t,
to ease his heart of that tormenting revenge which rankled in it.
After a deal of such foolish talk to the beast he let it go. When
Ulysses found himself free, he let go his hold, and assisted in
disengaging his friends. The rams which had befriended them they
carried off with them to the ships, where their companions with tears
in their eyes received them, as men escaped from death. They plied
their oars, and set their sails, and when they were got as far off
from shore as a voice would reach, Ulysses cried out to the Cyclop:
"Cyclop, thou should'st not have so much abused thy monstrous
strength, as to devour thy guests. Jove by my hand sends thee requital
to pay thy savage inhumanity." The Cyclop heard, and came forth
enraged, and in his anger he plucked a fragment of a rock, and threw
it with blind fury at the ships. It narrowly escaped lighting upon the
bark in which Ulysses sat, but with the fall it raised so fierce an
ebb, as bore back the ship till it almost touched the shore. "Cyclop,"
said Ulysses, "if any ask thee who imposed on thee that unsightly
blemish in thine eye, say it was Ulysses, son of Laertes: the king of
Ithaca am I called, the waster of cities." Then they crowded sail, and
beat the old sea, and forth they went with a forward gale; sad for
fore-past losses, yet glad to have escaped at any rate; till they came
to the isle where AEolus reigned, who is god of the winds.

Here Ulysses and his men were courteously received by the monarch, who
shewed him his twelve children which have rule over the twelve winds.
A month they staid and feasted with him, and at the end of the month
he dismissed them with many presents, and gave to Ulysses at parting
an ox's hide, in which were inclosed _all the winds_: only he left
abroad the western wind, to play upon their sails and waft them
gently home to Ithaca. This bag bound in a glittering silver band, so
close that no breath could escape, Ulysses hung up at the mast. His
companions did not know its contents, but guessed that the monarch had
given to him some treasures of gold or silver.

Nine days they sailed smoothly, favoured by the western wind, and by
the tenth they approached so nigh as to discern lights kindled on the
shores of their country earth: when by ill fortune, Ulysses, overcome
with fatigue of watching the helm, fell asleep. The mariners seized
the opportunity, and one of them said to the rest: "A fine time has
this leader of ours: wherever he