"Ho! guests, what are you? Merchants or wandering thieves?" he bellowed
out in a voice which took from them all power of reply, it was so
astounding.
Only Ulysses summoned resolution to answer, that they came neither for
plunder nor traffic, but were Grecians who had lost their way, returning
from Troy; which famous city, under the conduct of Agamemnon, the renowned
son of Atreus, they had sacked, and laid level with the ground. Yet now
they prostrated themselves humbly before his feet, whom they acknowledged
to be mightier than they, and besought him that he would bestow the rites
of hospitality upon them, for that Jove was the avenger of wrongs done to
strangers, and would fiercely resent any injury which they might suffer.
"Fool!" said the Cyclop, "to come so far to preach to me the fear of the
gods. We Cyclops care not for your Jove, whom you fable to be nursed by a
goat, nor any of your blessed ones. We are stronger than they, and dare
bid open battle to Jove himself, though you and all your fellows of the
earth join with him." And he bade them tell him where their ship was in
which they came, and whether they had any companions. But Ulysses, with a
wise caution, made answer that they had no ship or companions, but were
unfortunate men, whom the sea, splitting their ship in pieces, had dashed
upon his coast, and they alone had escaped. He replied nothing, but
gripping two of the nearest of them, as if they had been no more than
children, he dashed their brains out against the earth, and, shocking to
relate, tore in pieces their limbs, and devoured them yet warm and
trembling, making a lion's meal of them, lapping the blood; for the
Cyclops are _man-eaters_, and esteem human flesh to be a delicacy far
above goat's or kid's; though by reason of their abhorred customs few men
approach their coast, except some stragglers, or now and then a
shipwrecked mariner.
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