Impersonation and Interpretation in Iliad 13

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

At the beginning of book 13, soon after the Trojans have broken through the Greek fortifications around their ships, Poseidon intervenes in the action and rallies the Greeks to defend themselves. The intervention, however, has a few interesting features that may reflect on how we understand the gods’ functions in epic.

The Homeric gods are simultaneously representations of divine forces/entities who may (or may not) have reflected audiences beliefs and also actors in and upon the plot of epic. By intersecting between these two domains, they can also offer metaphysical and epistemological reflections, by which I mean, the limits of what humans can do and know and what the nature of the world between mortal and god may be. This reflection is, to be fair, more an issue of refraction (to borrow Donna Wilson’s term from her 2002 book).

When it comes to divine intervention, as I have mentioned before, I think part of what we are supposed to be inspired to consider as audience members is the interplay between human agency and determinism. The feature of double determination, where actions are given divine and human causes, for example, allows us to see both how events look from the divine perspective and how they might look from a mortal one. The reason I use the word ‘refraction’ here is that Homer does not have a single or simple way the human and divine worlds engage: it shifts throughout the epic, now here and there, inviting audiences to consider different ways of framing causality, fate, and human action.

The intervention in this book introduces metanarrative features of divine presence as well. Readers have long observed that divine viewing shapes the way the audience may see the action: gods comment on mortal events, meddle in them, and train the audience’s gaze from one place to another. This scene is especially interesting because Poseidon’s action is the result of his viewing of the action alongside his rooting interest in the outcome of the game. But in addition to that, Poseidon also intervenes indirectly: he takes on the guise of a mortal and even seems to play the part by imitating what the mortal might be likely to say. As such, this seen may have mimetic implications, by which I mean it may provide insights into how Homeric poetry thinks both about the characterization of individual heroes and how it imagines audience members reading the epic’s action.

Iliad 13.39-45

“The Trojans were churning like whirlwinds or a gale
As the followed Priam’s son Hektor insatiably
Shouting, screaming—they imagined they would take
The Achaeans ships and kill all the best men among them.
But the earthshaker Poseidon who grips the land
Rose from the deep sea to urge the Argives on,
Putting on the appearance and tireless voice of Kalkhas”

Τρῶες δὲ φλογὶ ἶσοι ἀολλέες ἠὲ θυέλλῃ
῞Εκτορι Πριαμίδῃ ἄμοτον μεμαῶτες ἕποντο
ἄβρομοι αὐΐαχοι· ἔλποντο δὲ νῆας ᾿Αχαιῶν
αἱρήσειν, κτενέειν δὲ παρ’ αὐτόθι πάντας ἀρίστους.
ἀλλὰ Ποσειδάων γαιήοχος ἐννοσίγαιος
᾿Αργείους ὄτρυνε βαθείης ἐξ ἁλὸς ἐλθὼν
εἰσάμενος Κάλχαντι δέμας καὶ ἀτειρέα φωνήν·

A scholion explains Poseidon’s choice as “since he was about to speak against Agamemnon on Achilles’ behalf, he is disguised as Kalkhas to make it more believable” ἐπεὶ ὑπὲρ ᾿Αχιλλέως κατὰ ᾿Αγαμέμνονος μέλλει λέγειν (sc. Ν 107—14), πρὸς τὸ πιστωθῆναι Κάλχαντι εἴκασται, schol. bT ad Il 13.45 ex. B). The scholion’s explanation here is more than a little disappointing. It reads into Poseidon’s choice the content of his subsequent speech—and not even the immediate one in which he addresses the two Ajaxes. Soon after that, he finds Teucer, and Lêitos, Pêneleon, Thoas, Dêipuros, Mêrionês, and Antilochos. With the exception of Thoas, these are not the leading lights of the Achaeans—but they are those who are left, thanks to the spate of injuries suffered in book 11. As a scholiast notes, Poseidon calls them “young men” and they are the ones who are left. The tone and content of his speech is fascinating

Iliad 13.107-114

But now [the Trojans] are fighting far from the city among the hollow shops
Thanks to the wickedness of our leader and the negligence of the army.
They are not willing to defend the shift ships because they have been struggling
With him—yet still, they are being killed alongside them.
But even if it is totally true that the cause of this
Is the hero son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon
Because he dishonored swift-footed Peleus’ son,
There is no way for us to hang back from war.
Let’s repair this quickly—the minds of good men are surely reparable.”

