Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/178

The champions next, who would compete
In archer skill with arrow fleet,
Æneas summons, and ordains
The gifts that shall reward their pains.
His mighty hand erects a mast
Plucked from Serestus' bark,
And to its top a dove makes fast
To be the bowman's mark.
The rivals gather to the spot:
A brazen helm receives each lot:
And first amid applauding cries
Hippocoon's name to daylight flies:
Next Mnestheus, wreathed with olive crown,
Mnestheus, whose vessel earned renown.
Third in the list Eurytion came,
Thy brother, Pandarus, mighty name,
Whose arrow, charged to break the peace,
First fluttered through the ranks of Greece.
Last at the bottom of the casque
Acestes' lot appears,
He too adventuring to the task
That matches younger years.

They bend their bows like men of worth,
And from the case their shafts draw forth:
And first from off the twanging string
Hippocoon's feathered dart takes wing,
Achieves the passage, and sticks fast
Full in the centre of the mast.
The stout tree quivers: the scared bird
Flaps, and applauding peals are heard.
Then Mnestheus raises toward the sky
His bow, and levels shaft and eye—
But ah! the dove he might not wound:
His arrow cuts the flaxen ties