and in the end drops off into slumber profound as Christopher Sly's.
Now comes the dramatic retribution. The trunk of an olive-tree has been sharpened to a point, is heated in the fire, and thrust by Ulysses and his surviving companions into the eye of the insensible giant. The Chorus, indeed, had promised to lend a hand in this operation, for they are anxious to be off in quest of their liege-lord Bacchus. But their courage fails them at the proper moment—some have sprained ankles, others have dust in their eyes, others weakness of spine. All they can or will do—and this service is truly operatic in its kind—is to sing a cheerful and encouraging accompaniment to the boring-out of the eye:—
"Hasten and thrust,
And parch up to dust,
The eye of the beast
Who feeds on his guest;
Burn and blind
The Ætnean hind;
Scoop and draw,
But beware lest he claw
Your limbs near his maw."
The last scene of the "Cyclops" has to the reader an appearance of being either imperfectly preserved or originally hurried over. It may be that, not having the action before us, we miss some connecting dumb-show. In the Odyssey the escape of Ulysses and his crew is effected with much difficulty, and great risk to their chief: in this satyric play they get out of the
