and his wicked train?)
Oh! didst thou feel for thy afflicted lord,
And would but fate the power of speech afford;
Soon might'st thou tell me where in secret here
The dastard lurks, all trembling with his fear:
Swung round and round and dash'd from rock to rock,
His batter'd brains should on the pavement smoke.
No ease, no pleasure my sad heart receives,
While such a monster as vile Noman lives."

Once out of the cave, Ulysses cut the bonds of his men, with whose aid
he drove part of Polyphemus' flock on board of his ship, which he had
hidden in a cove. He and his companions were scudding safely past the
headland where blind Polyphemus idly sat, when Ulysses tauntingly
raised his voice to make known his escape and real name. With a cry of
rage, the giant flung huge masses of rock in the direction of his
voice, hotly vowing his father Neptune would yet avenge his wrongs!

_Book X._ After leaving the island of the Cyclops, Ulysses visited
Aeolus, king of the winds, and was hospitably entertained in his cave.
In token of friendship and to enable Ulysses to reach home quickly,
Aeolus bottled up all the contrary winds, letting loose only those
which would speed him on his way. On leaving Aeolus, Ulysses so
carefully guarded the skin bottle containing the adverse gales that
his men fancied it must contain jewels of great price. For nine days
and nights Ulysses guided the rudder, and only when the shores of
Ithaca came in sight closed his eyes in sleep. This moment was
seized by his crew to open the bottle, whence the captive winds
escaped with a roar, stirring up a hurricane which finally drove them
back to Aeolus' isle.

"They said: and (oh cursed fate!) the thongs unbound!
The gushing tempest sweeps the ocean round;
Snatch'd in the whirl, the hurried navy flew,
The ocean widen'd and the shores withdrew.
Roused from my fatal sleep, I long debate
If still to live, or desperate plunge to fate;
Thus doubting, prostrate on the deck I lay,
Till all the coward thoughts of death gave way."

On seeing them return with tattered sails, Aeolus averred they had
incurred the wrath of some god and therefore drove them away from his
realm. Toiling at the oar, they reached, after seven days, the harbor
of the Laestrigonians, cannibal giants, from whose clutches only a few
ships escaped. Sorrowing for their lost friends, the Greeks next
landed in the island of Circe, where Ulysses remained with half hi