
Iusta vindicta.[1]
Just recompense
Dum residet Cyclops sinuosi in faucibus antri,
Haec secum teneras concinit inter oves,
Pascite vos herbas, sociis ego pascar Achivis,
Postremumque Utin viscera nostra ferent.
Audiit haec Ithacus, Cyclopaque lumine cassum
Reddidit, en poenas ut suus author habet[2]. [3]
Sitting in the mouth of his arching cave, the Cyclops sang thus to himself amidst his gentle sheep: Do you feed on grass; I shall feed on the Greek companions, and last of all my belly shall get No-man. The man from Ithaca heard this and made the Cyclops eyeless. See how the one who plotted misfortune collects it himself!
1. From 1536 onwards, Wechel editions have a different picture depicting the Cyclops being blinded, more correctly, with a stake rather than an arrow.
2. A proverbial sentiment: cf. Erasmus, Adagia 3091, Di tibi dent tuam mentem.
3. For the story of Ulysses (the man from Ithaca) in the Cyclops’ cave and his escape by blinding the Cyclops, see Homer, Odyssey 9.177 ff. Ulysses had told the Cyclops his name was No-man. (Utis l. 4).
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- beard [31A534] Search | Browse Iconclass
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