Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Athena and Ares
There is a point in the Iliad when great Diomedes has his time of glory. He is a little different than the other characters. Hector, deeply tied to family and city, is fully human. Odysseus is glib, quick, and cool headed. Agamenmon is haughty and powerful. Achilles- the Iliad is about his rage- is a different order of man altogether.
But Diomedes...he is a strange one. He is ferocious, but not more than any of the other great warriors in the field. He fears but does not doubt. Athena grants him "strength and daring so the fighter would shine forth and tower over the Argives and win himself great glory..."
He launches into battle and kills immediately. Ares, the horrible god of war is on the field as well, wreaking havoc for the Trojans. This series of episodes is known as "Diomedes fights the gods", and clearly there is a proxy war going on: Hera and Athena seek to lay a few good ones on Ares and Aphrodite. Ares isn't terribly clever and is drawn easily from the field by Athena, who takes Ares in hand, and says, "destroyer of men...why not let these mortals fight it out for themselves..." what follows is a sequence of killings, each brutal, graphic, and curiously formal:
"Meriones ...speared him low in the right buttock- the point pounding under the pelvis, jabbed and pierced the bladder- he dropped to his knees, screaming, death swirling all around him"
and
"Meges...struck just behind his skull, just at the neck-chord, the razor spear slicing straight up through the jaws, cutting away the tongue- he sank in the dust, teeth clenching the cold bronze."
For sheer ugliness, Ares is unneeded on this battlefield. On vivid display is something essentially Greek: an unblinking eye. The anatomical detail of the killings is truly a marvel. Tongues are sliced, teeth crashed through, intestines spill out, it is a panoply of suffering and gore. A few centuries later the bard's descendant will be creating natural philosophy. Yet these are set pieces. For all the unsparing detail they seem a dance. And like in so much of Homer, phrases get reused throughout, in different contexts. There are epithets ("white armed Hera", "Menelaus, lord of the war cry" and so on). C.M. Bowra points out (Landmarks in Greek Literature 1966) that the bard's unit of composition is not the individual word, as it is in Modernism, but rather the phrase.
This is an important point- for much of the Iliad's formality and apparent rigidity of style is due to a modern close reading on the level of the word. Perhaps the oral epic required a slightly less fine grit to meet the demands of the times. We should take care to read it in this way.
Some time after the sequence of Athena-inspired killings, Diomedes spears Aphrodite's wrist while she tries to rescue her son, the Trojan, Aeneas, and also spears Ares right in the guts. Athena, with admirable scorn, helps him shove it home.
These phrases, these units of meaning (epithets, stylized violence, wounds, etc) have, up until the so-called Book V (Diomedes fights the gods), have for the most part been used to describe man on man violence, with the requisite detail. Here the wounds incurred are overcome by the sheer silliness of the gods so wounded- they will live forever, they will heal, they have caused untold suffering among men and of course their wives and children and friends...and yet:
Ares displayed the blood, the fresh immortal blood that gushed from his wound, and burst out in a flight of self-pity: "Father Zeus, aren't you incensed to see such violent brutal work? We everlasting gods...Ah what chilling blows we suffer- thanks to our own conflicting wills- when ever we show these mortal men some kindness..."
The Iliad is composed, of course, on a very large scale. And large characters march across its spaces. Massively over Hector and Agamemnon loom the gods, immortal and callous, and quite incapable of honor. These gods are not merely animated nature gods any more than they are merely animated human qualities. They are dynamic, in deep interplay, and their furious energies are directed against each other with disastrous consequences for man.
But Diomedes...he is a strange one. He is ferocious, but not more than any of the other great warriors in the field. He fears but does not doubt. Athena grants him "strength and daring so the fighter would shine forth and tower over the Argives and win himself great glory..."
