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 the Cyclops sizzled round that stake!
He loosed a hideous roar, the rock walls echoed round
and we scuttled back in terror.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 436-443. Odysseus’ men drive a red-hot stake into the Cyclops’ eye. An epic simile compares the sizzling sound made to when a blacksmith plungs a red-hot axe or cutting blade into ice-cold water.