02 May 2007

how Homer describes injury

[from Robert Fagles translation of Homer's Odyssey]

Odysseus aimed and shot Antinous square in the throat
and the point went stabbing clean through the soft neck and out —
and off to the side he pitched, the cup dropped from his grasp
as the shaft sank home, and the man's life-blood came spurting
from his nostrils —
                          thick red jets —
                                                 a sudden thrust of his foot —
he kicked away the table —
                                       food showered across the floor,
the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth.

The Odyssey

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