These men on coming among the Lotus-eaters were kindly
entertained by them, and were given some of their own food, the
lotus-plant, to eat. The effect of this food was such that those
who partook of it lost all thoughts of home and wished to remain
in that country. It was by main force that Ulysses dragged these
men away, and he was even obliged to tie them under the benches of
the ships.
[Footnote: Tennyson in the "Lotus-eaters" has charmingly expressed
the dreamy, languid feeling which the lotus food is said to have
produced.
"How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each others' whispered speech;
Eating the Lotos, day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray:
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heaped over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass."]
They next arrived at the country of the Cyclopes. The Cyclopes
were giants, who inhabited an island of which they were the only
possessors.
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