William Davis, A Day in Old Athens

Page 14

Quoit Hurling

 

    Close by the leapers is another stretch of yellow sand reserved for the quoit throwers. The contestants here are slightly older,—stalwart young men who seem, as they fling the heavy bronze discus, to be reaching out eagerly into the fullness of life and fortune before them. Very graceful are the attitudes. Here it was the sculptor Miron saw his "Discobolus" which he immortalized and gave to all the later world; "stooping down to take aim, his body turned in the direction of the hand which holds the quoit, one knee slightly bent as though he meant to vary the posture and to rise with the throw."[7] The caster, however, does not make his attempt standing. He takes a short run, and then the whole of his splendid body seems to spring together with the cast.

 

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