He launches into battle and kills immediately. Ares, the horrible god of war is on the field as well, wreaking havoc for the Trojans. This series of episodes is known as "Diomedes fights the gods", and clearly there is a proxy war going on: Hera and Athena seek to lay a few good ones on Ares and Aphrodite. Ares isn't terribly clever and is drawn easily from the field by Athena, who takes Ares in hand, and says, "destroyer of men...why not let these mortals fight it out for themselves..." what follows is a sequence of killings, each brutal, graphic, and curiously formal:
"Meriones ...speared him low in the right buttock- the point pounding under the pelvis, jabbed and pierced the bladder- he dropped to his knees, screaming, death swirling all around him"
and
"Meges...struck just behind his skull, just at the neck-chord, the razor spear slicing straight up through the jaws, cutting away the tongue- he sank in the dust, teeth clenching the cold bronze."
For sheer ugliness, Ares is unneeded on this battlefield. On vivid display is something essentially Greek: an unblinking eye. The anatomical detail of the killings is truly a marvel. Tongues are sliced, teeth crashed through, intestines spill out, it is a panoply of suffering and gore. A few centuries later the bard's descendant will be creating natural philosophy. Yet these are set pieces. For all the unsparing detail they seem a dance. And like in so much of Homer, phrases get reused throughout, in different contexts. There are epithets ("white armed Hera", "Menelaus, lord of the war cry" and so on). C.M. Bowra points out (Landmarks in Greek Literature 1966) that the bard's unit of composition is not the individual word, as it is in Modernism, but rather the phrase.
This is an important point- for much of the Iliad's formality and apparent rigidity of style is due to a modern close reading on the level of the word. Perhaps the oral epic required a slightly less fine grit to meet the demands of the times. We should take care to read it in this way.
Some time after the sequence of Athena-inspired killings, Diomedes spears Aphrodite's wrist while she tries to rescue her son, the Trojan, Aeneas, and also spears Ares right in the guts. Athena, with admirable scorn, helps him shove it home.
These phrases, these units of meaning (epithets, stylized violence, wounds, etc) have, up until the so-called Book V (Diomedes fights the gods), have for the most part been used to describe man on man violence, with the requisite detail. Here the wounds incurred are overcome by the sheer silliness of the gods so wounded- they will live forever, they will heal, they have caused untold suffering among men and of course their wives and children and friends...and yet:
Ares displayed the blood, the fresh immortal blood that gushed from his wound, and burst out in a flight of self-pity: "Father Zeus, aren't you incensed to see such violent brutal work? We everlasting gods...Ah what chilling blows we suffer- thanks to our own conflicting wills- when ever we show these mortal men some kindness..."
The Iliad is composed, of course, on a very large scale. And large characters march across its spaces. Massively over Hector and Agamemnon loom the gods, immortal and callous, and quite incapable of honor. These gods are not merely animated nature gods any more than they are merely animated human qualities. They are dynamic, in deep interplay, and their furious energies are directed against each other with disastrous consequences for man.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Take Home Test (due november 16)
The Iliad, take-home test
due 11/16 (please email it to me)
Explain kleos. Give an example.
Explain time. Give an example.
What is death to a warrior in the Iliad?
Why are men referred to as thanoi, or the dead ones?
Explain Hector’s humanity through his relationships.
How does Achilles rejoin humanity?
Explain the relationship of gods to men. Contrast them with those of
god to god and man to man.
Can the gods have courage? Explain your answer.
What is the sequence of an aristiea?
What are four functions of the Homeric Metaphor?
How is death both formal (or dance-like) and naturalistic?
Can the gods alter fate?
Athena and Ares are both gods of war. How do they differ?
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
What the gods do to man...
Her gray eyes afire, the goddess Pallas thrilled
that the man had prayed to her before all other gods.
She put fresh strength in his back, spring in his knees
and filled his heart with the horsefly’s raw daring-
brush it away from a man’s flesh and back it comes,
biting, attacking, crazed for sweet human blood.
