Achaemenides, a companion of Ulysses, is left behind on the coast of Sicily, where Aeneas finds him on his voyage to Italy.
Thus Achaemenides: “With thanks I name Aeneas, and his piety proclaim. I ’scaped the cyclop through the hero’s aid, Else in his maw my mangled limbs had laid. When first your navy under sail he found, He raved till Aetna labour’d with the sound; Raging, he stalk’d along the mountain’s side, And vented clouds of breath at every stride; His staff a mountain ash, and in the clouds, Oft as he walks, his grisly front he shrowds; Eyeless he groped about with vengeful haste, And justled promontories as he pass’d: Then heaved a rock’s high summit to the main, And bellow’d like some bursting hurricane:
“ ‘Oh! could I seize Ulysses in his flight, How unlamented were my loss of sight! These jaws should piecemeal tear each panting vein, Grind every crackling bone, and pound his brain.’