Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/122

112 deigning even to rise from his seat to make the effort, draws it to its full stretch, and sends the shaft right through the whole line of axe-heads. It is the immediate prelude to the bloody tragedy which follows—

The philosopher Plato, who did not spare the poet occasionally in his criticisms, speaks of this passage as worthy of all admiration. We have here the primitive type, since worked out into countless shapes, of the "situations" and "discoveries" which abound in modern romance and drama.

Ulysses aims the first arrow at Antinous. It pierces him in the throat as he is raising a goblet to his lips, and