Next they came to another island, where there was a bay with rocks around, with goats leaping on them.  Here Ulysses left eleven ships, and sailed with one to explore the little islet opposite.  Landing with his men, he entered an enormous cavern, well stored with bowls of milk and cream, and with rows of cheeses standing on the ledges of rock.  While the Greeks were regaling themselves, a noise was heard, and great flocks of sheep and goats came bleating in.  Behind them came a giant, with a fir tree for a staff, and only one eye in the middle of his forehead.  He was Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, sons of Neptune, and workmen of Vulcan.  He asked fiercely who the strangers were, and Ulysses told him that they were shipwrecked sailors, imploring him for hospitality in the name of the gods.  Polyphemus laughed at this, saying he was stronger than the gods, and did not care for them; and, dashing two unhappy Greeks on the floor, he ate them up at once; after which he closed up the front of the cave with a monstrous rock, penned up the kids and lambs, and began to milk his goats, drank up a great quantity of milk, and fell asleep on the ground.  Ulysses thought of killing him at once, but recollected that the stone at the mouth of the cave would keep him captive if the giant’s strength did not move it, and abstained.  In the morning the Cyclops let out his flocks, and then shut the Greeks in with the stone; but he left his staff behind, and Ulysses hardened the top of this in the fire.  A skin of wine had been brought from the ships, and when Polyphemus came home in the evening, and had devoured two more Greeks, Ulysses offered it to him.  It was the first wine he had tasted, and he was in raptures with it, asking his guest’s name as he pledged him.  “No-man,” replied Ulysses, begging again for mercy.  “This will I grant,” said the Cyclops, “in return for thy gift.  No-man shall be the last whom I devour.”  He drank up the whole skin of wine, and went to sleep.  Then Ulysses and four of his companions seized the staff, and forced its sharpened top into the Cyclops’ single eye, so that he awoke blind, and roaring with pain so loud that all the other Cyclops awoke, and came calling to know who had hurt him.  “No-man,” shouted back Polyphemus; and they, thinking it was only some sudden illness, went back to their caves.  Meanwhile, Ulysses was fastening the remaining Greeks under the bellies of the sheep and goats, the wool and hair hanging over them.  He himself clung on under the largest goat, the master of the herd.  When morning came, bleatings of the herds caused the blind giant to rouse himself to roll back the stone from the entrance.  He laid his hand on each beast’s back, that his guests might not ride out on them, but he did not feel beneath, though he kept back Ulysses’ goat for a moment caressing it, and saying, “My pretty goat, thou seest me, but I cannot see thee.”