The Odyssey Metaphors and Similes Quotes

With a dark glance
wily Odysseus shot back, "Indecent talk, my friend.
You, you’re a reckless fool – I see that. So,
the gods don’t hand out all their gifts at once,
not build and brains and flowing speech to all.
One man may fail to impress us with his looks
but a god can crown his words with beauty, charm,
and men look on with delight when he speaks out.
Never faltering, filled with winning self-control,
he shines forth at assembly grounds and people gaze
at him like a god when he walks through the streets.
Another man may look like a deathless one on high
but there’s not a bit of grace to crown his words.
Just like you, my fine, handsome friend. Not even
a god could improve those lovely looks of yours
but the mind inside is worthless."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 190-205. Broadsea’s taunts about Odysseus’ lack of athleticism sparks Odysseus’ ire. The Greek hero’s pride is injured and he gives back as good as he gets. He talks about the power of intellect and eloquence, placing a high value on these. A man with unimpressive looks may be gifted with words, he tells the Phaeacian athlete. The same man can display charm and beauty and self-control, being seen by others as a god (simile), Odysseus says. He tells Broadsea distainfully that while his lovely looks could not be improved upon, his mind inside is worth nothing. When Odysseus remarks that the gods don’t hand out the gifts of build and brains and eloquence to everyone at once, his words are somewhat ironic. For he is one man who embodies all these gifts: he is highly intelligent, athletic, a proven warrior, an excellent leader and physically attractive.

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.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 585-597. Odysseus bursts into tears listening to the story of suffering and heroism sung by the bard Demodocus. Homer gives us an extraordinary epic simile comparing Odysseus’ heartbreak at losing comrades in the Trojan War to a wife sobbing over the body of her dying husband who falls in battle. The despairing woman is about to be taken away in slavery by the victors. The imagery here tells of deep emotional pain. It is clear that the grieving woman that Odysseus is being compared to is Trojan. For in the Trojan War it was Odysseus’ foes who were "fighting for town and townsmen."

"Tell me,
why do you weep and grieve so sorely when you hear
the fate of the Argives, hear the fall of Troy?
That is the gods’ work, spinning threads of death
through the lives of mortal men,
and all to make a song for those to come."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 646-651. Alcinous asks why Odysseus weeps at the minstrel Demodocus’ song about the fall of Troy and fate of the Greeks in the war to take the city. He explains that such tragedies are fated by the gods so that storytellers can sing about them. In a metaphor he compares gods who spin threads of death through the lives of humans to weavers.

"what a fine thing it is to listen to such a bard
as we have here – the man sings like a god.
The crown of life, I’d say. There’s nothing better
than when deep joy holds sway throughout the realm
and banqueters up and down the palace sit in ranks,
enthralled to hear the bard, and before them all, the tables
heaped with bread and meats, and drawing wine from a mixing-bowl
the steward makes his rounds and keeps the winecups flowing.
This, to my mind, is the best that life can offer.
But now
you’re set on probing the bitter pains I’ve borne,
so I’m to weep and grieve, it seems, still more."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 3-13. A disguised Odysseus has just listened to the minstrel Demodocus sing of Odysseus’ deeds in the Trojan war. Before telling his own story and revealing who he is, Odysseus makes this speech to the Phaeacian King Alcinous. In a simile he compares Demodocus’ singing to that of a god. He talks of the great joy in listening to the bard perform at this sumptuous palace banquet. But then Odysseus speaks of the pain he feels from listening to Demodocus’ tales.

A grim loner, dead set in his own lawless ways.
Here was a piece of work, by god, a monster
built like no mortal who ever supped on bread,
no, like a shaggy peak, I’d say – a man-mountain
rearing head and shoulders over the world.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 210-214. Odysseus gives us a description of Polyphemus, as he spies the cavern of the one-eyed giant along the shore of the Cyclops’ island, with flocks of sheep and goats stalled there. A metaphor compares the Cyclops to a shaggy mountain. The passage portrays that he is huge and hairy, savage and and lives in solitude. He is also a monster and is lawless, foreshadowing the terrible events that are about to happen.

"Strangers!" he thundered out, "now who are you?
Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes?
Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates,
sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives
to plunder other men?"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 284-288. Polyphemus confronts Odysseus and his men over invading his cave and stealing his food. In a simile he compares them to pirates roving the seas and bent on plunder. He warns that they are risking their lives taking what belongs to him. This is foreshadowing that some of them will pay for this with their lives.

