Part 1 (1/2)
The Adventures of Ulysses
by Charles Laned as a supplement to the Adventures of Teles of Ulysses, the father of Telemachus
The picture which it exhibits is that of a bravewith adversity; by a wise use of events, and with an ini out a way for hih the severest trials to which human life can be exposed; with ene hients in this tale, besides s which denote external force or internal teer which a wise fortitude h this world The fictions contained in it will be found to comprehend soy
The groundwork of the story is as old as the Odyssey, but thethe prolixity which ained a rapidity to the narration which I hope will ive it h I am sensible that by the curtailment I have sacrificed in many places the manners to the passion, the subordinate characteristics to the essential interest of the story The atte a comparison with any of the direct translations of the Odyssey, either in prose or verse, though if I were to state the obligations which I have had to one obsolete version, [Footnote: The translation of Hon of Ja ree of reputation which I could hope to acquire fro
CHAPTER ONE
The Cicons--The Fruit of the Lotos-tree--Polyphedom of the Winds, and God Aeolus's Fatal Present--The Laestrygonian Man-eaters
This history tells of the wanderings of Ulysses and his followers in their return from Troy, after the destruction of that famous city of Asia by the Grecians He was inflaain, after a ten years' absence, his wife and native country, Ithaca He was king of a barren spot, and a poor country in co, or the wealthy kingdoms which he touched upon in his return; yet, wherever he came, he could never see a soil which appeared in his eyes half so sweet or desirable as his country earth This made him refuse the offers of the Goddess Calypso to stay with her, and partake of her ith to break frohter of the Sun
From Troy, ill winds cast Ulysses and his fleet upon the coast of the Cicons, a people hostile to the Grecians Landing his forces, he laid siege to their chief city, Ismarus, which he took, and with it much spoil, and slew many people But success proved fatal to hiood store of provisions which they found in that place, fell to eating and drinking, forgetful of their safety, till the Cicons, who inhabited the coast, had time to assemble their friends and allies froious force, set upon the Grecians, while they negligently revelled and feasted, and slew many of them, and recovered the spoil They, dispirited and thinned in their nuood to the shi+ps
Thence they set sail, sad at heart, yet soainst them they had not all been utterly destroyed A dreadful tehts and two days tossed them about, but the third day the weather cleared, and they had hopes of a favourable gale to carry them to Ithaca; but, as they doubled the Cape of Malea, suddenly a north wind arising drove them back as far as Cythera
After that, for the space of nine days, contrary winds continued to drive them in an opposite direction to the point to which they were bound, and the tenth day they put in at a shore where a race of men dwell that are sustained by the fruit of the lotos-tree Here Ulysses sent some of his men to land for fresh water, ere ave them some of their country food to eat--not with any ill intention towards the eaten of this fruit, so pleasant it proved to their appetite that they in a hts of ho back to the shi+ps to give an account of what sort of inhabitants dwelt there, but they would needs stay and live there a them, and eat of that precious food forever; and when Ulysses sent other of histhem back by force, they strove, and wept, and would not leave their food for heaven itself, sofruit had bewitched them But Ulysses caused them to be bound hand and foot, and cast under the hatches; and set sail with all possible speed froht taste the lotos, which had such strange qualities to hts of hoht by unknown and out-of-the-way shores, they came by daybreak to the land where the Cyclops dwell, a sort of giant shepherds that neither sow nor plough, but the earth untilled produces for therapes, yet they have neither bread nor wine, nor know the arts of cultivation, nor care to know theoverns are in caves, on the steep heads of overned by his own caprice, or not governed at all; their wives and children as lawless as the as he or she thinks good shi+ps or boats they have none, nor artificers to make them, no trade or commerce, or wish to visit other shores; yet they have convenient places for harbours and for shi+pping Here Ulysses with a chosen party of twelve followers landed, to explore what sort of ers, or altogether wild and savage, for as yet no dwellers appeared in sight