νῦν δὲ ἑκὰς πόλιος κοίλῃς ἐπὶ νηυσὶ μάχονται
ἡγεμόνος κακότητι μεθημοσύνῃσί τε λαῶν,
οἳ κείνῳ ἐρίσαντες ἀμυνέμεν οὐκ ἐθέλουσι
νηῶν ὠκυπόρων, ἀλλὰ κτείνονται ἀν’ αὐτάς.
ἀλλ’ εἰ δὴ καὶ πάμπαν ἐτήτυμον αἴτιός ἐστιν
ἥρως ᾿Ατρεΐδης εὐρὺ κρείων ᾿Αγαμέμνων
οὕνεκ’ ἀπητίμησε ποδώκεα Πηλεΐωνα,
ἡμέας γ’ οὔ πως ἔστι μεθιέμεναι πολέμοιο.
ἀλλ’ ἀκεώμεθα θᾶσσον· ἀκεσταί τοι φρένες ἐσθλῶν.

What a speech! A scholion notes significant ambiguity in this final line because the verb ἀκεώμεθα does not have an object. A T scholion suggests it could be “the anger of Achilles, or the negligence for which he was reproaching them” (τὴν ἔριν ἢ τὴν μῆνιν ᾿Αχιλλέως, ἢ τὴν ἀμέλειαν, ἣν αὐτοῖς ὀνειδίζει, schol. T ad Hom. Il. 13.115c). The proverbial claim—that noble men have minds that are pliable—doesn’t make the matter any clearer, because it could refer to Achilles and Agamemnon, the Greeks who are holding back, or everyone. While I tend to prefer readings that preserve ambiguity, I think that the closest referent is ἡμέας (“us”), which puts the onus on the addressees without foreclosing other possibilities (e.g., the arguing jerks who started it all).

The language from the beginning of this passage is critical of the Greeks and their leadership and aims to claim common ground with the addressees while filling them with a sense of shame that it has gone this far. Poseidon is acting the part of an audience member who is fed up with action that has taken a different course than he expected. His intervention strains against “Zeus’ plan” and tries to realign the inverted action of this poem with the larger “superstory” (to use Rachel Lesser’s term) of the Trojan War. In this, we can imagine Poseidon in that role of divine voyeur, frustrated at the story he watches.

At the same time, he provides an interpretation of the events for the mortals. As a god, Poseidon has heard about Zeus’ plans—he just doesn’t care about them. Note that he does not mention divine will in this passage; instead, he focuses on the Achaean political drama. He claims that Agamemnon is to blame, which is strong language in the epic tradition, yet by lumping Achaean cowardice into the conversation, he makes the very reasonable—and persuasive—argument that the Achaean army is a lot more than one (or two) men. As an interpreter of the action of the poem, then, Poseidon passes judgment on all of the Achaeans and instrumentalizes his judgment as an act of persuasion.

Disguised as Kalkhas, Poseidon also picks a line of argumentation that will resonate with these youngest of heroes who have seen the actual best of the Achaeans sidelined by pettiness, rage, and actual martial injuries. In my reading now, Poseidon is an actor who has donned a persona to move mortals to action; at the same time, he is a performer who has taken on a role that may also speak to Homeric poetics. Can we imagine Poseidon here as echoing the choices for speeches made by Homeric singers and from this can we make deductions on how they shape and shift the content of each speech to persuade or otherwise shape audience reaction?

My intuition on this is yes. There may be a homology to explore between this scene and Thucydides famous description of how his speeches correspond to what needed to be said (or what was appropriate to the situation). One would also need to look at all of the disguised speeches in the Iliad with careful attention to the audiences targeted to explore this idea further. But Poseidon gave us a start. As a figure in a mask, interpreting the scene for us, Poseidon is an actor, a divine hypocrite (keeping in line with the original meaning of the Greek word). But the tension between the story he tells as Kalkhas and the story we see as the audience helps us understand the epic even more.

