ht him, in vain warning him
of the truth; and he either burdens the shore, stalking along with huge
strides, or, wearied, he returns to his shaded cave.

"A hill, in form of a wedge, runs out with a long projection into the
sea: {and} the waves of the ocean flow round either side. Hither the
fierce Cyclop ascended, and sat down in the middle. His woolly flocks
followed, there being no one to guide them. After the pine tree,[72]
which afforded him the service of a staff, {but more} fitted for
sail-yards, was laid before his feet, and his pipe was taken up, formed
of a hundred reeds; all the mountains were sensible of the piping of the
shepherd: the waves, {too}, were sensible. I, lying hid within a rock,
and reclining on the bosom of my own Acis, from afar caught such words
as these with my ears, and marked them {so} heard in my mind:
'O Galatea, fairer than[73] the leaf of the snow-white privet,[74] more
blooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighter
than glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shells
worn by continual floods, more pleasing than the winter's sun, {or} than
the summer's shade, more beauteous than the apples, more sightly than
the lofty plane tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripened grape,
softer than both the down of the swan, and than curdled milk, and, didst
thou not fly me, more beauteous than a watered garden. {And yet} thou,
the same Galatea, {art} wilder than the untamed bullocks, harder than
the aged oak, more unstable than the waters, tougher than both the twigs
of osier and than the white vines, more immoveable than these rocks,
more violent than the torrent, prouder than the bepraised peacock,
fiercer than the fire, rougher than the thistles, more cruel than the
pregnant she-bear, more deaf than the ocean waves, more savage than the
trodden water-snake: and, what I could especially wish to deprive thee
of, fleeter not only than the deer when pursued by the loud barkings,
but even than the winds and the fleeting air.

"'But didst thou {but} know me well, thou wouldst repine at having fled,
and thou thyself wouldst blame thy own hesitation, and wouldst strive to
retain me. I have a part of the mountain for my cave, pendent with the
native rock; in which the sun is not felt in the middle of the heat, nor
is the winter felt: there are apples that load the boughs; there are
grapes on the lengthening vines, resembling gold; and there are purple
ones {