Every Homeric Simile in the Odyssey - E.V. Rieu Translation
Book 4 -
Menelaus speaks about the Suitors: The Suitors are “unweaned fawns” put “to sleep in a mighty lion’s den” and they will “meet a grisly fate” at “Odysseus’ hand”
Penelope worries after her son: “Doubts and fears” chase through Penelope’s mind “as they do through a lion’s when he finds himself surrounded by beaters and stands in terror as they stealthily close in”
Book 5 -
Hermes visits Calypso’s island at Zeus’ instruction: Hermes “swooped down on the sea” and “skimmed the waves like a sea-gull drenching the feathers of its wings with spray” as it pursues fish
Odysseus’ raft: “Like the North Wind at harvest-time tossing about the fields a ball of thistles” Odysseus is tossed around the sea, “the South Wind would toss it to the North” and “the East would leave it for the West to chase”.
Odysseus spots Phaeacia: He feels the “relief that a man’s children feel when their father” who has been sick with a “long, painful illness” is able to pass “the crisis by the god’s will and they know he will live”.
Odysseus covers himself with leaves: “as a farmer… buries a glowing log under the black ashes to keep his fire alive”.
Book 6 -
Nausicaa plays by the river: She “looked like Artemis the Archeress” leaving the mountains of “Tarygetus or Erymanthus for the joy of chasing the wild boar or the nimble deer”, “a head taller than” the “nymphs”.
Odysseus leaves the bushes: “like a mountain lion who sallies out, defying wind and rain…, with fire in his eyes, to hunt down the oxen or sheep or pursue the wild deer” and he is “Forced by hunger”.
Athene endows him with beauty: “Just as a craftsman trained by Hephaestus and Pallas Athene… puts a graceful finish to his work… she endowed his head and shoulders with beauty”
Book 8 -
Odysseus cries: “as a woman weeps when she throws her arms around the body of her beloved husband, fallen in battle… She finds him gasping in the throes of death…” and she is “wailing and lamenting” but the enemy “beat” her with “spears” as she is lead off into “slavery”, with “her cheeks wasted by her pitiful tears”
Book 9 -
Polyphemus’ club: “it looked more like the mast of some black ship of twenty oars”
Odysseus and his men blind Polyphemus: “like a man boring a ships timber with a drill which his mates below him twirl with a strap… continously”
Book 10 -
Circe’s island animals towards Odysseus’ men: Circe’s “mountain wolves” and “lions” act “like dogs fawning on their master as he comes from table for the tasty bits he always brings”
Odysseus’ men when he returns from meeting Circe: “like the scene at a farm when cows in a drove come home… and are welcomed by all their frisking calves” - “mothers”, maternal imagery associated with Odysseus
Book 12 -
Scylla takes six of Odysseus’ men: “like an angler… who casts his bait to lure the little fishes below… gets a bite, and whips his struggling catch to land”
Charybdis spews out timbers from a ship: “a judge with a long list of disputes to settle… rises from court for his evening meal”
Book 13 -
Odysseus wants to set off home for Ithaca: “like a ploughman who yearns for his supper after… up and down the field all day” he is “weary as he plods homeward”
The Phaeacian ships sail towards Ithaca: “like a team of four stallions on the plain… leaping forward to make short work of the course”
Book 15 -
Helen’s interpretation of the omen: “as this eagle came down from his native mountains and pounced on our home-fed goose, so shall Odysseus”
Book 16 -
Eumaeus and Telemachus: “Like a fond father welcoming back his son after nine years abroad… for whom he has sacrificed much”
Odysseus and Telemachus: “cried aloud piercingly and more convulsively than birds of prey, vultures or… eagles, bereaved when villagers have robbed the nest of their unfledged young”
Book 17 -
Telemachus tells his mother about Nestor: “He might have been my father, and I his long-lost son just back from my travels”
Telemachus tells his mother about Menelaus’ simile from Book 4.
Eumaeus praises Odysseus as a storyteller: “like fixing one’s eyes on a minstrel who has been taught by the gods to… bring delight to mortals” and “everyone longs to hear him”
Book 18 -
Telemachus wishes to overcome the Suitors: "to see these Suitors beaten men” with “their heads lolling” like “Irus” whose head is “lolling like a drunkard’s and unable to stand” as “a broken man!”
