Laudator Temporis Acti

Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter XLI, note 15:

Νευρὴν μὲν μαζῷ πέλασεν, τόξῳ δὲ σίδηρον (Iliad, Δ. 123). How concise—how just—how beautiful is the whole picture! I see the attitudes of the archer—I hear the twanging of the bow.
λίγξε βιὸς, νευρὴ δὲ μέγ' ίαχεν, ἆλτο δ ̓ ὀϊστός.

Homer, Iliad 4.116-126 (tr. Richmond Lattimore; he = Pandarus):

He stripped away the lid of the quiver, and took out an arrow
feathered, and never shot before, transmitter of dark pain.
Swiftly he arranged the bitter arrow along the bowstring,
and made his prayer to Apollo the light-born, the glorious archer,
that he would accomplish a grand sacrifice of lambs first born        120
when he came home again to the city of sacred Zeleia.
He drew, holding at once the grooves and the ox-hide bowstring
and brought the string against his nipple, iron to the bowstave.
But when he had pulled the great weapon till it made a circle,
the bow groaned, and the string sang high, and the arrow, sharp-pointed,        12S
leapt away, furious, to fly through the throng before it.

αὐτὰρ ὁ σύλα πῶμα φαρέτρης, ἐκ δ᾽ ἕλετ᾽ ἰὸν
ἀβλῆτα πτερόεντα μελαινέων ἕρμ᾽ ὀδυνάων·
αἶψα δ᾽ ἐπὶ νευρῇ κατεκόσμει πικρὸν ὀϊστόν,
εὔχετο δ᾽ Ἀπόλλωνι Λυκηγενέϊ κλυτοτόξῳ
ἀρνῶν πρωτογόνων ῥέξειν κλειτὴν ἑκατόμβην        120
οἴκαδε νοστήσας ἱερῆς εἰς ἄστυ Ζελείης.
ἕλκε δ᾽ ὁμοῦ γλυφίδας τε λαβὼν καὶ νεῦρα βόεια·
νευρὴν μὲν μαζῷ πέλασεν, τόξῳ δὲ σίδηρον.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ κυκλοτερὲς μέγα τόξον ἔτεινε,
λίγξε βιός, νευρὴ δὲ μέγ᾽ ἴαχεν, ἆλτο δ᾽ ὀϊστὸς        125
ὀξυβελὴς καθ᾽ ὅμιλον ἐπιπτέσθαι μενεαίνων.