Epic Similes

Understanding and Analyzing Epic, or Homeric

Similes

Definition

A Homeric simile is an elaborate comparison, developed over several lines, between

something strange or unfamiliar to the audience and something more familiar to them.

epic event <-------> everyday event

Epic Similes Use:

Comparing words: Like As So

Just so

Lets Examine One

Background: In The Iliad the goddess Athena protects King Menelaus from being struck by an arrow. Homer Describes it as…She brushed it away from his skin as lightly as when a mother brushes a fly away from her child who is lying in sleep.

This is an Epic Simile…can you identify the comparing words?

Now, Break it Apart

She brushed it away from his skin as lightly as when a mother brushes a fly away from her child

who is lying in sleep.

What two events are being compared?• A mother brushing a fly away from her child• Athena protecting King Menelaus from an arrow

• Which is epic and which is an everyday event?

Explain

The point of explaining the Epic, or Homeric Simile is to ensure that you understand the visual that Homer is trying to show you.

Explanation: In this epic simile, Homer describes the way Athena protects King Menelaus from being injured from an arrow to the way a mother guards her child from being agitated by flies. Homer probably uses this comparison to show how nurturing and protecting Athena is, just as a mother is with her child.

Let’s Practice

I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home like a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright's drill that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl and the drill keeps twisting, never stopping --So we seized our stake

with it fiery tip and bored it round and round in the giant's eye.

What comparing words are used? likeWhat two events are being compared? Odysseus putting all his weight to drive the ax into the Cyclopes eye to a shipwright drilling with his drillExplain: Homer compares Odysseus and his men defeating the Cyclops by putting a stake in his eye using all their might to a shipwright drilling with a drill that never stops

WHAT COMPARING WORDS ARE USED? AS, SO

WHAT TWO EVENTS ARE BEING COMPARED? A HOT AXE BEING COOLED IN WATER TO THE SOUND AND STEAM THAT CAME FROM THE CYCLOPES EYE WHEN HE WAS SMITTEN BY THE SPEAR

EXPLAIN: HOMER COMPARES THE SIZZLING SOUND OF THE CYCLOPES EYE TO THE SOUND OF METAL BEING COOLED DOWN BY WATER

Its crackling roots blazed and hissed - as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens - that's the iron's strength - so the eye of Cyclops sizzled round that stake.

WHAT COMPARING WORDS ARE USED? LIKE

WHAT TWO EVENTS ARE BEING COMPARED? HER MIND THINKING, OR WHEELING TO A SCARED LION DECIDING WHAT TO DO WHEN HUNTERS ARE CLOSING IN ON HIM

EXPLAIN: HOMER PROBABLY USED THE COMPARISON OF THE WOMAN’S WHEELING, INSINUATING THAT SHE IS THINKING AT A FAST PACE BECAUSE SHE IS ON SOME KIND OF TIME CONSTRAINT AS A LION WOULD BE WHEN HUNTERS ARE CLOSING IN TO KILL HIM.

Her mind in torment, wheeling like some lion at bay, dreading the gangs of hunters closing their cunning ring around him for the finish.

WHAT COMPARING WORDS ARE USED? AS

WHAT TWO EVENTS ARE BEING COMPARED? A WEAK DOE CROUCHING DOWN IN A LIONS DEN RUNNING AWAY FROM FAWNS AND THEN THE LION COMING BACK TO HIS CAVE TO SAVE HER TO ODYSSEUS COMING BACK TO SAVE HIS WIFE FROM THE SUITORS AND KILLING THEM

EXPLAIN: HOMER PROBABLY COMPARED THE WOMAN TO A WEAK DEER BECAUSE SHE HAD NO POWER, AND THE MEN TO FAWN BECAUSE THEY WERE WEAKER THAN ODYSSEUS THE “LION” BECAUSE HE WAS STRONGER AND WISER THAN THEM

"Weak as the doe that beds down her fawns in a mighty lion's den - her newborn sucklings - then trails off to the mountain spurs and grassy bends to graze her fill, but back the lion comes to his own lair and the master deals both fawns a ghastly, bloody death, just what Odysseus will deal that mob - ghastly death."