Both warriors planted there before the towering gates rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge, standing up to the gales and driving rains, day in, day out, their giant roots branching, gripping deep in the earth

Both warriors planted there before the towering gates
rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge,
standing up to the gales and driving rains, day in, day out,
their giant roots branching, gripping deep in the earth:
so these two, trusting all to their arms, their power,
stood up to Asius’ headlong charge and never shrank.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 12, lines 155-160. The Achaean spearmen Polypoetes and Leonteus heroically defend the Achaean gate in the Greeks’ wall against the charge led by Trojan ally Asius. They are compared in an epic simile to two great oaks standing up to gales and driving rains.

Homer Quotes