"When we reached the harbor we
found it land-locked under steep cliffs, with a narrow entrance
between two headlands. My captains took all their ships inside, and
made them fast close to one another, for there was never so much as a
breath of wind inside, but it was always dead calm. I kept my own
ship outside, and moored it to a rock at the very end of the point;
then I climbed a high rock to reconnoiter, but could see no sign
neither of man nor cattle, only some smoke rising from the ground. So
I sent two of my company with an attendant to find out what sort of
people the inhabitants were.
"The men when they got on shore
followed a level road by which the people draw their firewood from
the mountains into the town, till presently they met a young woman
who had come outside to fetch water, and who was daughter to a
Laestrygonian named Antiphates. She was going to the fountain Artacia
from which the people bring in their water, and when my men had come
close up to her, they asked her who the king of that country might
be, and over what kind of people he ruled; so she directed them to
her father's house, but when they got there they found his wife
to be a giantess as huge as a mountain, and they were horrified at
the sight of her.
"She at once called her husband
Antiphates from the place of assembly, and forthwith he set about
killing my men. He snatched up one of them, and began to make his
dinner of him then and there, whereon the other two ran back to the
ships as fast as ever they could. But Antiphates raised a hue and cry
after them, and thousands of sturdy Laestrygonians sprang up from
every quarter - ogres, not men. They threw vast rocks at us from the
cliffs as though they had been mere stones, and I heard the horrid
sound of the ships crunching up against one another, and the death
cries of my men, as the Laestrygonians speared them like fishes and
took them home to eat them. While they were thus killing my men
within the harbor I drew my sword, cut the cable of my own ship, and
told my men to row with all their might if they too would not fare
like the rest; so they laid out for their lives, and we were thankful
enough when we got into open water out of reach of the rocks they
hurled at us. As for the others there was not one of them
left.
"Thence we sailed sadly on, glad
to have escaped death, though we had lost our comrades, and came to
the Aeaean island, where Circe lives, a great and cunning goddess who
is own sister to the magician Aietes - for they are both children of
the sun by Perse, who is daughter to Okeanos. We brought our ship
into a safe harbor without a word, for some god guided us there, and
having landed we stayed there for two days and two nights, worn out
in body and mind. When the morning of the third day came I took my
spear and my sword, and went away from the ship to reconnoiter, and
see if I could discover signs of human handiwork, or hear the sound
of voices. Climbing to the top of a high look-out I espied the smoke
of Circe's house rising upwards amid a dense forest of trees,
and when I saw this I doubted whether, having seen the smoke, I would
not go on at once and find out more, but in the end I deemed it best
to go back to the ship, give the men their dinners, and send some of
them instead of going myself.
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