Not a word in reply to that, the ruthless brute.
Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men
and snatching two at once, rapping them on the ground
he knocked them dead like pups –
their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor –
and ripping them limb from limb to fix his meal
he bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap,
devoured entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all!

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 323-330. Odysseus describes in horrific and graphic detail how Polyphemus kills two of his men and eats them. This is the Cyclops’ swift and brutal justice for those caught stealing his food. In two different similes, Polyphemus’ victims are compared to defenseless puppies as they are killed and the Cyclops to a mountain lion as he feeds on them.

he left me there, the heart inside me brooding on revenge:
how could I pay him back? would Athena give me glory?
Here was the plan that struck my mind as best…
the Cyclops’ great club: there it lay by the pens,
olivewood, full of sap. He’d lopped it off to brandish
once it dried. Looking it over, we judged it big enough
to be the mast of a pitch-black ship with her twenty oars,
a freighter broad in the beam that plows through miles of sea –
so long, so thick it bulked before our eyes.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 354-362. The Cyclops all use huge clubs for weapons and Odysseus sees the Polyphemus’ one lying in his cave. An epic simile describes it as looking big enough to be the mast of an enormous ship. A plan forms in the Greek hero’s mind. He cuts off a length of the club and orders his men to plane it into a sharp stake and char it in a fire. This will be used to blind Polyphemus.

I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home
as 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 faster, never stopping –
So we seized our stake with its fiery tip
and bored it round and round in the giant’s eye.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 429-434. We get a descriptive account of how Odysseus defeats Polyphemus by stabbing the Cyclops’ in the eye with a burning stake. An epic simile compares the action to that of a shipwright using a drill.

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.

"So, Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew
you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave –
you with your brute force! Your filthy crimes
came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal,
daring to eat your guests in your own house –
so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back."
That made the rage of the monster boil over.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 531-537. Odysseus just cannot keep his pride and ego under control. After blinding and outsmarting Polyphemus, he is now safely offshore in his boat. But he shouts back and taunts Polyphemus, telling him that for eating his guests, Polyphemus has been dealt divine justice by Zeus. Using a metaphor in a verb, Homer likens the anger of the Cyclops to boiling liquid spilling over.

But I alone anchored my black ship outside,
well clear of the harbor’s jaws
I tied her fast to a cliffside with a cable.
I scaled its rock face to a lookout on its crest
but glimpsed no trace of the work of man or beast from there;
all I spied was a plume of smoke, drifting off the land.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 104-109. Odysseus finds himself near the land of the giant Laestrygonians. We are told how he carefully anchors his ship well away from the "harbor’s jaws" – a metaphor.

They entered the sumptuous palace, found his wife inside –
a woman huge as a mountain crag who filled them all with horror.
Straightaway she summoned royal Antiphates from assembly,
her husband, who prepared my crew a barbarous welcome.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 123-126. When Odysseus’ crew members enter the palace of the Laestrygonian king, they are in for a shock. The king’s wife is described in a simile as being as big as a mountain crag. When the king arrives the men are met with a brutal welcome.

Snatching one of my men, he tore him up for dinner –
the other two sprang free and reached the ships.
But the king let loose a howling through the town
that brought tremendous Laestrygonians swarming up
from every side – hundreds, not like men, like Giants!
Down from the cliffs they flung great rocks a man could hardly hoist
and a ghastly shattering din rose up from all the ships –
men in their death-cries, hulls smashed to splinters –
They speared the crews like fish
and whisked them home to make their grisly meal.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 126-136. Here Odysseus and his comrades encounter the legendary clan of giant cannibals known as the Laestrygonians. The Achaeans may be mighty warriors who gained glory in the Trojan War, but they are no match for this powerful enemy. The Laestrygonian king snatches one of the men and tears him up for dinner. The rest of the Laestrygonians spear the crewmen on the boats and take them home to make a meal of them. A simile compares the giants to fishermen catching fish.

