Just as an angler poised on a jutting rock
flings his treacherous bait in the offshore swell,
whips his long rod – hook sheathed in an oxhorn lure –
and whisks up little fish he flips on the beach-break,
writhing, gasping out their lives…so now they writhed,
gasping as Scylla swung them up her cliff and there
at her cavern’s mouth she bolted them down raw –
screaming out, flinging their arms toward me,
lost in that mortal struggle.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 12, lines 271-279. This passage describes how the six-headed monster Scylla snatches six men out of Odysseus’ boat and devours them. In one of Homer’s great epic similes, this appalling event is chillingly compared to an angler setting bait on his line and whisking up little fish, as they gasp for life.