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Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Book 2
Explanation and Analysis—Women and Boys:
In the Iliad, Homer uses a motif in which he gives the impression that many of the male warriors fear a reputation of cowardice almost more than they fear death. Agamemnon plays into this when he tries to spur on his fighters by telling them, "Now be men, my friends! Courage, come, take heart! Dread what comrades say of you here in bloody combat!" To evoke the cowardice they so shun, the characters often use similes in which they compare each other to women and boys.
In Book 2, when the soldiers fail Agamemnon's test of courage, Odysseus uses a simile of this kind to express his contempt.
[...] But look at them now,
like green, defenseless boys or widowed women
whimpering to each other, wailing to journey back.
Besides capturing Odysseus's contempt for the soldiers, this simile also gives insight into the warriors' gendered understanding of bravery. To shame the men for failing his test, Odysseus tries to emasculate them by comparing them to inexperienced boys and widowed women. This gendering of bravery, strength, and honor prevails throughout the Iliad.
Throughout the poem, these similes often form the basis of taunts that the men level at each other while fighting. In Book 7, while Hector and Ajax fight each other, Hector tells Ajax not to "toy" with him like a "puny, weak-kneed boy" or like "a woman never trained in works of war." Diomedes formulates a similar taunt in Book 11, when he tells Paris that a "woman or idiot boy" could do as much harm to him as Paris has. And when Achilles and Aeneas taunt each other in Book 20, Aenaes asks Achilles why they're "cursing each other here like a pair of nagging women boiling over with petty, heartsick squabbles, blustering into the streets to pelt themselves with slander, much of it true, much not." Alongside the physical battle, Homer stages a battle of words—in which calling someone a woman is a key insult.
However, the poem's view of women is not completely one-sided. Sometimes Homer formulates comparisons in which women and female experiences connote strength and perseverance. For instance, when Agamemnon is injured in Book 11, Homer calls the pain in his arm "spear-sharp as the labor pangs that pierce a woman." The woman at the base of this simile is not weak or cowardly, but strong and resilient. While the women and boy similes typically express a gendered view of strength and bravery, the Iliad nevertheless contains figurative language that complicates this view.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Mobilization:
The Iliad features a number of set similes that Homer repeats with slight variations. Often, he compares events taking place in the war to natural phenomena or agricultural scenes. In Book 2, to initiate the military action of the narrative, he compares the forces on the ground to swarming bees, rushing water, flocks of birds, and swarming flies—and more. Through these similes, he illustrates the war's mass movement and force.
After Agamemnon describes the dream that Zeus sent him, the other kings follow him. Homer uses a simile to capture the movement of the forces that follow the kings:
[...] Rank and file
streamed behind and rushed like swarms of bees
pouring out of a rocky hollow, burst on endless burst,
bunched in clusters seething over the first spring blooms,
dark hordes swirling into the air, this way, that way—
In this simile, Homer compares the marching soldiers to swarms of bees to illustrate the soldiers moving like a coherent mass. Since Book 1 and the start of Book 2 mainly consist of conversations and small-scale interactions, this is the first image the reader receives of any sort of large-scale mobilization. In a way, the bee simile serves to initiate the poem's military imagery.
When Agamemnon tries to test the soldiers by telling them to "sail home to the fatherland we love," Homer draws on more nature similes to describe the change in their movements:
And the whole assembly surged like big waves at sea,
the Icarian Sea when East and South Winds drive it on,
blasting down in force from the clouds of Father Zeus,
or when the West Wind shakes the deep standing grain
with hurricane gusts that flatten down the stalks—
so the massed assembly of troops was shaken now.
After the bee simile captures the soldiers' coherence as a force, Homer compares the soldiers to waves surging and grain shaking in hurricane winds. This new image captures how easily the soldiers' coherence can be disrupted—which, in turn, captures their longing to return home.
Once Odysseus manages to marshal the men back into their ranks, Homer draws on new similes to capture their striking presence and movement. First, he compares the troops' "blaze of bronze armor" to a "ravening fire" ripping "through big stands of timber high on a mountain ridge." Then, he compares the gathering armies to "huge flocks on flocks of winging birds [...] wheeling in all directions, glorying in their wings." Finally, he returns to the image of swarming insects:
The armies massing ... crowding thick-and-fast
as the swarms of flies seething over the shepherds’ stalls
in the first spring days when the buckets flood with milk—
so many long-haired Achaeans swarmed across the plain
to confront the Trojans, fired to smash their lines.
