upon his lofty funeral pile. Aim now at Menelaus the renowned An arrow, while thou offerest a vow To Lycian Phoebus, mighty with the bow, That thou wilt bring to him a hecatomb Of firstling lambs, when thou again shalt come Within thine own Zeleia’s sacred walls.”
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 When he should come again to his abode Within his own Zeleia’s sacred walls. Grasping the bowstring and the arrow’s notch, He drew them back, and forced the string to meet His breast, the arrow-head to meet the bow, Till the bow formed a circle. Then it twanged. The cord gave out a shrilly sound; the shaft Leaped forth in eager haste to reach the host.
Yet, Menelaus, then the blessed gods, The deathless ones, forgot thee not; and first, Jove’s daughter, gatherer of spoil, who stood Before thee, turned aside the deadly shaft. As when a mother, while her child is wrapped In a sweet slumber, scares away the fly, So Pallas turned the weapon from thy breast, And guided it to where the golden clasps Made fast the belt, and where the corselet’s mail Was doubled. There the bitter arrow struck The belt, and through its close contexture passed, And fixed