With such raw daring she filled his dark heart
and he bestrode Patroclus, flung a gleaming spear-
and there was a Trojan, Eetion’s son called Podes,
well-bred, wealthy, and Hector prized him most
in all the realm- a first-rate drinking friend...
As he sprang in flight the red-haired captain hit him,
splitting his belt, and bronze went ripping through his flesh...”
(Fagles, bk 17 l. 645)
I have been approaching the Iliad this time around through its elaborate metaphors- the so-called Homeric Metaphors. These tropes interrupt the flow of the narrative. They are usually quite long, with several embedded phrases. On occasion there are embedded phrases within embedded phrases.
They work to multiple purposes. They interrupt and surprise the reader (or listener), adding variety. They often are of a constrasting tone (for instance, in the midst of a ferocious battle, a man is killed horribly- a spear through the neck- and he falls, laying there "like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength on a lonely hilltop...the winds stir it softly, rustling from every side, and it bursts with silver shoots...out of nowhere a wind in gale force comes storming. Rips it out of its trench, stretches it out on the earth..." This contrasting tone creates emotional complexity. In this, as in many other examples, it is also a mini-narrative, illustrating the care of the warriors parents in raising him, his own past, the futility of war, and the relative peace of death.
This type of metaphor also contrasts the age of heroes (13century b.c.e) to that of his own audience Homer's (8th century b.c.e.), by both comparing the action to familiar, every day life (cultivating olive trees, tending sheep) and using that mundane comparison to heighten the remoteness of that age.
This metaphor is worthy of remark on numerous levels. It is simple: Menelaus compared to a fly. Red-haired Menelaus, lord of the war cry, the fourth or fifth greatest warrior on the terrifying plains of Troy is reduced, for a moment, to a fly. Mindless, persistant, annoying. He is given these qualities by a god, Athena, or perhaps is only merely seen by the god in that manner: a trifle annoying, unusually persistant, destined to be swept away. There is no attempt at understanding the man- he is as pointless as he is incomprehensible. He can have no intrinsic dignity or honor.
But like a fly, human concerns return persistently to the gods, despite their desire to brush them aside. This illustrates the unbridgable gap between gods and men. Athena cares only because he aggrandized her, he sacrificed to her "above all other gods". This is his value. Ironically, it seems as if the gods have only a flickering existance without human sacrifice. Yet she will help him for only her own reasons and this may well cause trouble for him later, as the other gods may become jealous. No human can win in this situation. It is truly a bleak view of the man's condition. Not incidently, the fly's brief life compares with our as our own moment does with a god's immortality.
We are left also with what the fly is associated with: death, disease, feces, mindlessness, and anonymity. The slow rot of nature. This is hardly the willful, courageous hero.
This is in strong contrast to what he learn of Menelaus's victim, Podes (po-deez). He is dear to Hector, "a first rate drinking friend". From a god's perspective man may be a pest and a useful fool, but to fellow man he is friend, comrade, joy and comfort. The gods cannot relate to this at all. They do not, in the Iliad at any rate, have these pleasures in their vast immortal lives.
Doesn't Menelaus, only a moment before a great warrior and hero, now seem diminished and degraded? He is afraid, he prays to Athena, she responds by giving him the qualities of a nasty horsefly. He forgets his fear. He kills a good man. He lusts for human blood. Is he now less than human, has he lost something? And have the gods, even as they diminish a man, themselves become like carrion, vultures lusting after human death?
that the man had prayed to her before all other gods.
She put fresh strength in his back, spring in his knees
and filled his heart with the horsefly’s raw daring-
brush it away from a man’s flesh and back it comes,
biting, attacking, crazed for sweet human blood.
With such raw daring she filled his dark heart
and he bestrode Patroclus, flung a gleaming spear-
and there was a Trojan, Eetion’s son called Podes,
well-bred, wealthy, and Hector prized him most
in all the realm- a first-rate drinking friend...
As he sprang in flight the red-haired captain hit him,
splitting his belt, and bronze went ripping through his flesh...”
