But I alone anchored my black ship outside,
well clear of the harbor’s jaws
I tied her fast to a cliffside with a cable.
I scaled its rock face to a lookout on its crest
but glimpsed no trace of the work of man or beast from there;
all I spied was a plume of smoke, drifting off the land.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 10, lines 104-109. Odysseus finds himself near the land of the giant Laestrygonians. We are told how he carefully anchors his ship well away from the "harbor’s jaws" – a metaphor.