“As thus he raved my joints with horror shook; The tide of blood my chilling heart forsook; I saw him once disgorge huge morsels, raw, Of wretches undigested in his maw. From the pale breathless trunks whole limbs he tore, His beard all clotted with o’erflowing gore. My anxious hours I pass’d in caves, my food Was forest fruits and wildings of the wood; At length a sail I wafted, and aboard My fortune found a hospitable lord.
“Now, in return, your own adventures tell, And what, since first you put to sea, befell.”
Macareus relates the adventures of Ulysses and his companions during their voyage to Ithaca, with the enchantments of Circe, who detains the hero at her court twelve months.