Dead set as mules who put their backs in the labor…
dragging down from the cliffs along a stony trail
some roof-beam or a heavy ship timber, slogging on
till they nearly burst their hearts with sweat and labor –
so they strained to carry off the corpse.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 17, lines 833-837. As they strain to carry away Patroclus’s body from the battlefield, Menelaus and Meriones are likened in an epic simile to two dogged mules dragging their load down a stony trail.