw him also throw tremendous stones
with his gigantic arms. They flew afar,
as if impelled by catapults of war,
I was struck dumb with terror lest
the waves or stones might overwhelm the ship,
forgetting that I still was on the shore!
