"The belly’s a shameless dog, there’s nothing worse.
Always insisting, pressing, it never lets us forget –
destroyed as I am, my heart racked with sadness,
sick with anguish, still it keeps demanding,
‘Eat, drink!’ It blots out all the memory
of my pain, commanding, ‘Fill me up!’"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 7, lines 251-256. After telling King Alcinous that he is not a god and just a mortal man, Odysseus is hungry and anxious to finish dinner. In an extended metaphor he compares the stomach to a dog that keeps demanding its fill of food and drink.