EPIC Similes “[Ino] broke the broke from the waves like a shearwater (a diving bird) on the wing…” (Homer 162) This is just your regular, garden-variety simile. EPIC SIMILE: an extended simile often running to several lines, used typically in epic poetry to intensify the subject and to serve as decoration Homer follows three steps: 1) saying what it is that whatever you're talking about is like, usually some sort of an event; 2) describing the thing you're comparing it to in extreme detail; and 3) reminding the audience of what you were originally talking about.

EPIC Similes The attackers struck like eagles, crook-clawed, hook-beaked, swooping down from a mountain ridge to harry smaller birds that skim across the flatland, cringing under the clouds but the eagles plunge in fury, rip their lives out—hopeless, never a chance of flight or rescue—and people love the sport—so the attackers routed suitors headlong down the hall, wheeling into the slaughter, slashing left and right and grisly screams broke from skulls cracked open—the whole floor awash with blood. (448)

But he found [the suitors] one and all in blood and dust … great hauls of them down and out like fish that fishermen drag from the churning gray surf in looped and coiling nets and fling ashore on a sweeping hook of beach— some noble catch heaped on the sand, twitching, lusting for fresh salt sea but the Sungod hammers down and burns their lives out… so the suitors lay in heaps, corpse covering corpse. (451)

That was the song the famous harper sang but great Odysseus melted into tears, running down from his eyes to wet his cheeks … as a woman weeps, her arms flung round her darling husband, a man who fell in battle, fighting for town and townsmen, trying to beat the day of doom from home and children. Seeing the man go down, dying, gasping for breath, she clings for dear life, screams and shrills—but the victors, just behind her, digging spear-butts into her back and shoulders, drag her off in bondage, yoked to hard labor, pain, and the most heartbreaking torment wastes her cheeks. So from Odysseus’ eyes ran tears of heartbreak now. (208)

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. (358)

As she listened on, her tears flowed and soaked her cheeks as the heavy snow melts down from the high mountain ridges, snow the West Wind piles there and the warm East Wind thaws and the snow, melting, swells the rivers to overflow their banks—so she dissolved in tears, streaming down her lovely cheeks, weeping for him, her husband, sitting there beside her. (397)

Black Friday as the Zombie Apocalypse The mall doors opened and the shoppers burst into the mall like a zombie horde shambling after a few survivors, one thought and driving goal collectively overriding their minds: consume or endure with the essentials; As they reach for their prizes, fists fly and people are trampled, stepping over others to achieve their goals, snatching supplies out of each other’s hands, pushing and shoving others into the encroaching, mindless horde, with those who used to be normal humans crawling over displays and pouncing on people who can deliver their aim. Only their own survival is necessary. All others are expendable. Some shoppers begin with plans to survive and make it through the horrors, but eventually like the few survivors, they are driven into the infectious madness of the frenzied, slavering hordes.

EPIC Similes Now, time to make your own! Pick a subject from the Odyssey and create a new epic simile for it. Some example sentence starters: “Odysseus’/Penelope’s love for Penelope/Odysseus was like…” “Polyphemus reached forward like…” “The suitors were like…” Remember: 1) SAY what it is that whatever you're talking about is like; 2) DESCRIBE the thing you're comparing it to in extreme detail; and 3) REMIND the audience of what you were originally talking about.