Poetical allusions — Homer, Virgil 155 



Atrides, watchful of the wary foe, 



Pierced with his lance the hand that grasp'd the bow, 



And nail'd it to the yew.' ^ 



When /Eneas bids Pandarus^ strike down Dio- 

 medes, who was committing such havoc in the 

 Trojan army, Pandarus draws from its case his 

 poHshed bow, his spoil won from a mountain ibex. 

 The Greek bows, which were of small size, were, like 

 those of the Saracens in crusading times, made of 

 horn, with an intervening piece of elastic wood, 

 otherwise there would have been no spring in the 

 bow. This wood was in some instances cornel, 

 but more commonly, at least in Greek times, yew. 



Virgil makes frequent mention of the yew. He 

 notices its elasticity and the danger of placing 

 beehives near to ' where the yew, their poisonous 

 neighbour, grows.' ^ He says that, through the 

 bees visiting it when in flower, the honey, in 

 Corsica, became poisonous. He speaks of its 

 preference for cool climates : ' The baleful yew to 

 northern blasts assigns,' * and of its dislike to a 

 dry soil. The ' baleful yew ' is repeated later in 

 the same poem : ' Black ivy, pitch-trees and the 

 baleful yew.'^ In another place he describes it as 

 being tough : — 



1 Iliad ^m. 746 (//'.). 



- Ibid., V. 196. ' Georgics iv. 



** ' Amantes fritjora Taxi. ' — Georg. i. 158. 



^ Georg. i. 349. ' Taxique nocentes,' ib. ii. 257. 