(Fagles, bk 17 l. 645)
I have been approaching the Iliad this time around through its elaborate metaphors- the so-called Homeric Metaphors. These tropes interrupt the flow of the narrative. They are usually quite long, with several embedded phrases. On occasion there are embedded phrases within embedded phrases.
They work to multiple purposes. They interrupt and surprise the reader (or listener), adding variety. They often are of a constrasting tone (for instance, in the midst of a ferocious battle, a man is killed horribly- a spear through the neck- and he falls, laying there "like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength on a lonely hilltop...the winds stir it softly, rustling from every side, and it bursts with silver shoots...out of nowhere a wind in gale force comes storming. Rips it out of its trench, stretches it out on the earth..." This contrasting tone creates emotional complexity. In this, as in many other examples, it is also a mini-narrative, illustrating the care of the warriors parents in raising him, his own past, the futility of war, and the relative peace of death.
This type of metaphor also contrasts the age of heroes (13century b.c.e) to that of his own audience Homer's (8th century b.c.e.), by both comparing the action to familiar, every day life (cultivating olive trees, tending sheep) and using that mundane comparison to heighten the remoteness of that age.
This metaphor is worthy of remark on numerous levels. It is simple: Menelaus compared to a fly. Red-haired Menelaus, lord of the war cry, the fourth or fifth greatest warrior on the terrifying plains of Troy is reduced, for a moment, to a fly. Mindless, persistant, annoying. He is given these qualities by a god, Athena, or perhaps is only merely seen by the god in that manner: a trifle annoying, unusually persistant, destined to be swept away. There is no attempt at understanding the man- he is as pointless as he is incomprehensible. He can have no intrinsic dignity or honor.
But like a fly, human concerns return persistently to the gods, despite their desire to brush them aside. This illustrates the unbridgable gap between gods and men. Athena cares only because he aggrandized her, he sacrificed to her "above all other gods". This is his value. Ironically, it seems as if the gods have only a flickering existance without human sacrifice. Yet she will help him for only her own reasons and this may well cause trouble for him later, as the other gods may become jealous. No human can win in this situation. It is truly a bleak view of the man's condition. Not incidently, the fly's brief life compares with our as our own moment does with a god's immortality.
We are left also with what the fly is associated with: death, disease, feces, mindlessness, and anonymity. The slow rot of nature. This is hardly the willful, courageous hero.
This is in strong contrast to what he learn of Menelaus's victim, Podes (po-deez). He is dear to Hector, "a first rate drinking friend". From a god's perspective man may be a pest and a useful fool, but to fellow man he is friend, comrade, joy and comfort. The gods cannot relate to this at all. They do not, in the Iliad at any rate, have these pleasures in their vast immortal lives.
Doesn't Menelaus, only a moment before a great warrior and hero, now seem diminished and degraded? He is afraid, he prays to Athena, she responds by giving him the qualities of a nasty horsefly. He forgets his fear. He kills a good man. He lusts for human blood. Is he now less than human, has he lost something? And have the gods, even as they diminish a man, themselves become like carrion, vultures lusting after human death?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Iliad Assignment
Listen, you people!
I will help you with your assignment! Send me your outline, or at least some notes (and I will help you develop an outline). I need a draft by Thursday.
And listen further!
I am offering a one day a week "deep-text" approach to the Iliad over the winter term. So far Madlion and Pat are interested. Anyone else?
Email me at pete@tinicumartandscience.org
I will help you with your assignment! Send me your outline, or at least some notes (and I will help you develop an outline). I need a draft by Thursday.
And listen further!
I am offering a one day a week "deep-text" approach to the Iliad over the winter term. So far Madlion and Pat are interested. Anyone else?
Email me at pete@tinicumartandscience.org
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Homeric Metaphor, a sample analysis
Sample Outline
Book 17 l. 645
Her gray eyes afire, the goddess Pallas thrilled
that the man had prayed to her before all other gods.
She put fresh strength in his back, spring in his knees
and filled his heart with the horsefly’s raw daring-
brush it away from a man’s flesh and back it comes,
biting, attacking, crazed for sweet human blood.
With such raw daring she filled his dark heart
and he bestrode Patroclus, flung a gleaming spear-
and there was a Trojan, Eetion’s son called Podes,
well-bred, wealthy, and Hector prized him most
in all the realm- a first-rate drinking friend...
As he sprang in flight the red-haired captain hit him,
splitting his belt, and bronze went ripping through his flesh...”
I. This is a simple, almost one-sided metaphor
a) Menelaus’ persistent, fearless attacks against a much larger body (the Trojan army)
is compared to a fly’s furious and mindless harassments
b) Menelaus is given these qualities by a god (Athena) and is seen, through this
metaphor, from a god’s perspective. Men are trifles, annoying, ultimately
of little consequence.
c) Even the greatest of warriors is not considered of much worth- only Agamemnon
Ajax and Achilles are greater than Menelaus. None of them have any intrinsic
humaniy, dignity, or honor.
1- gods can just “brush away” human concerns, but these concerns do persist
and are annoying. The gods do not understand human concerns and troubles.
2- This is an excellent example of the relationship of gods and men
d) Menelaus’ value lay only in his sacrifices to Athena- he “prayed to her above
all other gods...”
1- she will help him, but for her own reasons, not his, and certainly not out of
any concern for him. His sacrifice to her may well cause him trouble with other
gods. No human can win in this situation.
e) Flies are also associated with death, rot, corpses, disease, mindlessless, annoyance
and anonymity. Hardly what one associates with heroes.
f) This is in total contrast to what little we learn of his victim: Podes, dear to Hector,
“a first-rate drinking friend”. From the god’s perspective a man may be a pest,
and a useful fool on occasion, but to another man, he is a friend, a comrade, a
joy and a comfort. The god’s cannot relate to this at all.
g) Doesn’t Menelaus’ lust for human blood make him less for human, rather like a
fly? Doesn’t the god’s power make him less than human? And doesn’t this make
the gods themselves seem like carrion, flies, or vultures lusting after human death?
Monday, October 29, 2007
An Index of Homeric Metaphor
Here is a list of homeric metaphor, found in books 1-21
II. l. 560 ("as seasoned goatherds split their wide ranging flocks into packs with ease...")
IV. l. 489 ("as a heavy surf assaults some roaring coast, piling breaker on breaker...")
V. l. 96 ("down the plain he stormed like a stream in spate, a routing winter torrent...")
l. 574 ("remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff, sweeping over the...threshing floor...")
l.637 ("fresh as two young lions off on the mountain ridges, twins reared by a lioness...")
VII. l. 70 ("wave on wave of them settling...shuddering into a dense, bristling glitter...)
VIII. l. 641 ("hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering round the moon's brilliance blaze...")
IX. l.4 ("as crosswinds chop the sea where the fish swarm...")
X. l. 5 ("like Zeus' bolts when the lord of bright-haired Hera flashes lightning...")
l. 215 ("like sheepdogs keeping watch on the flocks in folds...")
l. 420 ("they sprang in pursuit as a pair of rip-tooth hounds bred for the hunt...")
l. 561. ("as a lion springs on flocks unguarded, shepherd gone, pouncing on goats or sheep...")
XI. l. 132 ("think how a lion, mauling the soft weak young of a running deer....")
l. 200 ("yet stragglers still stampeded down the plain like cattle driven wild by a lion lunging...")
l. 490 ("likehounds and lusty hunters closing, ringing a wild boar till out of his thicket lair...")
l. 558 ("like tawny jackals up in the mountains swarming round a horned stag just wounded...")
l.664 ("like a tawny lion when hounds and country field hands drive him out of thier steadings...")
XII. l. 155 ("both warriors...rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge...")
l. 170 ("like wild boars, a pair of them up on the hilltops...")
l. 502 ("they held tight as a working widow holds the scales...")
