The Argonautica

He spoke unflinching. Amycus glared, his eyes rolling,

as a lion struck and wounded by a spear high in mountains,

while men crowd round him; though tightly hemmed in their throng,

he heeds them no longer, but fixes both eyes on one man--

the man who struck him first and failed to bring him down.

Then Tyndareus' son laid off his dense-woven mantle,

fine-spun, which one Lemnian woman gave as a guest-gift;

and Amycus cast down his dark cloak, folded double,

its brooches and the rough staff used to drive his cattle,

which he carried, cut from wild olive high on the mountain.

At once they searched and chose a nearby place that pleased them,

then seated all their comrades, split in two, on the sand.

The pair looked nothing alike in build or stature.

For one seemed sprung from baleful Typhoeus himself,

or Gaia's own: a monster such as once she brought forth

in wrath against Zeus; but Tyndareus' son matched a star--

a heavenly star, whose shining rays are loveliest of all

when it shines bright through deep night at the fall of evening.

Such was the son of Zeus; the first down on his cheeks

was only rising, his eyes still bright; yet strength lived within him,

and fury grew like a beast's; he swung his hands out wide,

testing them: did they still move freely, just as before,

or had hard work and rowing weighed them down together?

But Amycus made no trial; he stood far off in silence,