The Iliad Asius Quotes

Both warriors planted there before the towering gates
rose like oaks that rear their crests on a mountain ridge,
standing up to the gales and driving rains, day in, day out,
their giant roots branching, gripping deep in the earth:
so these two, trusting all to their arms, their power,
stood up to Asius’ headlong charge and never shrank.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 12, lines 155-160. The Achaean spearmen Polypoetes and Leonteus heroically defend the Achaean gate in the Greeks’ wall against the charge led by Trojan ally Asius. They are compared in an epic simile to two great oaks standing up to gales and driving rains.

Father Zeus –
so even you are an outright liar after all!
I never dreamed these heroic Argive ranks
could hold back our charge, our invincible arms.
Look, like wasps quick and pinched at the waist
or bees who build their hives on a rocky path,
they never give up their hollow house, they hold on,
keep the honey-hunters at bay, fight for their young.
So these men will never budge from the gates
though they’re only two defenders –
not till they kill us all or we kill them!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 12, lines 189-199. Asius curses Zeus for his failure to break through the Achaean defensive wall. An epic simile conjures up an image of bees or wasps who will never give up the fight for the defense of their house and young. So the heroic Achaeans will defend against the Trojan charge until they kill all or are killed themselves.
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