Book 19 -
Penelope cries listening to Odysseus: “snow that the West Wind has brought melts on the mountain-tops when the East Wind thaws it… the rivers run in spate”
Penelope’s anxiety: “Pandareus’ daughter, the tawny nightingale, perched in the dense foliage… makes her sweet music… with many turns and trills pours out her full-throated song in sorrow for Itylus her beloved son… whom she mistakenly killed with her own hand”.
Book 20 -
Odysseus’ anger at the slave women: “His heart growled within him as a bitch growls standing guard over her helpless pups, ready to fight when she sees a stranger.”
Odysseus thinks about how to deal with the Suitors: “twisting and turning just as a paunch stuffed with fat and blood is turned this way and that in the blaze of the fire by a man who wants to get it quickly roasted”
Book 21 -
The storage room door opens: “a groan like the roar of a bull at grass in a meadow”
Odysseus strings the bow: “a minstrel skilled at the lyre and in song easily stretches a string round a new leather strap”
Book 22 -
The Suitors run desperately: “They scattered through the hall like a herd of cattle that a darting gadfly has attacked and stampeded”
Odysseus, Eumaeus, Philoetius and Telemachus attack the Suitors: “swooped down on them just as vultures from the hills… swoop down upon the smaller birds” the smaller birds “find no help there and no escape”
Odysseus looks at the dead Suitors: “the whole company lying in heaps… like fish that the fishermen have dragged out of the grey surf in the meshes of their net”
Eurycleia sees Odysseus in the hall: “like a lion when he comes from feeding on some farmer’s bullock, with the blood dripped from his breast and jaws on either side, a fearsome spectacle”
Telemachus executes the disloyal slave women: “As when long-winged thrushes or doves get entangled in a snare, which has been set in a thicket”
Book 23 -
Athene transforms Odysseus’ appearance, same simile as in Book 6 is repeated.
Penelope and Odysseus are reunited: “like the moment when the blissful land is seen by struggling sailors whose fine ship Poseidon has battered… A few swim to safely to the mainland… blissfully they tread on solid land, saved from disaster.”
Book 24 -
The spirits of the dead Suitors are led to Hades by Hermes: “squeaking as bats squeak when they flutter around after one of them falls from the cluster in which they hand upside down from the rocky roof in the depth of some mysterious cave”
There are 39 Homeric similes in the Odyssey (37 excluding the two repeated similes)
Every Homeric Simile in the Odyssey - E.V. Rieu Translation
Book 4 -
Menelaus speaks about the Suitors: The Suitors are “unweaned fawns” put “to sleep in a mighty lion’s den” and they will “meet a grisly fate” at “Odysseus’ hand”
Penelope worries after her son: “Doubts and fears” chase through Penelope’s mind “as they do through a lion’s when he finds himself surrounded by beaters and stands in terror as they stealthily close in”
Book 5 -
Hermes visits Calypso’s island at Zeus’ instruction: Hermes “swooped down on the sea” and “skimmed the waves like a sea-gull drenching the feathers of its wings with spray” as it pursues fish
Odysseus’ raft: “Like the North Wind at harvest-time tossing about the fields a ball of thistles” Odysseus is tossed around the sea, “the South Wind would toss it to the North” and “the East would leave it for the West to chase”.
Odysseus spots Phaeacia: He feels the “relief that a man’s children feel when their father” who has been sick with a “long, painful illness” is able to pass “the crisis by the god’s will and they know he will live”.
Odysseus covers himself with leaves: “as a farmer… buries a glowing log under the black ashes to keep his fire alive”.
Book 6 -
Nausicaa plays by the river: She “looked like Artemis the Archeress” leaving the mountains of “Tarygetus or Erymanthus for the joy of chasing the wild boar or the nimble deer”, “a head taller than” the “nymphs”.
Odysseus leaves the bushes: “like a mountain lion who sallies out, defying wind and rain…, with fire in his eyes, to hunt down the oxen or sheep or pursue the wild deer” and he is “Forced by hunger”.
Athene endows him with beauty: “Just as a craftsman trained by Hephaestus and Pallas Athene… puts a graceful finish to his work… she endowed his head and shoulders with beauty”
Book 8 -
Odysseus cries: “as a woman weeps when she throws her arms around the body of her beloved husband, fallen in battle… She finds him gasping in the throes of death…” and she is “wailing and lamenting” but the enemy “beat” her with “spears” as she is lead off into “slavery”, with “her cheeks wasted by her pitiful tears”
Book 9 -
Polyphemus’ club: “it looked more like the mast of some black ship of twenty oars”
Odysseus and his men blind Polyphemus: “like a man boring a ships timber with a drill which his mates below him twirl with a strap… continously”
Book 10 -
Circe’s island animals towards Odysseus’ men: Circe’s “mountain wolves” and “lions” act “like dogs fawning on their master as he comes from table for the tasty bits he always brings”
Odysseus’ men when he returns from meeting Circe: “like the scene at a farm when cows in a drove come home… and are welcomed by all their frisking calves” - “mothers”, maternal imagery associated with Odysseus
Book 12 -
Scylla takes six of Odysseus’ men: “like an angler… who casts his bait to lure the little fishes below… gets a bite, and whips his struggling catch to land”
Charybdis spews out timbers from a ship: “a judge with a long list of disputes to settle… rises from court for his evening meal”
Book 13 -
Odysseus wants to set off home for Ithaca: “like a ploughman who yearns for his supper after… up and down the field all day” he is “weary as he plods homeward”
The Phaeacian ships sail towards Ithaca: “like a team of four stallions on the plain… leaping forward to make short work of the course”
Book 15 -
Helen’s interpretation of the omen: “as this eagle came down from his native mountains and pounced on our home-fed goose, so shall Odysseus”
Book 16 -
Eumaeus and Telemachus: “Like a fond father welcoming back his son after nine years abroad… for whom he has sacrificed much”
Odysseus and Telemachus: “cried aloud piercingly and more convulsively than birds of prey, vultures or… eagles, bereaved when villagers have robbed the nest of their unfledged young”
Book 17 -
Telemachus tells his mother about Nestor: “He might have been my father, and I his long-lost son just back from my travels”
Telemachus tells his mother about Menelaus’ simile from Book 4.
Eumaeus praises Odysseus as a storyteller: “like fixing one’s eyes on a minstrel who has been taught by the gods to… bring delight to mortals” and “everyone longs to hear him”
Book 18 -
Telemachus wishes to overcome the Suitors: "to see these Suitors beaten men” with “their heads lolling” like “Irus” whose head is “lolling like a drunkard’s and unable to stand” as “a broken man!”
Book 19 -
Penelope cries listening to Odysseus: “snow that the West Wind has brought melts on the mountain-tops when the East Wind thaws it… the rivers run in spate”
Penelope’s anxiety: “Pandareus’ daughter, the tawny nightingale, perched in the dense foliage… makes her sweet music… with many turns and trills pours out her full-throated song in sorrow for Itylus her beloved son… whom she mistakenly killed with her own hand”.
Book 20 -
Odysseus’ anger at the slave women: “His heart growled within him as a bitch growls standing guard over her helpless pups, ready to fight when she sees a stranger.”
Odysseus thinks about how to deal with the Suitors: “twisting and turning just as a paunch stuffed with fat and blood is turned this way and that in the blaze of the fire by a man who wants to get it quickly roasted”
Book 21 -
The storage room door opens: “a groan like the roar of a bull at grass in a meadow”
Odysseus strings the bow: “a minstrel skilled at the lyre and in song easily stretches a string round a new leather strap”
Book 22 -
The Suitors run desperately: “They scattered through the hall like a herd of cattle that a darting gadfly has attacked and stampeded”
Odysseus, Eumaeus, Philoetius and Telemachus attack the Suitors: “swooped down on them just as vultures from the hills… swoop down upon the smaller birds” the smaller birds “find no help there and no escape”
Odysseus looks at the dead Suitors: “the whole company lying in heaps… like fish that the fishermen have dragged out of the grey surf in the meshes of their net”
Eurycleia sees Odysseus in the hall: “like a lion when he comes from feeding on some farmer’s bullock, with the blood dripped from his breast and jaws on either side, a fearsome spectacle”
Telemachus executes the disloyal slave women: “As when long-winged thrushes or doves get entangled in a snare, which has been set in a thicket”
Book 23 -
Athene transforms Odysseus’ appearance, same simile as in Book 6 is repeated.
Penelope and Odysseus are reunited: “like the moment when the blissful land is seen by struggling sailors whose fine ship Poseidon has battered… A few swim to safely to the mainland… blissfully they tread on solid land, saved from disaster.”
Book 24 -
The spirits of the dead Suitors are led to Hades by Hermes: “squeaking as bats squeak when they flutter around after one of them falls from the cluster in which they hand upside down from the rocky roof in the depth of some mysterious cave”
There are 39 Homeric similes in the Odyssey (37 excluding the two repeated similes)
