So spake Minerva, and her words o’ercame The weak one’s purpose. He uncovered straight His polished bow, made of the elastic horns Of a wild goat, which, from his lurking-place, As once it left its cavern lair, he smote, And pierced its breast, and stretched it on the rock. Full sixteen palms in length the horns had grown From the goat’s forehead. These an artisan Had smoothed, and, aptly fitting each to each, Polished the whole and tipped the work with gold. To bend that bow, the warrior lowered it And pressed an end against the earth. His friends Held up, meanwhile, their shields before his face, Lest the brave sons of Greece should lift their spears Against him ere the champion of their host, The warlike Menelaus, should have felt The arrow. Then the Lycian drew aside The cover from his quiver, taking out A well-fledged arrow that had never flown⁠— A cause of future sorrows. On the string He laid that fatal arrow, while he made To Lycian Phoebus, mighty with the bow, A vow to sacrifice before his shrine A noble hecatomb of firstling lambs