Then gliding forward with a furious bound
He wrench’d a rocky fragment from the ground
By far more ponderous, and more huge by far
Than what Phaeacia’s sons discharged in air. 
Fierce from his arm the enormous load he flings;
Sonorous through the shaded air it sings;
Couch’d to the earth, tempestuous as it flies,
The crowd gaze upward while it cleaves the skies. 
Beyond all marks, with many a giddy round
Down-rushing, it up-turns a hill of ground.

That Instant Pallas, bursting from a cloud,
Fix’d a distinguish’d mark, and cried aloud: 

“E’en he who, sightless, wants his visual ray
May by his touch alone award the day: 
Thy signal throw transcends the utmost bound
Of every champion by a length of ground: 
Securely bid the strongest of the train
Arise to throw; the strongest throws in vain.”

She spoke:  and momentary mounts the sky: 
The friendly voice Ulysses hears with joy. 
Then thus aloud (elate with decent pride)
“Rise, ye Phaecians, try your force (he cried): 
If with this throw the strongest caster vie,
Still, further still, I bid the discus fly. 
Stand forth, ye champions, who the gauntlet wield,
Or ye, the swiftest racers of the field! 
Stand forth, ye wrestlers, who these pastimes grace! 
I wield the gauntlet, and I run the race. 
In such heroic games I yield to none,
Or yield to brave Laodamas alone: 
Shall I with brave Laodamas contend? 
A friend is sacred, and I style him friend. 
Ungenerous were the man, and base of heart,
Who takes the kind, and pays the ungrateful part: 
Chiefly the man, in foreign realms confined,
Base to his friend, to his own interest blind: 
All, all your heroes I this day defy;
Give me a man that we our might may try. 
Expert in every art, I boast the skill
To give the feather’d arrow wings to kill;
Should a whole host at once discharge the bow,
My well-aim’d shaft with death prevents the foe: 
Alone superior in the field of Troy,
Great Philoctetes taught the shaft to fly. 
From all the sons of earth unrivall’d praise
I justly claim; but yield to better days,
To those famed days when great Alcides rose,
And Eurytus, who bade the gods be foes
(Vain Eurytus, whose art became his crime,
Swept from the earth, he perish’d in his prime: 
Sudden the irremeable way he trod,
Who boldly durst defy the bowyer god). 
In fighting fields as far the spear I throw
As flies an arrow from the well-drawn bow. 
Sole in the race the contest I decline,
Stiff are my weary joints, and I resign;
By storms and hunger worn; age well may fail,
When storms and hunger doth at once assail.”

Abash’d, the numbers hear the godlike man,
Till great Alcinous mildly thus began: