"Friends,
I can’t bend it. Take it, someone – try.
Here is a bow to rob our best of life and breath,
all our best contenders! Still, better be dead
than live on here, never winning the prize
that tempts us all – forever in pursuit,
burning with expectation every day."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 21, lines 172-178. The first suitor to try to bend back Odysseus’ bow and string it is Leodes, but he fails. Frustrated, he speaks about life and death, foreshadowing the death of the suitors at the hands of Odysseus and his bow.