Epeisodion 1
Silenus
Ye gods! what a delicious scent it has!
Odysseus
What! didst thou see it?
Silenus
No, i’ faith, but I smell it.
Odysseus
Taste it then, that thy approval may not stop at words.
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Silenus
Zounds! Bacchus is inviting me to dance; ha! ha!
Odysseus
Did it not gurgle finely down thy throttle?
Silenus
Aye that it did, to the ends of my fingers.
Odysseus
Well, we will give thee money besides.
160
Silenus
Only undo the skin, and never mind the money.
Odysseus
Bring out the cheeses then and lambs.
Silenus
I will do so, with small thought of any master. For let me have a single cup of that and I would turn madman,
giving in exchange for it the flocks of every Cyclops and then throwing myself into the sea from the Leucadian rock, once I have been well drunk and smoothed out my wrinkled brow. For if a man rejoice not in his drinking, he is mad; for in drinking there is love
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with all its frolic, and dancing withal, and oblivion of woe. Shall not I then purchase so rare a drink, bidding the senseless Cyclops and his central eye go hang? Exit Silenus.
170
Chorus
Hearken, Odysseus, let us hold some converse with thee.
175
Odysseus
Well, do so; ours is a meeting of friends.
Chorus
Did you take Troy and capture the famous Helen?
Odysseus
Aye, and we destroyed the whole family of Priam.
Chorus
After capturing your blooming prize,
were all of you in turn her lovers? for she likes variety in husbands; the traitress! the sight of a man with embroidered breeches on his legs and a golden chain about his neck so fluttered her,
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that she left Menelaus, her excellent little husband. Would there had never been a race of women born into the world at all, unless it were for me alone!
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Silenus
(reappearing with food.) Lo! I bring you fat food from the flocks, king Odysseus, the young of bleating sheep
and cheeses of curdled milk without stint. Carry them away with you and be gone from the cave at once, after giving me a drink of merry grape-juice in exchange.
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Chorus
Alack! yonder comes the Cyclops; what shall we do?
Odysseus
Then truly are we lost, old sir! whither must we fly?
Silenus
Inside this rock, for there ye may conceal yourselves.
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Odysseus
Dangerous advice of thine, to run into the net!
Silenus
No danger; there are ways of escape in plenty in the rock.
Odysseus
No, never that; for surely Troy will groan and loudly too, if we flee from a single man, when I have oft withstood
with my shield a countless host of Phrygians. Nay, if die we must, we will die a noble death; or, if we live, we will maintain our old renown at least with credit.
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Cyclops
A light here! hold it up! what is this? what means this idleness, your Bacchic revelry? Here have we no Dionysus,
