Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 6, lines 171-175. Glaucus, fighting on the side of the Trojans, says this to Greek warrior Diomedes on the bloodied battlefield, after Diomedes asks him: "Who are you, my fine friend? – another born to die?" In an epic simile the lives of humans are compared to the generations of leaves on the trees, which fall and are replaced by new leaves in the spring. In this passage the fallen leaves stand for fallen soldiers.