Joy…warm as the joy that children feel
when they see their father’s life dawn again,
one who’s lain on a sickbed racked with torment,
wasting away, slowly, under some angry power’s onslaught –
then what joy when the gods deliver him from his pains!
So warm, Odysseus’ joy when he saw that shore, those trees.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 5, lines 436-441. After his boat is wrecked and he is adrift on a heavy sea for two nights and days, Odysseus is overjoyed to see the shores of Phaeacia. An epic simile compares his delight to the joy of children when the gods deliver their father from serious illness.