Ulyssesʹ Bow

Only Ulysses could draw his own bow, and he could shoot an arrow through twelve rings. By this sign Penelʹopē recognised her husband after an absence of twenty years.

Ulyssesʹ bow was prophetic. It belonged at one time to Euʹrytus of Œehalʹia.

“This bow of mine sang to me of present war … ‘I have heard but once of such a weapon … the bow of Odysseus,ʹ said the queen.”—H. Rider Haggard: The World’s Desire, bk. ii. chap. i.