XIII. l. 236 ("as two lions seizing a goat from under the guard of circling rip-tooth hounds...")
l.388 ("as gale-winds swirl and shatter under the shrilling gusts...")
l. 454 ("and down the Trogan fell as an oak or white poplar falls...")
l. 546 ("he stood his ground like a wild mountian boar..."
l. 659 ("hugging the shaft he writhed, gasping, shuddering like some wild bull...")
l. 680 ("high as the black skin beans and chick-peas bounce and leap...")
l. 814 ("close as a brace of wine-dark oxen matched in power...")
XIV. l. 19 ("as a huge ground swell boils up on the open seas...")
l. 467 ("not so loud the breakers bellowing out against the shore...")
XV. l. 322 ("think how dogs and huntsmen off in the wilds rush some antlered stag ...")
l. 425 ("with the same ease some boy at the seashore knocks sand castles down...")
l. 479 ("he turned tail and broke like a rogue beast that's done some serious damage")
l. 717 ("they closed ranks, they packed like a stone wall...")
l. 731 ("like a murderous lion mad for kills, charging cattle grazing across the flats...")
XVI. l. 8 ("like a girl, running after her mother, begging to be picked up...")
l. 186 ("hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh...")
l. 306 ("they swarmed forth like wasps from a roadside nest")
l. 455 ("and all in an onrush dark as autumn days when the whole earth flattens black...")
l. 575 ("as the bull a marauding lion cuts from the herd...")
l. 745 ("but they still kept swarming round and round the corpse like flies...buzzing over the brimming pails")
l. 880 ("and the two went tussling over the corpse as lions up on the mountain ridges...")
l. 959 ("as when some lion overpowers a tireless wild boar up on a mountain summit...")
XVII. l. 59 ("there he lay like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength on a lonely hilltop...")
l.69 ("Menelaus fierce as a mountain lion sure of his power...")
l. 126 ("like a great bearded lion the dogs and field hands drive back from the folds...")
l. 153 ("Ajax...stood fast now like a lion cornered round his young when hunters cross him...")
l. 323 ("right through the front he plowed like a wild boar ramping up in power...")
l. 450 ("as when some master tanner gives his crews the hide of a huge bull for stretching...")
l. 593 ("as a burly farmhand wielding a whetted ax, chopping a field-ranging bull behind the horns...")
l. 648 ("and filled his heart with the horsefly's raw daring...")
l. 739 ("but dragged his heels like a lion leaving sheepfolds...")
l. 816 ("they swept in like hounds that fling themselves at a wounded boar...")
XVIII. Could the "Shield of Achilles" be one massive homeric metaphor?
XIX. l. 422 ("thick and fast as the snow comes swirling down from Zeus...")
XX. l. 558 ("Achilles now like inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorges...")
XXI. l. 290 ("as a farmhand runs a ditch from a dark spring, sluicing the gushing stream...")
l. 659 ("as a panther springs forth from her thicket lair to stand and face the huntsman...")
II. l. 560 ("as seasoned goatherds split their wide ranging flocks into packs with ease...")
IV. l. 489 ("as a heavy surf assaults some roaring coast, piling breaker on breaker...")
V. l. 96 ("down the plain he stormed like a stream in spate, a routing winter torrent...")
l. 574 ("remember the wind that scatters the dry chaff, sweeping over the...threshing floor...")
l.637 ("fresh as two young lions off on the mountain ridges, twins reared by a lioness...")
VII. l. 70 ("wave on wave of them settling...shuddering into a dense, bristling glitter...)
VIII. l. 641 ("hundreds strong, as stars in the night sky glittering round the moon's brilliance blaze...")
IX. l.4 ("as crosswinds chop the sea where the fish swarm...")
X. l. 5 ("like Zeus' bolts when the lord of bright-haired Hera flashes lightning...")
l. 215 ("like sheepdogs keeping watch on the flocks in folds...")
l. 420 ("they sprang in pursuit as a pair of rip-tooth hounds bred for the hunt...")
l. 561. ("as a lion springs on flocks unguarded, shepherd gone, pouncing on goats or sheep...")
