| “A man surf-casting on a point of rock / for bass or mackerel, whipping his long rod / to drop the singer and the beat far out, / will hook of fish and rip it from the surface / to dangle wriggling through the air: so these /were borne aloft in spasms toward the cliff.” | Scylla whisking Odysseus’s men from the ship whisking Odysseus’s men from the ship. |
| “… all the sea was like a cauldron / seething over intense fire, When the mixture / suddenly heaves and rises.” | Charybdis creating a maelstrom by vomiting |
| “. . . it was like a mast / a lugger of twenty oars, broad in the beam— / a deep-seagoing craft— might carry . . .” | The stake that was used to blind the Cyclops |
| ” . . . he clutched at my companions / and caught two in his hands like squirming puppies / to beat their brains out, spattering the floor.” | The Cyclops killing Odysseus’s men |
| “so came out rustling, like a mountain lion, / rain-drenched, wind-buffeted, but in his might at ease, / with burning eyes — who prowls among the herds . . .” | Odysseus revealing himself to the girls doing the wash |
THE ODYSSEY, Book 5, Homeric Similes
April 24, 2020