There he lay
like an olive slip a farmer rears to strength
on a lonely hilltop, drenching it down with water,
a fine young stripling tree, and the winds stir it softly,
rustling from every side, and it bursts with silver shoots –
then suddenly out of nowhere a wind in gale force comes storming,
rips it out of its trench, stretches it out on the earth –
so Panthous’ stripling son lay sprawled in death,
Euphorbus who hurled the strong ashen spear…
Menelaus cut him down.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 17, lines 59-68. Menelaus kills Euphorbus, by piercing him in the neck with a lance. An epic simile describes the Trojan being cut down like a young stripling tree ripped out of the earth by a gale force wind.