Page 166 - the-odyssey

raised a hue-and-cry after them, and thousands of sturdy
Laestrygonians sprang up from every quarter—ogres, not
men. They threw vast rocks at us from the cliffs as though
they had been mere stones, and I heard the horrid sound of
the ships crunching up against one another, and the death
cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like
fishes and took them home to eat them. While they were
thus killing my men within the harbour I drew my sword,
cut the cable of my own ship, and told my men to row with
all their might if they too would not fare like the rest; so
they laid out for their lives, and we were thankful enough
when we got into open water out of reach of the rocks they
hurled at us. As for the others there was not one of them
left.
‘Thence we sailed sadly on, glad to have escaped death,
though we had lost our comrades, and came to the Aeaean
island, where Circe lives—a great and cunning goddess who
is own sister to the magician Aeetes—for they are both chil-
dren of the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Oceanus. We
brought our ship into a safe harbour without a word, for
some god guided us thither, and having landed we lay there
for two days and two nights, worn out in body and mind.
When the morning of the third day came I took my spear
and my sword, and went away from the ship to reconnoi-
tre, and see if I could discover signs of human handiwork,
or hear the sound of voices. Climbing to the top of a high
look-out I espied the smoke of Circe’s house rising upwards
amid a dense forest of trees, and when I saw this I doubted
whether, having seen the smoke, I would not go on at once

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