Page 175 - the-odyssey

where you have left your ship, and first draw it on to the
land. Then, hide all your ship’s gear and property in some
cave, and come back here with your men.’
‘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 fellows began frisk-
ing 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 re-
sounds 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 affection-
ate 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 abun-
dance.’
‘On this the men would have come with me at once, but
Eurylochus 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 Ulysses
with them. It was all through his sheer folly that those men

1 The Odyssey