But they still kept swarming round and round the corpse like flies in a sheepfold buzzing over the brimming pails in the first spring days when the buckets flood with milk. So veteran troops kept swarming round that corpse.

But they still kept swarming round and round the corpse
like flies in a sheepfold buzzing over the brimming pails
in the first spring days when the buckets flood with milk.
So veteran troops kept swarming round that corpse.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 16, lines 745-748. The Achaeans and Trojans fighting around the body of Sarpedon are likened to a flies swarming around pails full of milk in this extended Homeric simile.

Homer Quotes