[Jim Moonan]

I direct children in stage plays and we periodically put on Peter Pan. There's a scene where the Lost Boys shoot down Wendy with a bow and arrow. It's scripted for the boys to shout, "Zing!" as they shoot.

[john savoie]

The entrancing lead-in hook of Beatles' Come Together is "shoot me" sung almost onomatopoetically.

[Allen Tice]

Besides John's Odyssey suggestion in post 4, there's another at least as rich at the start of the Iliad, where Apollo Farshot uses his silver bow to answer prayer. The following version uses "twang", but look at the sound in the Greek (see the Perseus site), and compare Gavin Douglas's version with other translations. To aid finding the quote, it's early in Book One.

"[43] So he spoke in prayer, and Phoebus Apollo heard him. Down from the peaks of Olympus he strode, angered at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver. The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god as he moved, and his coming was like the night. Then he sat down apart from the ships and let fly an arrow: terrible was the twang of the silver bow. The mules he assailed first and the swift dogs, but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging shafts, and struck; and constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick."

PS I'm away from my reference books, and think I am mistaken about Gavin Douglas and the Iliad. George Chapman is the man to try, and then of course the actual Greek word for a really old and "pure" guide to appropriate English.

[Julie Steiner]

LOL, Allen, I looked it up, based on your lead, and Homer says "clang!"

Actually, it's two syllables: κλαγγὴ "klangē," with the accent on the ē. (The first gamma in a double gamma combo gets pronounced as a nu.)

Interesting that the "ng" appears in so many of these options--twang, zing, and clang. (Although the idea of Jim's Lost Boys using Charlie's advice in performance has a certain appeal, too.)

[Ann Drysdale]

The ng is the residual shudder of the bow after the arrow has been sent out of sight to become, somewhere, rain.

[Jennifer Reeser]

I second Susan -- "twang."

[Jim Moonan]

Michael: "To be as clear as I should have been initially, the context of the line being translated strongly suggests that it is the sound made by a newly strung bow"

That's a whole different sound! More of a thudding sound or thumping sound. I'm imagining the fingers pulling the bowstring and then releasing. In my mind definitely a "th" sound.

[Allen Tice]

You rock, Julie. I love it. That final eta makes it real. Mobs of scholars think that the Iliad as we have it is the result of a longish process of recitation and oral editing in front of knowledgeable and critical audiences. So, "clanga" is meat, not potatoes. I think Drysdale is a cryptolarkinophilic elf. Good Larkin too!


[link removed]

[Michael Cantor]

Allen - I clicked on that justjohnwright link you provided and (a) couldn't find it, and (b) my Avast virus warning system had a shit fit, with flashing lights and a threat has been detected notice. This is how John Podesta was hacked. Is Putin going after formal poets now? Or are you the man behind the men who man the leak-machine? Check the link.

[Allen Tice]

My Grover Whizz iPod with Halfvast U loads it Ok. I don't recommend that you pull the thread unless are you're sitting in an armchair to prevent collateral damage. Who is this Putin you are going on about? Is he related to Bubba Ram Dass the Love Sponge?