And out he stalked
as a mountain lion exultant in his power
strides through wind and rain and his eyes blaze
and he charges sheep or oxen or chases wild deer
but his hunger drives him on to go for flocks,
even to raid the best-defended homestead.
So Odysseus moved out…
about to mingle with all those lovely girls,
naked now as he was, for the need drove him on,
a terrible sight, all crusted, caked with brine –
they scattered in panic down the jutting beaches.
Only Alcinous’ daughter held fast.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 6, lines 142-153. When Odysseus emerges naked from the bushes after his sea ordeal, he is hungry and in need of food. He looks terrifying to the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa and her handmaids as he approaches them. While Nausicaa stands her ground, her attendants run off down the beach in panic. In an extended simile, Odysseus is compared to a powerful mountain lion driven by hunger to approach a homestead and attack its flocks of animals.