The first sign of habitation which they caiant's cave rudely fashi+oned, but of a size which betokened the vast proportions of its owner; the pillars which supported it being the bodies of huge oaks or pines, in the natural state of the tree, and all about showed th than skill in whoever built it Ulysses, entering it, ade contrivances and artless structure of the place, and longed to see the tenant of so outlandish a ifts would have th would succeed in forcing it, from such a one as he expected to find the inhabitant, he resolved to flatter his hospitality with a present of Greek wine, of which he had store in twelve great vessels, so strong that no one ever drank it without an infusion of twenty parts of water to one of wine, yet the fragrance of it even then so delicious that it would have vexed ait; but whoever tasted it, it was able to raise his courage to the height of heroic deeds Taking with theon full of this precious liquor, they ventured into the recesses of the cave Here they pleased theiant's kitchen, where the flesh of sheep and goats lay strewed; his dairy, where goat-hs and pails; his pens, where he kept his live animals; but those he had driven forth to pasture with hi their eyes with a sight of these curiosities, their ears were suddenly deafened with a noise like the falling of a house It was the owner of the cave, who had been abroad all day feeding his flock, as his custom was, in thefrom pasture He thren a pile of fire-wood, which he had been gathering against supper-time, before the mouth of the cave, which occasioned the crash they heard The Grecians hid theht of the uncouth est of the Cyclops, who boasted himself to be the son of Neptune He lookedthan a man, and to his brutal body he had a brutish ave milk, to the interior of the cave, but left the ra up a stone so massy that twenty oxen could not have drawn it, he placed it at the mouth of the cave, to defend the entrance, and sat hioats; which done, he lastly kindled a fire, and throwing his great eye round the cave (for the Cyclops have no more than one eye, and that placed in the ht he discerned souests, what are you? Merchants or wandering thieves?” he bellowed out in a voice which took fro
Only Ulysses summoned resolution to answer, that they came neither for plunder nor traffic, but were Grecians who had lost their way, returning froamemnon, the renowned son of Atreus, they had sacked, and laid level with the ground Yet now they prostrated theed to be ht him that he would bestow the rites of hospitality upon theers, and would fiercely resent any injury which they ht suffer
”Fool!” said the Cyclop, ”to come so far to preach to me the fear of the Gods We Cyclops care not for your Jove, whooat, nor any of your blessed ones We are stronger than they, and dare bid open battle to Jove hih you and all your fellows of the earth join with him” And he bade them tell him where their shi+p was in which they came, and whether they had any companions But Ulysses, with a wise caution, made answer that they had no shi+p or co their shi+p in pieces, had dashed upon his coast, and they alone had escaped He replied nothing, but gripping two of the nearest of them, as if they had been no ainst the earth, and, shocking to relate, tore in pieces their li a lion'sthe blood; for the Cyclops are _man-eaters_, and esteeoat's or kid's; though by reason of their abhorred custolers, or now and then a shi+pwrecked ht so horrid, Ulysses and his men were like distracted people He, when he had oat'shis goats Then Ulysses drew his sword, and half resolved to thrust it with all his hts restrained him, else they had there without help all perished, for none but Polyphemus himself could have reuard the entrance So they were constrained to abide all that night in fear
When day ca a fire, made his breakfast of two other of his unfortunate prisoners, thenaside the vast stone, and shutting it again when he had done upon the prisoners, with as much ease as a man opens and shuts a quiver's lid, he let out his flock, and drove thes (as sharp as winds in storth or cunning the Cyclop see left alone, with the reave manifest proof how farthe hich the Cyclop had piled up for firing, in length and thickness like a mast, which he sharpened and hardened in the fire, and selected four men, and instructed them what they should do with this stake, andwas come, the Cyclop drove home his sheep; and as fortune directed it, either of purpose, or that his memory was overruled by the Gods to his hurt (as in the issue it proved), he drove thewith the da-to the stone of the cave, he fell to his horrible supper When he had despatched two more of the Grecians, Ulysses waxed bold with the contemplation of his project, and took a bowl of Greek wine, and merrily dared the Cyclop to drink
[Illustration: _'Cyclop,' he said, 'take a bowl of wine frouest'_]
”Cyclop,” he said, ”take a bowl of wine froest the man's flesh that you have eaten, and shohat drink our shi+p held before it went down All I ask in recoood, is to be dismissed in a whole skin Truly you must look to have few visitors, if you observe this new custouests”
The brute took and drank, and vehemently enjoyed the taste of wine, which was new to hion, and entreated for ht bestow a gift upon the iven hirapes, but this rich juice, he swore, was siain Ulysses plied him with the wine, and the fool drank it as fast as he poured out, and again he asked the na, said, ”My name is Noman: my kindred and friends in my own country call me Noman”
”Then,” said the Cyclop, ”this is the kindness I will show thee, Noman: I will eat thee last of all thy friends” He had scarce expressed his savage kindness, when the fu wine overcame him, and he reeled down upon the floor and sank into a dead sleep
Ulysses watched his ti up his men, they placed the sharp end of the stake in the fire till it was heated red-hot, and soe beyond that which they were used to have, and the four e stake, which they had heated red-hot, right into the eye of the drunken cannibal, and Ulysses helped to thrust it in with all his ht, still farther and farther, with effort, as ushed out, and the eye-ball s rafter broke in it, and the eye hissed, as hot iron hisses when it is plunged into water