he best of my flock,
were endowed with speech, so that you might tell me where Noman, who has
blinded me, has hidden himself." The ram went by him, and when he had
gone a little way from the cave I loosed myself from him and went and
set my companions free.'

'We gathered together many of Polyphemus' sheep and we drove them down
to our ship. The men we had left behind would have wept when they heard
what had happened to six of their companions. But I bade them take on
board the sheep we had brought and pull the ship away from that land.
Then when we had drawn a certain distance from the shore I could not
forbear to shout my taunts into the cave of Polyphemus. "Cyclops," I
cried, "you thought that you had the company of a fool and a weakling to
eat. But you have been worsted by me, and your evil deeds have been
punished."'

'So I shouted, and Polyphemus came to the mouth of the cave with great
anger in his heart. He took up rocks and cast them at the ship and they
fell before the prow. The men bent to the oars and pulled the ship away
or it would have been broken by the rocks he cast. And when we were
further away I shouted to him:

'"Cyclops, if any man should ask who it was set his mark upon you, say
that he was Odysseus, the son of Laertes."'

[Illustration]

'Then I heard Polyphemus cry out, "I call upon Poseidon, the god of the
sea, whose son I am, to avenge me upon you, Odysseus. I call upon
Poseidon to grant that you, Odysseus, may never come to your home, or if
the gods have ordained your return, that you come to it after much toil
and suffering, in an evil plight and in a stranger's ship, to find
sorrow in your home."'

'So Polyphemus prayed, and, to my evil fortune, Poseidon heard his
prayer. But we went on in our ship rejoicing at our escape. We came to
the waste island where my other ships were. All the company rejoiced to
see us, although they had to mourn for their six companions slain by
Polyphemus. We divided amongst the ships the sheep we had taken from
Polyphemus' flock and we sacrificed to the gods. At the dawn of the next
day we raised the sails on each ship and we sailed away,'

V

We came to the Island where AEolus, the Lord of the Winds, he who can
give mariners a good or a bad wind, has his dwelling. With his six sons
and his six daughters AEolus lives on a floating island that has all
around it a wall of bronze. And when we came to his island, the Lord of
the Winds treated us k