Patroclus rising beside him stabbed his right jawbone,
ramming the spearhead square between his teeth so hard
he hooked him by that spearhead over the chariot rail,
hoisted, dragged the Trojan out as an angler perched
on a jutting rock ledge drags some fish from the sea,
some noble catch, with line and glittering bronze hook.
So with the spear Patroclus gaffed him off his car,
his mouth gaping round the glittering point
and flipped him down face first
dead as he fell, his life breath blown away.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 16, lines 480-489. The brutal barbarity of war is graphically and matter-of-factly presented by Homer, and indeed accepted as a normal part of life by the characters in his epic poem. In this passage the epic simile of an angler and his "noble catch" is used by the poet to describe the gruesome spearing and slaying of the Trojan Thestor by Patroclus.