since I began to drag out my life in the woods among the lonely lairs and haunts of wild beasts, viewing form a rock the huge Cyclopes and trembling at their cries and tramping feet. A sorry living, berries and stony cornels, the boughs supply; and plants feed me with their uptorn roots. Scanning all the view, I saw this fleet drawing to shore. To it, prove what it might, I surrendered myself. It is enough to have escaped that accursed brood! Take away this life of mine – it is better so – by any death whatever!’

“Scarce had he spoken when on the mountaintop we saw the giant himself, the shepherd Polyphemus, moving his mighty bulk among his flocks and seeking the well-known shore – a monster awful, hideous, huge, and eyeless.

In his hand a lopped pine guides