The attackers struck like eagles, crook-clawed, hook-beaked,
swooping down from a mountain ridge to harry smaller birds
that skim across the flatland, cringing under the clouds
but the eagles plunge in fury, rip their lives out – hopeless,
never a chance of flight or rescue – and people love the sport –
so the attackers routed suitors headlong down the hall,
wheeling into the slaughter, slashing left and right
and grisly screams broke from skulls cracked open –
the whole floor awash with blood.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 22, lines 316-324. This passage about the slaughter of the suitors is alive with vivid and graphic imagery of their terrible demise. It features the kind of extended simile Homer has a genius for, conveying the intensity of the situation and making it more real for the reader. Odysseus and his men are compared to attacking eagles as they swoop down from the mountains to attack and tear to pieces the smaller birds – the suitors.