The Bow at Night: An Inappropriate Weapon?

Abstract

IN THE DOLONEA, Iliad 10, Odysseus and Dolon each carry bow (10.260, 333). In due course Dolon's is stripped from him (459), and Odysseus uses his to whip the horses of Rhesus (500, 513-514). Is there something amiss here? Miss Lorimer's Homer and the Monuments is the place to start. She discusses the episode twice, both times in much the same terms. For her, the Dolonea is late, later than the Odyssey, because here alone in the Iliad is there any hint of Odysseus the bowman. In both discussions, as confirmatory detail, she insists that the bow is a strange weapon, surely peculiarly inappropriate weapon, to take on night reconnaissance.1 One would infer from her remarks that cannot be used at night. The topic is hardly one of the burning issues in the poem. Still, from time to time in conversation with colleagues, one may gain the impression that Lorimer has settled the matter. She is in fact unequivocally wrong, and we might as well dispose of her misapprehension for all time. The evidence comes from other societies in which the bow was at home. We begin with England, in the late eighteenth century. Sir Foster Cunliffe (1755-1834) tells of meeting at Hardwick, Buckinghamshire, in 1792, at which, after the evening meal, when was quite dark, the host set up archery targets lit by candles in paper lanterns. At first, reports Sir Foster, it was difficult to hit the boss . . . All [the] arrows went to the left, but in short time, by paying attention to that circumstance, the difficulty was overcome. The source that quotes the memorandum remarks, An interesting entry, as is perhaps the only contemporary record of this class of shooting, though we know was practised. 2 Likewise in England, in 1545 Roger Ascham (1515-1568), who later became Queen Elizabeth's tutor, recommended technique to train an archer to look at the target instead of his arrow. Let him take his bowe on the night, and shoot at two lightes, and there he shall be compelled to looke alwayes at his marke, and never at his shafte: this thinge, ones or twise used, will cause him to forsake looking at his shafte. 3