After the disruption caused by Agamemnon's test, Homer illustrates through a number of back-to-back similes that the Achaeans are once again ready to fight. He then continues the similes: the armies are like "the leaves and spears that flower forth in spring," the captains are like "the seasoned goatherds [splitting] their wide-ranging flocks into packs with ease," and Agamemnon is like "a royal bull reading over his flocks of driven cattle." Homer tends to use a lot of similes throughout the poem, but this part of Book 2 is especially striking for the number of detailed comparisons he draws between the Achaeans and images from nature and agriculture.
Related Themes:
Book 3
Explanation and Analysis—Confrontation:
In Book 3, Homer uses similes to illustrate the initial confrontation between Menelaus and Paris. Mocking Paris for his elegance, these comparisons suggest that Paris's good looks and flair make him a cowardly, unworthy soldier.
The confrontation begins with Paris springing from the Trojan forward ranks, challenging the Argives with an air of grace and vigor. He's "lithe, magnificent as a god" and has "the skin of a leopard slung across his shoulders, a reflex bow at his back and battle-sword at hip." However, this image is swiftly undermined when Menelaus appears on the scene and Paris recoils from the scene:
Soon as the warrior Menelaus marked him,
Paris parading there with his big loping strides,
flaunting before the troops, Atrides thrilled
like a lion lighting on some handsome carcass,
lucky to find an antlered stag or wild goat
just as hunger strikes—he rips it, bolts it down,
even with running dogs and lusty hunters rushing him.
Here, Homer makes Paris's appearance seem comical through two contrasting images. With a simile, he compares Menelaus to a fierce lion and Paris to the lion's prancing prey. Paris's initial elegance becomes naive, ostentatious, and comical alongside Menelaus's ferocious strength. It appears as though he treats battle as a performance and his armor as a costume. Soon after, Homer underlines Paris's cowardice with yet another animal simile:
Backing into his friendly ranks, he cringed from death
as one who trips on a snake in a hilltop hollow
recoils, suddenly, trembling grips his knees
and pallor takes his cheeks and back he shrinks.
So he dissolved again in the proud Trojan lines,
dreading Atrides—magnificent, brave Paris.
Through these similes, Homer both captures the affectation of Paris's initial show of strength and gives insight into how Paris is seen by his enemies and fellow Trojans. In war, the men want to be like lions or snakes, not prancing prey or a trembling man. Throughout the poem, various characters—Hector in particular—accuse Paris of cowardice. Homer gives the impression that other characters look down on him because his appearance and personality clash with their view of the ideal soldier. In fact, Paris himself mentions "Aphrodite's gifts" as a reason for having shrunk from battle.
At the very end of Book 6, Paris makes a comeback. As might be expected, Homer describes his return to the battlefield with an animal simile:
As a stallion full-fed at the manger, stalled too long,
breaking free of his tether gallops down the plain,
out for his favorite plunge in a river’s cool currents,
thundering in his pride—his head flung back, his mane
streaming over his shoulders, sure and sleek in his glory,
knees racing him on to the fields and stallion-haunts he loves—
In this simile, Homer devises a compromise: through the image of Paris returning to battle like a stallion, he lets the character retain his elegant, radiant charisma while also giving him an air of strength. In the initial confrontation between Menelaus and Paris, Homer seemed to set up a contrast between valor and charm—and to suggest that only the former will command respect in war. The stallion simile suggests that, despite his elegance, Paris can still be a hero.
Related Themes:
Book 6
Explanation and Analysis—Confrontation:
In Book 3, Homer uses similes to illustrate the initial confrontation between Menelaus and Paris. Mocking Paris for his elegance, these comparisons suggest that Paris's good looks and flair make him a cowardly, unworthy soldier.
The confrontation begins with Paris springing from the Trojan forward ranks, challenging the Argives with an air of grace and vigor. He's "lithe, magnificent as a god" and has "the skin of a leopard slung across his shoulders, a reflex bow at his back and battle-sword at hip." However, this image is swiftly undermined when Menelaus appears on the scene and Paris recoils from the scene:
Soon as the warrior Menelaus marked him,
Paris parading there with his big loping strides,
flaunting before the troops, Atrides thrilled
like a lion lighting on some handsome carcass,
lucky to find an antlered stag or wild goat
just as hunger strikes—he rips it, bolts it down,
even with running dogs and lusty hunters rushing him.
Here, Homer makes Paris's appearance seem comical through two contrasting images. With a simile, he compares Menelaus to a fierce lion and Paris to the lion's prancing prey. Paris's initial elegance becomes naive, ostentatious, and comical alongside Menelaus's ferocious strength. It appears as though he treats battle as a performance and his armor as a costume. Soon after, Homer underlines Paris's cowardice with yet another animal simile:
Backing into his friendly ranks, he cringed from death
as one who trips on a snake in a hilltop hollow
recoils, suddenly, trembling grips his knees
and pallor takes his cheeks and back he shrinks.
