The Odyssey: Book 21

Not a care for the wrathful eyes of god
or rites of hospitality he had spread before him,
no, he dined him, then he murdered him, commandeered
those hard-hoofed mares for the hero's own grange.

He kept it stored away in his stately house,
guarding the memory of a cherished friend,
and only took that bow on hunts at home.

Yokels, fools—you can't tell night from day!

You mawkish idiots, why are you sniveling here?

You mawkish idiots, why are you sniveling here?

First he planted the axes, digging a long trench,
one for all, and trued them all to a line
then tamped the earth to bed them.

Clearly your genteel mother never bred her boy
for the work of bending bows and shooting arrows.

Rake the fire in the hall, pull up a big stool,
heap it with fleece and fetch that hefty ball
of lard from the stores inside.

So we young lords
can heat and limber the bow and rub it down with grease
before we try again and finish off the contest!

So,
to amuse you all, I can try my hand, my strength...
is the old force still alive inside these gnarled limbs?

Modest words
that sent them all into hot, indignant rage,
fearing he just might string the polished bow.

There to visit the Lapiths, crazed with wine
the headlong Centaur bent to his ugly work
in the prince's own house!

Our friend here is a strapping, well-built man
and claims to be the son of a noble father.

His outburst sent them all into gales of laughter,
blithe and oblivious, that dissolved their pique
against the prince.

His outburst sent them all into gales of laughter,
blithe and oblivious, that dissolved their pique
against the prince.

Under the portico lay a cable, ship's tough gear:
he lashed the gates with this, then slipped back in
and ran and sat on the stool that he'd just left,
eyes riveted on Odysseus.

A suitor would glance at his neighbor, jeering, taunting,
"Look at our connoisseur of bows!"

So they mocked, but Odysseus, mastermind in action,
once he'd handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song—
who strains a string to a new peg with ease,
making the pliant sheep-gut fast at either end—
so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow.

So they mocked, but Odysseus, mastermind in action,
once he'd handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song—
who strains a string to a new peg with ease,
making the pliant sheep-gut fast at either end—
so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow.

Setting shaft on the handgrip, drawing the notch
and bowstring back, back...right from his stool,
just as he sat but aiming straight and true, he let fly—
and never missing an ax from the first ax-handle
clean on through to the last and out
the shaft with its weighted brazen head shot free!