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Like the multitudinous nations of swarming insects / who drive hither and thither about the stalls of the sheepfold / in the season of spring when the milk splashes in the milk pails: / in such numbers the flowing-haired Achaians stood up / through the plain against the Trojans, hearts burning to break them.
Homer, Iliad. First epic simile in the text, refers to the soldiers as a unified force like a swarm of bees.
He spoke, and now thought of shameful treatment for glorious Hektor. / In both of his feet at the back he made holes by the tendons / in the space between ankle and heel, and drew thongs of ox-hide through them, / and fastened them to the chariot so as to let the head drag, / and mounted the chariot, and lifted the glorious armour inside it, / then whipped the horses to a run, and they winged their way unreluctant.
Homer, Iliad. Achilles dragging Hektor's body across the battlefield, reducing his honor and avenging Patroklos, whom Hektor killed and dishonored.
Achilleus looked on him in pity, / and spoke to him aloud and addressed him in winged words: "Why then / are you crying like some poor little girl, Patroklos, / who runs after her mother and begs to be picked up and carried, / and clings to her dress and holds her back when she tries to hurry, / and gazes tearfully into her face, until she is picked up?"
Homer, Iliad. Achilles' last time speaking to Patroklos before his death, hypocritically and ironically comparing him to a "poor little girl" for crying in an attempt to emasculate, patronize, and assert dominance.
"Brother / by marriage to me, who am a nasty bitch evil-intriguing, / how I wish that on that day when my mother first bore me / the foul whirlwind of the storm had caught me away and swept me / to the mountain, or into the wash of the sea deep-thundering."
Homer, Iliad. Helen speaking to Hektor about her dissent for her situation, being held captive and considered property.
"Odysseus! Come here! You are well-known/ from many stories! Glory of the Greeks! / Now stop your ship and listen to our voices. / All those who pass this way hear honeyed song, / poured from our mouths. The music brings them joy, / and they go on their way with greater knowledge, / since we know everything the Greeks and Trojans / suffered in Troy, by gods’ will; and we know / whatever happens anywhere on earth."
Homer, Odyssey. The sirens attempt to lure Odysseus to their island with their song, while Odysseus is the only one of his crew without earplugs.
After examining the mighty bow / carefully, inch by inch--as easily / as an experienced musician stretches / a sheep-gut string around a lyre's peg / and makes it fast--Odysseus, with ease / strung the great bow.
Homer, Odyssey. Odysseus, disguised, humiliates the suitors by stringing the bow with no effort. The bow itself is a symbol of techne and nostalgia, being a gift from Iphitus, an argonaut.
"As when / a deer lays down her newborn suckling fawns / inside the leafy den of some fierce lion, / and goes off to the slopes and grassy valleys / to graze. Then he comes back to his own bed / and cruelly destroys the little ones. / So will Odysseus destroy them all."
Homer, Odyssey. Telemachus repeating Menelaus' epic comparison of Odysseus to a lion as he is prophesied to return and murder the suitors.
"She added potent drugs / to make them totally forget their home. / they took and drank the mixture. Then she struck them, / using her magic wand, and penned them in / the pigsty. They were turned to pigs in body / and voice and hair; their minds remained the same."
Homer, Odyssey. Odysseus telling the Phaeacians the story of how his men were turned into pigs by Circe, representing and emphasizing the crew's greed and toxic masculinity.
"mistress of the scheme of order / great Queen of queens / babe of a holy womb / greater than the mother who bore you"
Enheduanna, Exaltation of Inanna. Enheduanna invokes Inanna by praising her and her great attributes, using imagery of pregnancy and motherhood, and invoking the divine feminine.
"may An desert those rebels / who hate your Nanna / may An wreck that city / may Enlil curse its fate / may the mother not comfort / her crying child"
Enheduanna, Exaltation of Inanna. Enheduanna calls for the destruction of the city that cast her out, doing so with imagery of motherhood.
"But that man cast me among the dead / I am not allowed in my rooms / gloom falls on the day / light turns leaden / shadows close in / dreaded southstorm cloaks the sun / he wipes his spit-soaked hand / on my honey sweet mouth / my beautiful image fades under dust"
Enheduanna, Exaltation of Inanna. Enheduanna laments the disrespect she has received from Lugalanne, the king who cast her out.
