1 Give him the bow, and let us see whether he can string it or no.
2 I did not miss what I aimed at, and I was not long in stringing my bow.
3 Then he took it in his right hand to prove the string, and it sang sweetly under his touch like the twittering of a swallow.
4 We suitors shall have to contend for it with might and main, for we shall find it no light matter to string such a bow as this is.
5 He looked black as night with his bare bow in his hands and his arrow on the string, glaring around as though ever on the point of taking aim.
6 At this moment the bow was in the hands of Eurymachus, who was warming it by the fire, but even so he could not string it, and he was greatly grieved.
7 But Ulysses, when he had taken it up and examined it all over, strung it as easily as a skilled bard strings a new peg of his lyre and makes the twisted gut fast at both ends.
8 He also brought a great ball of lard from what they had in the house, and the suitors warmed the bow and again made trial of it, but they were none of them nearly strong enough to string it.
9 This done, he went on to the pavement to make trial of the bow; thrice did he tug at it, trying with all his might to draw the string, and thrice he had to leave off, though he had hoped to string the bow and shoot through the iron.
10 I shall make the suitors try to do the same thing, and whichever of them can string the bow most easily, and send his arrow through all the twelve axes, him will I follow, and quit this house of my lawful husband, so goodly and so abounding in wealth.
11 He heaved a deep sigh and said, "I grieve for myself and for us all; I grieve that I shall have to forgo the marriage, but I do not care nearly so much about this, for there are plenty of other women in Ithaca and elsewhere; what I feel most is the fact of our being so inferior to Ulysses in strength that we cannot string his bow."