"I agreed to this, so I went back
to the sea shore, and found the men at the ship weeping and wailing
most piteously. When they saw me the silly blubbering men began
frisking round me as calves break out and gambol round their mothers,
when they see them coming home to be milked after they have been
feeding all day, and the homestead resounds with their lowing. They
seemed as glad to see me as though they had got back to their own
rugged Ithaca, where they had been born and bred. ‘Sir,’
said the affectionate creatures, ‘we are as glad to see you back
as though we had got safe home to Ithaca; but tell us all about the
fate of our comrades.’
"I spoke comfortingly to them and
said, ‘We must draw our ship on to the land, and hide the
ship's gear with all our property in some cave; then come with
me all of you as fast as you can to Circe's house, where you
will find your comrades eating and drinking in the midst of great
abundance.’
"On this the men would have come
with me at once, but Eurylokhos tried to hold them back and said,
‘Alas, poor wretches that we are, what will become of us? Rush
not on your ruin by going to the house of Circe, who will turn us all
into pigs or wolves or lions, and we shall have to keep guard over
her house. Remember how the Cyclops treated us when our comrades went
inside his cave, and Odysseus with them. It was all through his sheer
folly that those men lost their lives.’
"When I heard him I was in two
minds whether or no to draw the keen blade that hung by my sturdy
thigh and cut his head off in spite of his being a near relation of
my own; but the men interceded for him and said, ‘Sir, if it may
so be, let this man stay here and mind the ship, but take the rest of
us with you to Circe's house.’
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
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