So he dissolved again in the proud Trojan lines,
dreading Atrides—magnificent, brave Paris.
Through these similes, Homer both captures the affectation of Paris's initial show of strength and gives insight into how Paris is seen by his enemies and fellow Trojans. In war, the men want to be like lions or snakes, not prancing prey or a trembling man. Throughout the poem, various characters—Hector in particular—accuse Paris of cowardice. Homer gives the impression that other characters look down on him because his appearance and personality clash with their view of the ideal soldier. In fact, Paris himself mentions "Aphrodite's gifts" as a reason for having shrunk from battle.
At the very end of Book 6, Paris makes a comeback. As might be expected, Homer describes his return to the battlefield with an animal simile:
As a stallion full-fed at the manger, stalled too long,
breaking free of his tether gallops down the plain,
out for his favorite plunge in a river’s cool currents,
thundering in his pride—his head flung back, his mane
streaming over his shoulders, sure and sleek in his glory,
knees racing him on to the fields and stallion-haunts he loves—
In this simile, Homer devises a compromise: through the image of Paris returning to battle like a stallion, he lets the character retain his elegant, radiant charisma while also giving him an air of strength. In the initial confrontation between Menelaus and Paris, Homer seemed to set up a contrast between valor and charm—and to suggest that only the former will command respect in war. The stallion simile suggests that, despite his elegance, Paris can still be a hero.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Generations of Leaves:
When Diomedes and Glaucus encounter each other on the battlefield in Book 6, Diomedes asks about Glaucus's birth to determine whether he's immortal. With a simile, Glaucus reflects on the brevity and renewal that underpin human life:
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
In the simile, Homer comments on the enduring cycle of growth and decay that shapes human life by comparing men to leaves. Combining the image of dead leaves blowing in the wind with the image of bursting buds, the simile both feels wistful and hopeful. Glaucus's point is that his lineage isn't significant when measured against life's overall transience.
Nevertheless, Glaucus goes on to give Diomedes a thorough description of his origins. This shift feels ironic after the somewhat melodramatic metaphor in which Glaucus suggests that ancestry doesn't matter. Nevertheless, the comparison of men to leaves fits well as a prelude to Glaucus's family tree. This is not only because the simile speaks to the cyclical yet transitory nature of human life, but also because it suggests that individual identities and lives become more significant when placed in a broader context. Throughout the Iliad, characters are very aware of their own and others' origins. Homer often refers to them by their fathers' or even grandfathers' names, and they usually present themselves as members of lineages and families rather than individuals.
Related Themes:
Book 8
Explanation and Analysis—Violence as Everyday Life:
In the Iliad, Homer crafts a number of surprising, seemingly contradictory similes in which he compares grim violence to budding flowers and familiar images from everyday life. Through these similes, Homer contrasts wartime and peacetime, illustrating what's at stake in war's mass destruction.
In Book 8, when Teucer kills Gorgythion, Homer compares Gorgythion to a flower bursting with seeds:
As a garden poppy, burst into red bloom, bends,
drooping its head to one side, weighed down
by its full seeds and a sudden spring shower,
so Gorgythion’s head fell limp over one shoulder,
weighed down by his helmet.
This simile is striking, as the image of a budding poppy would normally connote vivacity rather than death. Through this contrasting effect, Homer captures the entanglement of life and death. Throughout the poem, he often evokes scenes of violence or misery through images of growth or creativity, commenting on the coexistence of creation and destruction in human society.
Homer doesn't shy away from describing death and violence in grim detail, and he often uses similes to compare the events of the war to vicious animals or powerful storms. From time to time, however, he instead draws on contrasting images like the poppy. Another example of this can be found in Book 16, when fighters swarm over Sarpedon's corpse "like flies in a sheepfold buzzing over the brimming pails in the first spring days when the buckets flood with milk." While the main point of the simile is to capture the movement of the soldiers, it's nevertheless striking that he compares Sarpedon's dead body to buckets of fresh milk in the start of spring. This image would normally give a sense of ease and renewal, but Homer uses it to describe a man who just died.
Homer also draws frequent comparisons between the violence of war and familiar—or even banal—images from everyday life. In Book 11, for example, the forces advance against each other like reapers moving through a wheat or barley field. And in Book 13, an arrow bounces off of Menelaus's breastplate like black beans and chickpeas bounce off a shovel. In Book 20, the wheels of Achilles's chariot trample over armor and corpses like oxen crush "white barley heaped on a well-laid threshing floor."
In all of these similes, Homer evokes vivid images of ordinary life. Some of these images are stirring and some are rather banal, but they generally seem to contrast with the violence they're supposed to depict. The effect of these similes gives insight into the many aspects of life and society that war poses a threat to.
