And third, the strength of godlike Ajax cast:
O'er both their marks it flew; till, fiercely flung
From Polypoetes' arm, the discus sung:
Far as a swain his whirling sheephook[1] throws,
That distant falls among the grazing cows,
So past them all the rapid circle flies:
His friends, while loud applauses shake the skies,
With force conjoined heave off the weighty prize.
Those who in skilful archery contend
He next invites, the twanging bow to bend:
And twice ten axes casts amidst the round,
Ten double-edged, and ten that singly wound.,
The mast, which late a first-rate galley bore,
The hero fixes in the sandy shore:
To the tall top a milk-white dove they tie,
The trembling mark at which their arrows fly.
"Whose weapon strikes yon fluttering bird shall bear
These two-edged axes, terrible in war;
The single, he whose shaft divides the cord."
He said: experienced Merion took the word,
And skilful Teucer; in the helm they threw
Their lots inscribed, and forth the latter flew.
Swift from the string the sounding arrow flies;
But flies unblest! No grateful sacrifice,
No firstling lambs, unheedful I didst thou vow
To Phrebus, patron of the shaft and bow.
For this, thy well-aimed arrow, turned aside,
Erred from the dove, yet cut the cord that tied:
Adown the main-mast fell the parted string,
And the free bird to heaven displays her wing:
Seas, shores, and skies with loud applause resound,
And Merion eager meditates the wound:
He takes the bow, directs the shaft above,
And, following with his eye the soaring dove,
Implores the god to speed it through the skies,
With vows of firstling lambs, and grateful sacrifice.
The dove, in airy circles as she wheels,
Amid the clouds the piercing arrow feels;
Quite through and through the point its passage found,
And at his feet fell bloody to the ground.
The wounded bird, ere yet she breathed her last,
With flagging wings alighted on the mast,
A moment hung, and spread her pinions there,
Then sudden dropped, and left her life in air.
From the pleased crowd new peals of thunder rise,
And to the ships brave Merion bears the prize.
- ↑ The staff bad a string attached to it. Some savage tribes of the Pacific Islands still use this device for assisting a throw.
