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Pandarus’s ibex-horn bow

Published entity metadata

Read-only identity and editorial metadata.

Canonical name
Pandarus’s ibex-horn bow
Disambiguator
None
Kind
Item
Scope
Individual
Editorial note
The specific bow used for the oath-breaking shot.

Aliases

0

No aliases recorded.

Location presence

Phase 6 currently covers 24 processed books.

0

No presence observations in the processed scope.

Claims

2
·Direct

Pandarus’s bow is made from sixteen-palm ibex horns, smoothed by a horn-worker and fitted with golden tips.

See evidence text
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
·Direct

Pandarus condemns his bow after it wounds two chiefs without killing and vows to burn it if he reaches home.

See evidence text
I did ill to take my bow down from its peg on the day I led my band of Trojans to Ilius in Hector’s service, and if ever I get home again to set eyes on my native place, my wife, and the greatness of my house, may some one cut my head off then and there if I do not break the bow and set it on a hot fire—such pranks as it plays me.

Additional evidence

Evidence records not already represented by a claim.

2
·Direct
This bow was made from the horns of a wild ibex which he had killed as it was bounding from a rock
·Direct
When Pandarus had strung his bow

Passage preview

Book 4 · Passage 8

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 not 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.