Through the livelong day, for the gentle breeze in the gloaming died.

Then all in a moment one of the War-god’s birds they espied,

Which haunt that isle, through the welkin darting high overhead;

And behold, his pinions he shook, and down on the ship as she sped

A feather keen hath he shot: to the leftward shoulder it sprang

Of Oïleus: he dropped from his hands his oar at the sudden pang

Of the stroke, and they marvelled all when the feather-arrow they saw.

But the shaft from the flesh did his rowing-mate Eribôtes draw; {1040}

And he bound up the wound; for his baldric-band he unclasped, that bare

His sword-sheath hanging beside him. Sweeping on through the air