High as the black-skin beans and chickpeas bounce and leap from a big bladed shovel, flying across the threshing floor, sped by a whistling wind and a winnower's sweeping stroke - so the arrow flew from fighting Atrides' breastplate

High as the black-skin beans and chickpeas bounce and leap
from a big bladed shovel, flying across the threshing floor,
sped by a whistling wind and a winnower’s sweeping stroke –
so the arrow flew from fighting Atrides’ breastplate,
the keen shaft glancing, skittering off downfield.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 13, lines 680-684. An arrow shot by Helenus fails to penetrate Menelaus’s armor, but hits his breastplate and speeds away. Homer’s epic simile likens this to beans and chick peas flying off a broad shovel across a threshing floor.

Homer Quotes