A list of all my posts on the Iliad

Other posts on Iliad 13

1. The Iliad‘s Longest Day: Starting to Make Sense of Book 13: Time and the Iliad; Temporal Structure; Chronology

2. Epic Narratives and their Local Sidekicks: On Cretans in Iliad 13: Epic, epichoric, and Panhellenic; Crete

3. A Heroic Tale Curtailed: Homeric Digressions and Iliad 13: Digressions/paranarratives or inset tales; Idomeneus; Kassandra

   

Similes in Iliad 12

This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis. Last year this substack provided over $2k in charitable donations.

One might be forgiven for asking what I could possibly have left to say about Iliad 12. The big topics are the future discussion of the destruction of the walls around the Achaeans’ ships, the conflict over bird omens between Polydamas and Hektor, Sarpedon’s famous speech to Glaukos in the middle of the book about fame and death, and some amazing similes at the book’s end right before Zeus allows Hektor to break through the fortifications. But, even in merely listing these topics, I can imagine commenting further on how Polydamas interprets the omen, or on Zeus’ scales and his plan at the center of the epic, the series of apostrophes in the book that have not been addressed, the importance of a larger group of leaders with authority to conduct the war on the Achaean side, the weirdness of the two Ajaxes fighting together.

Structure of Iliad 12:

1-35 The walls and their future destruction

36-87 Achaean response to Trojan attack and Hektor; Polydamas’ first speech (don’t drive the chariots and horses across the ditch

88-174Trojan leaders, Asios ignores the advice

175-265 Bird omen and debate with narrative judgment

265-414 Ajaxes rally the GReeks, Sarpedon philosophizes with Glaukos

415-471 Similes: Farmers, Weaving Woman, Zeus tips the scales; Hektor breaks through the walls

There’s a lot going on in this book, but at the same time, not that much happens. The entirety of the action really amounts to the Trojans approaching the Greek fortifications and then one of them (Hektor) breaking through. But there is a lot going on. And much of it happens in the similes. It may be clear to anyone who has read a few posts here that I see similes as an important device to help us understand the structure and interpretation of Homeric poetry. If I have a Homerist-origin story, one particular moment that stands out is a conversation I had with Lenny Muellner in 2000 or so. Note, this is part of a book coming out in January (Storylife: On Epic, Narrative, and Living Things), so I will quote it as such.

When I was an undergraduate, exploring ideas for a senior thesis, I became fascinated by Homeric similes, especially those comparing heroes to people doing everyday things, as when the sides of the battle in Iliad 12 are compared to two men arguing over a boundary marker in their fields.[ Iliad 12.421–426.] I remember pouring out theories about how these comparisons were more sophisticated than animal comparisons only to be stopped by my advisor, Lenny, when I claimed it was obvious that complex similes arose out of simple ones. Lenny asked gently why it could not be the other way around, that simple similes—e.g. “Hektor was like a lion”—did not contain within them the potential of much longer ones. And, further, should not we distinguish between what an audience listening to the Homeric poems likely knew and expected from similes and how they developed over time?

This conversation remained with me for over twenty years. I take two essential lessons from it: first, not to forget the difference between the development of a thing (here a simile) and an audience’s experience of it; and, second, how the ecology of stories contains relationships and potentials far beyond what is immediately seen. To stay with the case of similes for a moment, let’s take an extended one from Iliad 12. As the battle between the Greeks and the Trojans rages around the wall protecting the Greek ships, two captains rally their troops:

So those two yelled out to encourage the Greeks to fight
And just as waves of snow fall thick on a winter’s day
When Zeus the master of all urges it to snow
On human beings, showing them what his weapons are like—
And he reins in the winds to pour it constantly
So that he covers the high mountains and the jutting cliffs
As well as the flowering meadows and men’s rich fields,
Snowing onto the harbors and the promontories of the gray sea,
Even as the wave resists it when it strikes. But everything else
Is covered beneath it whenever Zeus’ storm drives it on.
That’s how the stones fell thick from both sides,
Some falling against the Trojans, others from the Trojans
against the Greeks and a great din overwhelmed the whole wall.[Iliad 12.277–89.]

