made trial of him in boxing; and he had slain many of the neighbours.
And at that time too he went down to the ship and in his insolence
scorned to ask them the occasion of their voyage, and who they were, but
at once spake out among them all:

"Listen, ye wanderers by sea, to what it befits you to know. It is the
rule that no stranger who comes to the Bebrycians should depart till he
has raised his hands in battle against mine. Wherefore select your
bravest warrior from the host and set him here on the spot to contend
with me in boxing. But if ye pay no heed and trample my decrees under
foot, assuredly to your sorrow will stern necessity come upon you."

Thus he spake in his pride, but fierce anger seized them when they heard
it, and the challenge smote Polydeuces most of all. And quickly he stood
forth his comrades' champion, and cried:

"Hold now, and display not to us thy brutal violence, whoever thou art;
for we will obey thy rules, as thou sayest. Willingly now do I myself
undertake to meet thee."

Thus he spake outright; but the other with rolling eyes glared on him,
like to a lion struck by a javelin when hunters in the mountains are
hemming him round, and, though pressed by the throng, he recks no more
of them, but keeps his eyes fixed, singling out that man only who struck
him first and slew him not. Hereupon the son of Tyndareus laid aside his
mantle, closely-woven, delicately-wrought, which one of the Lemnian
maidens had given him as a pledge of hospitality; and the king threw
down his dark cloak of double fold with its clasps and the knotted crook
of mountain olive which he carried. Then straightway they looked and
chose close by a spot that pleased them and bade their comrades sit upon