The Odyssey 21.85–95

“Foolish boors, who mind only the things of the day! Wretched pair, why now do you shed tears, and trouble the soul in the breast of the lady, whose heart even as it is lies low in pain, seeing that she has lost her dear husband? Nay, sit and feast in silence, or else go forth and weep, and leave the bow here behind as a decisive1 contest for the wooers; for not easily, methinks, is this polished bow to be strung. For there is no man among all these here such as Odysseus was, and I myself saw him. For I remember him, though I was still but a child.” So he spoke, but the heart in his breast hoped that he would string the bow and shoot an arrow through the iron. Yet verily he was to be the first to taste of an arrow from the hands of noble Odysseus, whom then he,