That flock, those well-fed rams with their splendid thick fleece, sturdy, handsome beasts sporting their dark weight of wool: I lashed them abreast, quietly, twisting the willow-twigs the Cyclops slept on - giant, lawless brute - I took them three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man while the two rams either side would shield him well. So three beasts to bear each man, but as for myself? There was one bellwether ram, the prize of all the flock, and clutching him by his back, tucked up under his shaggy belly, there I hung, face upward, both hands locked in his marvelous deep fleece, clinging for dear life, my spirit steeled, enduring... So we held on, desperate, waiting Dawn's first light.

That flock,
those well-fed rams with their splendid thick fleece,
sturdy, handsome beasts sporting their dark weight of wool:
I lashed them abreast, quietly, twisting the willow-twigs
the Cyclops slept on – giant, lawless brute – I took them
three by three; each ram in the middle bore a man
while the two rams either side would shield him well.
So three beasts to bear each man, but as for myself?
There was one bellwether ram, the prize of all the flock,
and clutching him by his back, tucked up under
his shaggy belly, there I hung, face upward,
both hands locked in his marvelous deep fleece,
clinging for dear life, my spirit steeled, enduring…
So we held on, desperate, waiting Dawn’s first light.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 474-487. Odysseus’ ingenius escape from Cyclops’ cave shows his remarkable cunning. After blinding Polyphemus, Odysseus’ men tie themselves beneath the Cyclops’ rams. In the morning when Polyphemus lets his animals out of the cave to pasture, the deception works and the men escape undetected.

Homer Quotes