Here, the weapons falling down from the Greek wall on the Trojan attackers are compared to snow. To a modern audience, a snowfall might seem peaceful or even romantic, but in Homeric poetry snow is dangerous. The comparison in this simile conveys a blanketing and overpowering blizzard of conflict, made clearer to us from a typological study of Homeric language. But contrast this with a shorter snow simile such as “Hektor went forward like a snowy mountain.”[Iliad 13.754.] This simile creates a tension between what it says literally and the meaning it conveys based on associations unarticulated at this moment. It is not that Hektor moves like some abominable snowman or stands immobile like a wintry crag, but that the ferocity of his attacks is like the blizzards raging around a mountain. Ancient commentators add that Olympus, where the gods live, is snowy and mountains are big like Hektor, while snow is terrifying.

[…]

Lenny’s response to my assumptions about similes contains a kernel of a theory of narrative, of the importance of metonymy, and the crucial contribution audiences make to the creation of meaning.

Here’s an an exam type analogy: the tenors and vehicles of Homeric similes are to each other what external audiences and epic are outside of the poem. That is, they replicate pars pro toto the blending and movement that happens when audiences hear and begin to interpret the stories. Two things I would like to emphasize in the similes I have selected are the slippage or blending of detail between the domains of tenor and vehicle and the movement within the simile from the initial comparison to include a greater part of a world than one might expect.

Here are two examples from different books that I find useful

Iliad 6.503‑514

“Paris did not then linger in his lofty halls,
But, once he had put on his shining weapons, inlaid with bronze,
Then he hurried through the city, fully trusting his swift feet.
As when some cooped up horse, fully fed at the manger,
Breaks his bond and rushes out, luxuriating in the field,
Glorying in his habit of bathing in the fine-flowing river–
How he holds his head up high and his hair darts
Around his shoulders, and as he trusts in his glory,
His light limbs carry him to the hangouts and pasture of mares–
That’s how the son of Priam, Paris, went to the top of Pergamon,
Shining in his armor like the shining sun
Exulting, and his swift feet were carrying them….

Οὐδὲ Πάρις δήθυνεν ἐν ὑψηλοῖσι δόμοισιν,
ἀλλ’ ὅ γ’, ἐπεὶ κατέδυ κλυτὰ τεύχεα ποικίλα χαλκῷ,
σεύατ’ ἔπειτ’ ἀνὰ ἄστυ ποσὶ κραιπνοῖσι πεποιθώς.
ὡς δ’ ὅτε τις στατὸς ἵππος ἀκοστήσας ἐπὶ φάτνῃ
δεσμὸν ἀπορρήξας θείῃ πεδίοιο κροαίνων
εἰωθὼς λούεσθαι ἐϋρρεῖος ποταμοῖο
κυδιόων· ὑψοῦ δὲ κάρη ἔχει, ἀμφὶ δὲ χαῖται
ὤμοις ἀΐσσονται· ὃ δ’ ἀγλαΐηφι πεποιθὼς
ῥίμφά ἑ γοῦνα φέρει μετά τ’ ἤθεα καὶ νομὸν ἵππων·

The first example is about Paris finally dressed to go to war in Iliad. The verbal repetitions link the tenor and vehicle for us, and the effect of comparing Paris to a show-horse is comedic and pointed. But what I find interesting here is the bleedover of human-traits to the horse in the simile: the horse’s extravagant hair evokes as much a dandy princeling tossing his hair as that of a stallion. The bathing, the swift feet, the jaunting off for mares, all speaks to a horse compared to Paris as much as a prince compared to a horse. The bleedover is, I think, a species of the very kind of cognitive blending that happens when we absorb any narrative and try to process it through the language and experiences that are familiar to us.

Iliad 7.1-7

So he spoke and shining Hektor rushed out of the gates
And his brother Alexandros went with him. Both of them
Were truly eager in their heart to go to war and fight.
As when a god grants a wind to sailors who are just
Waiting for it, after they have worn themselves out
By driving their smooth oars into the sea, and their limbs have been wearied,
That’s how these two appeared to the Trojans awaiting [them].”