Related Themes:
Book 11
Explanation and Analysis—The Hunt:
In many of the poem's battle scenes, Homer often draws on hunting similes. Most often, he compares the soldiers to lions and boars attacking shepherds or other animals, but sometimes he compares them to human hunters. These repeated similes evoke the enduring force and violence of the war.
One of the animals Homer most frequently draws on in the Iliad is the lion. The lion simile often shows which side is leading—and which hero is making the most kills in a specific moment of battle. In Book 3, Menelaus thrills "like a lion lighting on some handsome carcass." And when Athena spurs on Diomedes in Book 5, Homer describes him as "claw-mad as a lion some shepherd tending woolly flocks in the field has just grazed." Later in the same book, Diomedes kills the Trojan fighters Echemmon and Chromius "as a lion charges cattle, calves and heifers" and "snaps their necks." Sometimes, Homer compares the fighters on both sides of a confrontation to lions, like when Hector and the Great Ajax fight each other in Book 8 "like lions rending flesh or a pair of wild boars whose power never flags." And when Diomedes and Odysseus go to spy on the Trojans in Book 10, Homer describes them going out "into the black night" like "two lions stalking through the carnage and corpses."
Sometimes, Homer inverts the simile to describe the lion's prey rather than the lion itself, like when the Trojans run away from Agamemnon "like cattle driven wild by a lion lunging in pitch darkness down on the whole herd" or Paris describes the Trojans cringing at Diomedes "like bleating goats before some lion."
Despite this, the lion isn't always the strongest animal on the scene. When the tide of the war turns in the favor of the Trojans in Book 8, Hector is "like a hound that harries a wild boar or lion–hot pursuit, snapping quick as hit heels, hindquarters and flanks but still on alert for him to wheel and fight." In Book 11, Homer describes Ajax as a "trapped beast," which he develops using a lion simile:
Like a tawny lion when hounds and country field hands
drive him out of their steadings filled with cattle—
they’ll never let him tear the rich fat from the oxen,
all night long they stand guard but the lion craves meat,
he lunges in and in but his charges gain him nothing,
thick-and-fast from their hardy arms the javelins
rain down in his face, and waves of blazing torches—
these the big cat fears, balking for all his rage,
and at dawn he slinks away, his spirits dashed.
In this elaborated image of a lion being kept away from some cattle, Homer shows that even a strong fighter can be impeded if he is met with a strong defense. By occasionally varying which animal comes out on top in the similes, Homer illustrates the shifting tides of the war.
Related Themes:
Book 16
Explanation and Analysis—Patroclus and the Sea:
In Book 16, during Patroclus's rampage, Homer details many of his clashes and kills. In one of these scenes, he uses imagery and a simile to liken Patroclus to a fisherman. In another, he uses another sea-related metaphor to describe the movements of one of Patroclus's victims.
Towards the middle of the book, Homer describes Patroclus pulling the Trojan warrior Thestor out of his chariot as though he were pulling a fish out of the sea:
Patroclus rising beside him stabbed his right jawbone,
ramming the spearhead square between his teeth so hard
he hooked him by that spearhead over the chariot-rail,
hoisted, dragged the Trojan out as an angler perched
on a jutting rock ledge drags some fish from the sea,
some noble catch, with line and glittering bronze hook.
So with the spear Patroclus gaffed him off his car,
his mouth gaping round the glittering point
and flipped him down facefirst,
dead as he fell, his life breath blown away.
In this extended simile, Homer compares Thestor to a gaping fish on a hook and Patroclus to a fisherman delighted by his catch. Before Thestor is dead, the simile has already taken away his humanity. Additionally, the simile gives insight into the duality of war, as it highlights both Thestor's fear and Patroclus's adeptness and thrill. While war on the one hand gives warriors something to excel at, it also brings degradation and suffering.
Later in Book 16, Patroclus mocks one of his victims with a fishing metaphor as he falls from his chariot:
Look what a springy man, a nimble, flashy tumbler!
Just think what he’d do at sea where the fish swarm—
why, the man could glut a fleet, diving for oysters!
Plunging overboard, even in choppy, heaving seas,
just as he dives to ground from his war-car now.
In this scene, Patroclus has just killed Hector's driver Cebriones by smashing his face in with a jagged stone. This makes Cebriones fall from the chariot "like a diver." Having already degraded his victim with this violent death, Patroclus further degrades him by delightedly mocking him for his fall with the oyster-diver metaphor. Dwelling on this dishonorable behavior, Homer addresses Patroclus in the second-person: "and you taunted his corpse, Patroclus O my rider." In this moment, Homer seems to suggest that Patroclus has gone too far with his disrespect for the dead.
Related Themes:
