Athena entered the Trojan ranks in the likeness of Laodocus son of Antenor and found Pandarus son of Lycaon standing among the strong shield-bearers who had followed him from the streams of Aesepus. She urged him: will you listen now, wise son of Lycaon? Dare to shoot Menelaus, and you will win thanks and glory from all Trojans, and most of all from Prince Alexandros. He would load you with splendid gifts if he saw Atreus’s warlike son beaten down by your arrow and set on the mournful pyre. Come, shoot at glorious Menelaus, and vow to Apollo the wolf-born, famous for the bow, a splendid hecatomb of firstborn lambs when you come home to holy Zeleia.
His fool’s heart was persuaded. He uncovered his polished bow, made from the horns of a wild goat he had stalked and killed as it bounded from a rock. The horns measured sixteen palms, and a craftsman had fitted them and set a golden bridge. Companions held shields before him. He took a fresh-winged arrow, source of black pains, vowed the sacrifice to Apollo, drew string to breast and notch to bow until the great bow bent into a circle. And released. The bow twanged, the string sang, and the sharp arrow leapt eager into the throng.
The gods did not forget Menelaus. Athena brushed the arrow aside as a mother brushes a fly from a sleeping child, and guided it where the golden buckles of his belt and double corselet met. It pierced belt and armor but only grazed the skin, and dark blood ran down.
Agamemnon shuddered when he saw the dark blood flowing. Groaning deeply, he took Menelaus by the hand. He said among his companions that he had cut oaths for his brother’s death, setting him alone before the Achaeans, since the Trojans had struck him and trampled the trustworthy oaths. Yet oath and blood of lambs and pure drink-offerings and right hands trusted would not be in vain. If the Olympian did not fulfill them at once, he would fulfill them later, and they would pay a great price — with their own heads, and their wives, and their children. Sacred Ilios would perish, and Priam, and Priam’s people; Zeus would shake his dark aegis over them in anger at this deceit.
Menelaus reassured him: the arrow had not struck a deadly place; belt and war-belt had stopped it. Agamemnon called Talthybius to fetch Machaon, son of Asclepius. Machaon came, drew out the arrow, loosened the armor, sucked the blood, and sprinkled healing medicines once given by Cheiron.