"He seems to me equal to gods that man / whoever he is who opposite you / sits and listens close / to your sweet speaking / and lovely laughing—oh it / puts the heart in my chest on wings / for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking / is left in me"
Sappho. Speaker (Sappho) describes heartsickness and envy towards the man courting her (female) love interest.
"Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind, / child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you / do not break with hard pains, / O lady, my heart"
Sappho (Ode to Aphrodite). Sappho invokes Aphrodite, begging her for a happy love life, or at least, a heart unbroken.
"I would rather see her lovely step / and the motion of light on her face / than chariots of Lydians or ranks / of footsoldiers in arms"
Sappho. Rather than seeing the beauty of armies, Sappho prefers to see the beauty of her love interest. She challenges the idea of an army (and on a greater level, kleos) with feminine beauty.
And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."
Genesis. God creates the world in his order and humans in his own image, with dominion over all.
Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, "Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one. The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, as are the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind. They are seven years of famine."
Genesis. Joseph is released from prison in Egypt after interpreting other prisoners' dreams to interpret the dreams of Pharaoh.
The Lord God then took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."
Genesis. God sets the restriction on Adam that he is not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, lest the die (according to him).
He said, "See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. Then prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die."
Genesis. Isaac, on his deathbed, tells his oldest son Esau to bring him food so that he can give him the blessing reserved for oldest children. Jacob is then told of this by Rebekah and pretends to be his brother, receiving the blessing instead.
“As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, / so is my beloved among young men. / With great delight I sat in his shadow, / and his fruit was sweet to my taste."
Song of Solomon. The female speaker compares her lover to a tree, a phallic symbol, and details how he stands out among other men.
"Blow upon my garden / that its fragrance may be wafted abroad. / Let my beloved come to his garden / that he may eat its choicest fruits."
Song of Solomon. Female speaker uses the yonic image of the garden to express her erotic desires towards her male lover.
“'I will rise now and go about the city, / in the streets and in the squares; / I will seek him whom my soul loves.' / I sought him but found him not."
Song of Solomon. The female speaker expresses her desire and search to find her male lover after he doesn't respond to her in the night.
“My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, / the darling of her mother, / flawless to her who bore her. / The maidens saw her and called her happy;"
Song of Solomon. Male speaker praises motherhood and the beauty of his lover both from his and the people's perspectives.
"When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do." She said to her, "All that you tell me I will do." So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had instructed her.
Book of Ruth. Naomi instructs Ruth to use her femininity to secure Boaz' protection and care, as it's a taboo for an unwedded woman to see a man's nudity.
“Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God. Where you die I will die, and there be buried. May the Lord do thus to me, and more, if even death separates me from you!”
Book of Ruth. Ruth declares her loyalty to Naomi in song despite her mother's urges against it.
“Why should I, a foreigner, be favored with your attention?” Boaz answered her: “I have had a complete account of what you have done for your mother-in-law after your husband’s death; you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom previously you did not know.
Book of Ruth. Ruth questions Boaz as to why she's treated with kindness, who responds that it's her virtuous actions, taking the chosen people/Israelites as her own and her self-sacrifice in service of her mother-in-law.
"Thus he went down, and the life struggled out of him; / and as he died he splattered me with the dark red / and violent driven rain of bitter-savored blood / to make me glad, as plants stand strong amidst the showers / of god in glory at the birthtime of the buds."
Aeschylus, Oresteia. Clytemnestra describes her bloodlust and how she murdered her husband, Agamemnon, while standing over his corpse.
"I would have you know, I see not how this thing will end. / I am a charioteer whose course is wrenched outside / the track, for I am beaten, my rebellious senses / bolt with me headlong and the fear against my heart / is ready for the singing and dance of wrath. But while / I hold some grip still on my wits, I say publicly / to my friends: I killed my mother not without some right."
Aeschylus, Oresteia. Like mother like son, Orestes describes how he murdered his mother and defends his actions while standing over her corpse.
"Who are you? I address you all alike, / both you, the stranger kneeling at my image here, / and you, who are like no seed ever begotten, not / recognized by the gods as goddesses, nor yet / stamped in the likenesses of any human form. / But no. This is the place of the just. Its rights forbid / to speak evil of another who is without blame."
Aeschylus, Oresteia. Athena addresses Orestes and the Furies, asking why they're in her temple. She makes sure to assert that she acts as judge and executioner.
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