Mountain wolves and lions were roaming round the grounds –
she’d bewitched them herself, she gave them magic drugs.
But they wouldn’t attack my men; they just came pawing
up around them, fawning, swishing their long tails –
eager as hounds that fawn around their master,
coming home from a feast,
who always brings back scraps to calm them down.
So they came nuzzling round my men – lions, wolves
with big powerful claws – and the men cringed in fear
at the sight of those strange, ferocious beasts.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 231-240. An epic simile compares Circe’s bewitched mountain wolves and lions to tame dogs that wag their tails and fawn on their master when he brings them scraps of food. From what we discover later about sorceress Circe, we can assume the tame mountain lions and wolves are men transformed into animals. This is an example of situational irony, as the characters and reader don’t know about Circe’s ability to turn men into animals with magic potions. This demonstration of Circe’s magic, transforming vicious predators into docile pets, inspires fear in Odysseus’ men.

But now, as calves in stalls when cows come home,
droves of them herded back from field to farmyard
once they’ve grazed their fill – as all their young calves
come frisking out to meet them, bucking out of their pens,
lowing nonstop, jostling, rushing round their mothers –
so my shipmates there at the sight of my return
came pressing round me now, streaming tears,
so deeply moved in their hearts they felt as if
they’d made it back to their own land.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 452-460. Odysseus’ shipmates are delighted to see him return safe and sound from Circe’s home. An extended simile compares their happiness to that of young calves rejoicing to be reunited with their mothers when they home from the field.

"no more tears now, calm these tides of sorrow.
Well I know what pains you bore on the swarming sea,
what punishment you endured from hostile men on land.
But come now, eat your food and drink your wine
till the same courage fills your chests, now as then,
when you first set sail from native land, from rocky Ithaca!
Now you are burnt-out husks, your spirits haggard, sere,
always brooding over your wanderings long and hard,
your hearts never lifting with any joy –
you’ve suffered far too much."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 503-512. Circe invites Odysseus and his men to enjoy their fill of food and wine after the harrowing ordeals they have endured at sea and on land. A tempting offer too good to refuse! She uses a metaphor to compare the worn-out soldiers to "burnt-out husks."

And I, my mind in turmoil, how I longed
to embrace my mother’s spirit, dead as she was!
Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her,
three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away
like a shadow, dissolving like a dream, and each time
the grief cut to the heart, sharper, yes, and I,
I cried out to her, words winging into the darkness.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 233-239. Odysseus laments that he cannot embrace the ghost of his mother. He cries out in desperation as he tries to hold her, but she just slips through his fingers. The emotional intensity of the scene is conveyed through the use of two vivid similes – "sifting away like a shadow, dissolving like a dream" – and a metaphor – "words winging into the darkness."

"My son, my son, the unluckiest man alive!
This is no deception sent by Queen Persephone,
this is just the way of mortals when we die.
Sinews no longer bind the flesh and bones together –
the fire in all its fury burns the body down to ashes
once life slips from the white bones, and the spirit,
rustling, flitters away…flown like a dream."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 247-253. Odysseus’ mother Anticleia assures him that she is no deception send by Zeus’ daughter Persephone to add to his sorrows. This is after Odysseus wonders if his mother’s appearance is some phantom image of her created by Persephone. Anticleia explains to him how mortals die, using a simile she says that life just slips away from them "like a dream." Anticleia’s reply is full of compassion for her son, whom she calls the unluckiest man alive.

"Aegisthus hatched my doom and my destruction,
he killed me, he with my own accursed wife…
he invited me to his palace, sat me down to feast
then cut me down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough!
So I died – a wretched, ignominious death – and round me
all my comrades killed, no mercy, one after another,
just like white-tusked boars
butchered in some rich lord of power’s halls
for a wedding, banquet or groaning public feast."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 462-470. Odysseus meets many people in the underworld. One of his most poignant encounters is with Agamemnon’s ghost. When Odysseus asks the great general how he met his end, Agamemnon tells how his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus invited him to a feast, then killed him. He describes it as an ignoble death, comparing it in a simile to a man cutting down an ox at a trough of food. The story of Clytemnestra’s cheating and treachery stand in contrast to Penelope’s loyalty and fidelity to her husband during his twenty year absence.

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.

Round she spun,
reeling under the impact, filled with reeking brimstone,
shipmates pitching out of her, bobbing round like seahawks
swept along by the whitecaps past the trim black hull –
and the god cut short their journey home forever.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 12, lines 448-452. Zeus hits Odysseus’ ship with a lighting bolt. Odysseus’ shipmates are thrown into the sea, where they bob around like seahawks, Homer says in a simile. All except Odysseus die, their journey home said to be cut short forever. This is the gods’ punishment for Odysseus’ men eating the cattle of sun god Helios after they had been warned not to.

