Odyssey 3.447 · Book 3, lines 447–450
The blow, and the women's cry
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αὐτὰρ ἐπεί ῥʼ εὔξαντο καὶ οὐλοχύτας προβάλοντο, αὐτίκα Νέστορος υἱὸς ὑπέρθυμος Θρασυμήδης ἤλασεν ἄγχι στάς· πέλεκυς δʼ ἀπέκοψε τένοντας αὐχενίους, λῦσεν δὲ βοὸς μένος. αἱ δʼ ὀλόλυξαν
When they had prayed and scattered the barley, at once Nestor's son, high-spirited Thrasymedes, standing near, struck; and the axe cut through the neck-tendons, and loosed the ox's strength; and the women raised the cry.
Word by word
The setting
The prayers and the scattering of barley done, the sacrifice reaches its moment. Thrasymedes steps in and strikes; the axe severs the heifer's neck-sinews, its life gives way, and the women raise the ritual cry.
A note on this passage
The blow falls. With prayer and barley finished, Thrasymedes steps close and strikes; the axe cuts the neck-tendons, the ox's strength gives out, and the women cry aloud. The long, careful preparation ends in a single stroke.
Two Greek words carry the weight. The ox's life is its μένος — the very word Homer uses for a warrior's battle-fury, so the animal dies in the vocabulary of heroes, its 'might' loosed like a fighter's. And the women's cry is the ὀλολυγή, the ritual scream demanded at the instant of the kill: not grief and not quite joy, a sanctioned holy sound with no English equal. The sacrifice needed that voice as much as it needed the axe.
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