Page:Aeneid (Conington 1866).djvu/178

154 The champions next, who would compete

In archer skill with arrow fleet,

Æneas summons, and ordains

The gifts that shall reward their pains.

His mighty hand erects a mast

Plucked from Serestus' bark,

And to its top a dove makes fast

To be the bowman's mark.

The rivals gather to the spot:

A brazen helm receives each lot:

And first amid applauding cries

Hippocoon's name to daylight flies:

Next Mnestheus, wreathed with olive crown,

Mnestheus, whose vessel earned renown.

Third in the list Eurytion came,

Thy brother, Pandarus, mighty name,

Whose arrow, charged to break the peace,

First fluttered through the ranks of Greece.

Last at the bottom of the casque

Acestes' lot appears,

He too adventuring to the task

That matches younger years.

They bend their bows like men of worth,

And from the case their shafts draw forth:

And first from off the twanging string

Hippocoon's feathered dart takes wing,

Achieves the passage, and sticks fast

Full in the centre of the mast.

The stout tree quivers: the scared bird

Flaps, and applauding peals are heard.

Then Mnestheus raises toward the sky

His bow, and levels shaft and eye—

But ah! the dove he might not wound:

His arrow cuts the flaxen ties