"If only – Father Zeus, Athena and lord Apollo –
these gallants, now, this moment, here in our house,
were battered senseless, heads lolling, knees unstrung,
some sprawled in the courtyard, some sprawled outside!
Slumped like Irus down at the front gates now,
whipped, and his head rolling like some drunk.
He can’t stand up on his feet and stagger home,
whatever home he’s got – the man’s demolished."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 18, lines 266-273. Using an extended simile, Telemachus wishes that the suitors could be overcome, beaten senseless and "slumped like Irus" at the front gates. Irus is the beggar at the palace of Ithaca.