I reached the crag of Scylla and dire Charybdis’ vortex
right when the dreadful whirlpool gulped the salt sea down.
But heaving myself aloft to clutch at the fig-tree’s height,
like a bat I clung to its trunk for dear life – not a chance
for a good firm foothold there, no clambering up it either,
the roots too far to reach, the boughs too high overhead,
huge swaying branches that overshadowed Charybdis.
But I held on, dead set…waiting for her
to vomit my mast and keel back up again.
Oh how I ached for both! and back they came.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 12, lines 464-473. This passage describes how Odysseus escapes the deadly whirlpool Charybdis with timbers from his wrecked raft. He displays great courage as he clings for dear life to the trunk of a fig tree to stop himself being swallowed up by Charybdis. A simile describes him holding on "like a bat," until the whirlpool vomits his mast and keel back up again. He scrambles aboard them, so managing to turn defeat into victory.

As a man aches for his evening meal when all day long
his brace of wine-dark oxen have dragged the bolted plowshare
down a fallow field – how welcome the setting sun to him,
the going home to supper, yes, though his knees buckle,
struggling home at last. So welcome now to Odysseus
the setting light of day.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 34-39. Odysseus is about to leave the Phaeacians and return to his homeland of Ithaca. An extended simile compares him to a farmer who works all day plowing, and then looks forward to the sun setting and going home to enjoy his supper. Odysseus is waiting for the sun to set so he can sail to Ithaca.

And the ship like a four-horse team careering down the plain,
all breaking as one with the whiplash cracking smartly,
leaping with hoofs high to run the course in no time –
so the stern hove high and plunged with the seething rollers
crashing dark in her wake as on she surged unwavering,
never flagging, no, not even a darting hawk,
the quickest thing on wings, could keep her pace
as on she ran, cutting the swells at top speed,
bearing a man endowed with the gods’ own wisdom,
one who had suffered twenty years of torment, sick at heart,
cleaving his way through wars of men and pounding waves at sea
but now he slept in peace, the memory of his struggles
laid to rest.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 93-105. A wonderful extended simile compares the Phaeacians’ ship carrying Odysseus to a four-horse team pulling a chariot. Both are speeding powerfully so that not even a hawk could keep pace. The ship was given to Odysseus by Alcinous to send him towards his homeland. Odysseus is described as a man with the wisdom of the gods, gained from twenty years of agony and struggle on the sea.

"Just as the eagle swooped down from the crags
where it was born and bred, just as it snatched
that goose fattened up for the kill inside the house,
just so, after many trials and roving long and hard,
Odysseus will descend on his house and take revenge."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 15, lines 194-198. Helen interprets a bird omen. Odysseus’ son and Pisistratus are about to head home from Sparta when an eagle flies by on the right, clutching a big white goose in its talons. Helen interprets this as a sign from the gods that Odysseus will take revenge on the suitors. In an epic simile, Odysseus is compared to an eagle and the suitors a goose.

Straight to the prince he rushed
and kissed his face and kissed his shining eyes,
both hands, as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
As a father, brimming with love, welcomes home
his darling only son in a warm embrace –
what pain he’s borne for him and him alone! –
home now, in the tenth year from far abroad,
so the loyal swineherd hugged the beaming prince.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 16, lines 16-23. This passage describes the emotional reunion between Eumaeus and Odysseus’ son Telemachus. An epic simile compares the meeting in the doorway of the swineherd’s hut to a father welcoming home his son after a ten-year absence abroad. The comparison is ironic because Telemachus’ real father, the disguised Odysseus, is standing watching and he is the one who has been gone for many years.

They cried out, shrilling cries, pulsing sharper
than birds of prey – eagles, vultures with hooked claws –
when farmers plunder their nest of young too young to fly.
Both men so filled with compassion, eyes streaming tears.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 16, lines 246-254. When Odysseus explains to Telemachus how Athena changed him back to his normal appearance, there is a powerful emotional reunion between father and son. They both well up with tears. A vivid Homeric simile likens their cries to the shrilling cries of eagles or vultures protecting their young from farmers plundering their nest.
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