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he would be the first to requite you very handsomely if he could see
Menelaus mount his funeral pyre, slain by an arrow from your hand.
Take your home aim then, and pray to Lycian Apollo, the famous archer;
vow that when you get home to your strong city of Zelea you will offer
a hecatomb of firstling lambs in his honour."
His fool's heart was persuaded, and he took his bow from its case.
This bow was made from the horns of a wild ibex which he had killed
as it was bounding from a rock; he had stalked it, and it had fallen
as the arrow struck it to the heart. Its horns were sixteen palms
long, and a worker in horn had made them into a bow, smoothing them
well down, and giving them tips of gold. When Pandarus had strung
his bow he laid it carefully on the ground, and his brave followers
held their shields before him lest the Achaeans should set upon him
before he had shot Menelaus. Then he opened the lid of his quiver
and took out a winged arrow that had yet been shot, fraught with the
pangs of death. He laid the arrow on the string and prayed to Lycian
Apollo, the famous archer, vowing that when he got home to his strong
city of Zelea he would offer a hecatomb of firstling lambs in his
honour. He laid the notch of the arrow on the oxhide bowstring, and
drew both notch and string to his breast till the arrow-­‐head was near
the bow; then when the bow was arched into a half-­‐circle he let fly,
and the bow twanged, and the string sang as the arrow flew gladly
on over the heads of the throng.
But the blessed gods did not forget thee, O Menelaus, and Jove's daughter,
driver of the spoil, was the first to stand before thee and ward off
the piercing arrow. She turned it from his skin as a mother whisks