Iliad by Homer - Join iZDOT

Homer’s Iliad
Polypoetes took the quoit he hurled it as though it had been a
stockman’s stick which he sends flying about among his cattle
when he is driving them, so far did his throw out-distance those of
the others. All who saw it roared applause, and his comrades
carried the prize for him and set it on board his ship.
Achilles next offered a prize of iron for archery- ten double-edged
axes and ten with single eddies: he set up a ship’s mast, some way
off upon the sands, and with a fine string tied a pigeon to it by the
foot; this was what they were to aim at. “Whoever,” he said, “can
hit the pigeon shall have all the axes and take them away with him;
he who hits the string without hitting the bird will have taken a
worse aim and shall have the single-edged axes.”
Then uprose King Teucer, and Meriones the stalwart squire of
Idomeneus rose also, They cast lots in a bronze helmet and the lot
of Teucer fell first. He let fly with his arrow forthwith, but he did
not promise hecatombs of firstling lambs to King Apollo, and
missed his bird, for Apollo foiled his aim; but he hit the string with
which the bird was tied, near its foot; the arrow cut the string clean
through so that it hung down towards the ground, while the bird
flew up into the sky, and the Achaeans shouted applause.
Meriones, who had his arrow ready while Teucer was aiming,
snatched the bow out of his hand, and at once promised that he
would sacrifice a hecatomb of firstling lambs to Apollo lord of the
bow; then espying the pigeon high up under the clouds, he hit her
in the middle of the wing as she was circling upwards; the arrow
went clean through the wing and fixed itself in the ground at
Meriones’ feet, but the bird perched on the ship’s mast hanging her
head and with all her feathers drooping; the life went out of her,
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