his chores and cannibal repast, graciously accepted the wine which
Ulysses offered him. Pleased with its taste, he even promised the
giver a reward if he would only state his name. The wily Ulysses
declaring he was called Noman, the giant facetiously promised to eat
him last, before he fell into a drunken sleep. Then Ulysses and his
four men, heating the pointed pine, bored out the eye of Polyphemus,
who howled with pain:

"Sudden I stir the embers, and inspire
With animating breath the seeds of fire;
Each drooping spirit with bold words repair,
And urge my train the dreadful deed to dare.
The stake now glow'd beneath the burning bed
(Green as it was) and sparkled fiery red.
Then forth the vengeful instrument I bring;
With beating hearts my fellows form a ring.
Urged by some present god, they swift let fall
The pointed torment on his visual ball.
Myself above them from a rising ground
Guide the sharp stake, and twirl it round and round.
As when a shipwright stands his workmen o'er,
Who ply the wimble, some huge beam to bore;
Urged on all hands it nimbly spins about,
The grain deep-piercing till it scoops it out;
In his broad eye so whirls the fiery wood;
From the pierced pupil spouts the boiling blood;
Singed are his brows; the scorching lids grow black;
The jelly bubbles, and the fibres crack."

His fellow-Cyclops, awakened by his cries, gathered without his cave,