rily dared the Cyclop to drink.

"Cyclop," he said, "take a bowl of wine from the hand of your guest:
it may serve to digest the man's flesh that you have eaten, and shew
what drink our ship held before it went down. All I ask in recompence,
if you find it good, is to be dismissed in a whole skin. Truly you
must look to have few visitors, if you observe this new custom of
eating your guests."

The brute took and drank, and vehemently enjoyed the taste of wine,
which was new to him, and swilled again at the flaggon, and entreated
for more, and prayed Ulysses to tell him his name, that he might
bestow a gift upon the man who had given him such brave liquor. The
Cyclops (he said) had grapes, but this rich juice (he swore) was
simply divine. Again Ulysses plied him with the wine, and the fool
drank it as fast as he poured out, and again he asked the name of
his benefactor, which Ulysses cunningly dissembling, said, "My name
is Noman: my kindred and friends in my own country call me Noman."
"Then," said the Cyclop, "this is the kindness I will show thee,
Noman: I will eat thee last of all thy friends." He had scarce
expressed his savage kindness, when the fumes of the strong wine
overcame him, and he reeled down upon the floor and sank into a dead
sleep.

Ulysses watched his time, while the monster lay insensible, and
heartening up his men, they placed the sharp end of the stake in the
fire till it was heated red-hot, and some god gave them a courage
beyond that which they were used to have, and the four men with
difficulty bored the sharp end of the huge stake, which they had
heated red-hot, right into the eye of the drunken cannibal, and
Ulysses helped to thrust it in with all his might, still further and
further, with effort, as men bore with an auger, till the scalded
blood gushed out, and the eye-ball smoked, and the strings of the eye
cracked, as the burning rafter broke in it, and the eye hissed, as hot
iron hisses when it is plunged into water.

He waking, roared with the pain so loud that all the cavern broke into
claps like thunder. They fled, and dispersed into corners. He plucked
the burning stake from his eye, and hurled the wood madly about the
cave. Then he cried out with a mighty voice for his brethren the
Cyclops, that dwelt hard by in caverns upon hills; they hearing the
terrible shout came flocking from all parts to inquire what ailed
Polyphemus? and what cause he had for making such horrid clamours i