XI. l. 132 ("think how a lion, mauling the soft weak young of a running deer....")
l. 200 ("yet stragglers still stampeded down the plain like cattle driven wild by a lion lunging...")
l. 490 ("likehounds and lusty hunters closing, ringing a wild boar till out of his thicket lair...")
l. 558 ("like tawny jackals up in the mountains swarming round a horned stag just wounded...")
l.664 ("like a tawny lion when hounds and country field hands drive him out of thier steadings...")
XII. l. 155 ("both warriors...rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge...")
l. 170 ("like wild boars, a pair of them up on the hilltops...")
l. 502 ("they held tight as a working widow holds the scales...")
XIII. l. 236 ("as two lions seizing a goat from under the guard of circling rip-tooth hounds...")
l.388 ("as gale-winds swirl and shatter under the shrilling gusts...")
l. 454 ("and down the Trogan fell as an oak or white poplar falls...")
l. 546 ("he stood his ground like a wild mountian boar..."
l. 659 ("hugging the shaft he writhed, gasping, shuddering like some wild bull...")
l. 680 ("high as the black skin beans and chick-peas bounce and leap...")
l. 814 ("close as a brace of wine-dark oxen matched in power...")
XIV. l. 19 ("as a huge ground swell boils up on the open seas...")
l. 467 ("not so loud the breakers bellowing out against the shore...")
XV. l. 322 ("think how dogs and huntsmen off in the wilds rush some antlered stag ...")
l. 425 ("with the same ease some boy at the seashore knocks sand castles down...")
l. 479 ("he turned tail and broke like a rogue beast that's done some serious damage")
l. 717 ("they closed ranks, they packed like a stone wall...")
l. 731 ("like a murderous lion mad for kills, charging cattle grazing across the flats...")
XVI. l. 8 ("like a girl, running after her mother, begging to be picked up...")
l. 186 ("hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh...")
l. 306 ("they swarmed forth like wasps from a roadside nest")
l. 455 ("and all in an onrush dark as autumn days when the whole earth flattens black...")
l. 575 ("as the bull a marauding lion cuts from the herd...")
l. 745 ("but they still kept swarming round and round the corpse like flies...buzzing over the brimming pails")
l. 880 ("and the two went tussling over the corpse as lions up on the mountain ridges...")
l. 959 ("as when some lion overpowers a tireless wild boar up on a mountain summit...")
XVII. l. 59 ("there he lay like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength on a lonely hilltop...")
l.69 ("Menelaus fierce as a mountain lion sure of his power...")
l. 126 ("like a great bearded lion the dogs and field hands drive back from the folds...")
l. 153 ("Ajax...stood fast now like a lion cornered round his young when hunters cross him...")
l. 323 ("right through the front he plowed like a wild boar ramping up in power...")
l. 450 ("as when some master tanner gives his crews the hide of a huge bull for stretching...")
l. 593 ("as a burly farmhand wielding a whetted ax, chopping a field-ranging bull behind the horns...")
l. 648 ("and filled his heart with the horsefly's raw daring...")
l. 739 ("but dragged his heels like a lion leaving sheepfolds...")
l. 816 ("they swept in like hounds that fling themselves at a wounded boar...")
XVIII. Could the "Shield of Achilles" be one massive homeric metaphor?
XIX. l. 422 ("thick and fast as the snow comes swirling down from Zeus...")
XX. l. 558 ("Achilles now like inhuman fire raging on through the mountain gorges...")
XXI. l. 290 ("as a farmhand runs a ditch from a dark spring, sluicing the gushing stream...")
l. 659 ("as a panther springs forth from her thicket lair to stand and face the huntsman...")
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