that sea. There Ulysses ran up his ships, and the men
passed the time in hunting wild goats, and feasting on fresh meat and
the wine of Maron, the priest of Apollo. Next day Ulysses left all the
ships and men there, except his own ship, and his own crew, and went to
see what kind of people lived on the mainland, for as yet none had been
seen. He found a large cave close to the sea, with laurels growing on
the rocky roof, and a wall of rough stones built round a court in front.
Ulysses left all his men but twelve with the ship; filled a goat skin
with the strong wine of Maron, put some corn flour in a sack, and went
up to the cave. Nobody was there, but there were all the things that are
usually in a dairy, baskets full of cheese, pails and bowls full of milk
and whey, and kids and lambs were playing in their folds.

All seemed very quiet and pleasant. The men wanted to take as much
cheese as they could carry back to the ship, but Ulysses wished to see
the owner of the cave. His men, making themselves at home, lit a fire,
and toasted and ate the cheeses, far within the cave. Then a shadow
thrown by the setting sun fell across the opening of the cave, and a
monstrous man entered, and threw down a dry trunk of a tree that he
carried for firewood. Next he drove in the ewes of his flock, leaving
the rams in the yard, and he picked up a huge flat stone, and set it so
as to make a shut door to the cave, for twenty-four yoke of horses could
not have dragged away that stone. Lastly the man milked his ewes, and
put the milk in pails to drink at supper. All this while Ulysses and his
men sat quiet and in great fear, for they were shut up in a cave with a
one-eyed giant, whose cheese they had been eating.

Then the giant, when he had lit the fire, happened to see the men, and
asked them who they were. Ulysses said that they were Greeks, who had
taken Troy, and were wandering lost on the seas, and he asked the man to
be kind to them in the name of their chief God, Zeus.

'We Cyclopes,' said the giant, 'do not care for Zeus or the Gods, for we
think that we are better men than they. Where is your ship?' Ulysses
answered that it had been wrecked on the coast, to which the man made no
answer, but snatched up two of the twelve, knocked out their brains on
the floor, tore the bodies limb from limb, roasted them at his fire, ate
them, and, after drinking many pailfuls of milk, lay down and fell
asleep. Now Ulysses had a mind to drive hi