He groaned. A seer, Telemus, had told him long ago he would lose his sight to Odysseus. He had looked for some tall handsome man, not this little cheat who bested him with wine. “Come here,” he said, “so I may give you guest-gifts and urge Poseidon, my father, to grant you a convoy.” I answered that I wished I could as surely strip him of life as that the earth-shaker would never heal his eye.
Then he prayed to lord Poseidon, stretching his hands to heaven: if Odysseus was fated to see home, let him come late, in another’s ship, having lost all his comrades, and find trouble in his house. Poseidon heard the prayer.
Polyphemus hurled a second stone that fell aft and drove us on to the island where the other ships waited. We divided the Cyclops’s sheep so no man went short; they gave me the great ram as honor. I sacrificed to Zeus, but the son of Cronus took no heed. We feasted till sundown on the meat and sweet wine. When darkness came we slept by the stern-cables. At Dawn I woke my companions and told them to go aboard and loose the cables. They went aboard at once and sat at the benches, and striking the grey sea with their oars they rowed. From there we sailed on, glad to be alive, grieving for the friends we had lost.