῝Ως εἰπὼν πυλέων ἐξέσσυτο φαίδιμος ῞Εκτωρ,
τῷ δ’ ἅμ’ ᾿Αλέξανδρος κί’ ἀδελφεός· ἐν δ’ ἄρα θυμῷ
ἀμφότεροι μέμασαν πολεμίζειν ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι.
ὡς δὲ θεὸς ναύτῃσιν ἐελδομένοισιν ἔδωκεν
οὖρον, ἐπεί κε κάμωσιν ἐϋξέστῃς ἐλάτῃσι
πόντον ἐλαύνοντες, καμάτῳ δ’ ὑπὸ γυῖα λέλυνται,
ὣς ἄρα τὼ Τρώεσσιν ἐελδομένοισι φανήτην.

Simpler, but no less interesting is the simile from book 7: When Hektor and Paris leave the gates, we are not sure what the relationship between the tenor and the vehicle is: we start out, perhaps wrongly, thinking that they are the sailors but find out as we move through the simile that the tableau of them returning to battle is being seen by the Trojans, who are the at first unexpressed tenor to the simile’s sailors. Hektor and Paris are the favorable wind sent to relieve them.

This shifting, this re-blending of space through the unfolding of the narrative, aims our mental gaze first at the princes returning to war, then to an imagined vessel, then to the Trojans altogether, moving us through the narrative and to a new place in the tale. The details left unexplored may strike different audience members: the inversion of Trojans as sailors, the emphasis on the toil of their work, the implication of divine agency, so crucial throughout Hektor’s characterization from this moment until Achilles’ return. The simile refracts and bends, leaving listeners to recompose its meaning.

And here’s another one from book 12: (39-51):

“Because they were fearing Hektor, that powerful master of fear.
But he was fighting on as he had before, like a whirlwind.
As when a boar or lion turns in the midst of dogs and men,
Hunters, reveling in his own strength,
And they group themselves together like a fortification
To stand opposite him, hurling down a rain of spears
From their hands. But his proud heart never
Feels fear nor thinks of turning—it is his bravery that kills him—
Then he turns, testing himself against the barrage and the ranks of men.
Wherever he heads, the ranks yield to him.
So Hektor was rushing forward through the throng
Turning back to encourage his companions to cross the ditch.”

῞Εκτορα δειδιότες, κρατερὸν μήστωρα φόβοιο·
αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ ὡς τὸ πρόσθεν ἐμάρνατο ἶσος ἀέλλῃ·
ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ἔν τε κύνεσσι καὶ ἀνδράσι θηρευτῇσι
κάπριος ἠὲ λέων στρέφεται σθένεϊ βλεμεαίνων·
οἳ δέ τε πυργηδὸν σφέας αὐτοὺς ἀρτύναντες
ἀντίον ἵστανται καὶ ἀκοντίζουσι θαμειὰς
αἰχμὰς ἐκ χειρῶν· τοῦ δ’ οὔ ποτε κυδάλιμον κῆρ
ταρβεῖ οὐδὲ φοβεῖται, ἀγηνορίη δέ μιν ἔκτα·
ταρφέα τε στρέφεται στίχας ἀνδρῶν πειρητίζων·
ὅππῃ τ’ ἰθύσῃ τῇ εἴκουσι στίχες ἀνδρῶν·
ὣς ῞Εκτωρ ἀν’ ὅμιλον ἰὼν ἐλλίσσεθ’ ἑταίρους
τάφρον ἐποτρύνων διαβαινέμεν· οὐδέ οἱ ἵπποι

This simile engages with the local and general contexts of the poem. It is hard to follow because it comes right on the heels of a short simile, whose comparison of Hektor to a whirlwind certainly has some resonance with Zeus as a sky god and his control over the action in this part of the poem. But in the shift to the simile, we find Hektor compared to what seems like a rather typical scene: a group of hunters (with dogs) corralling a single dangerous animal. Here the vehicle—the boar or lion amidst a group of hunters—is rather simple to unpack at first. Just as the Achaeans have built a wall around the ships, so too do the hunters form a kind of wall against the rampaging boar/lion who is attacking them. (Of course, we don’t know how the violent animal came into contact with the hunters, we only know that their natures are incompatible.)

It is the action and language of the simile that shows both the importance of the “bleedover” from tenor to vehicle and the characterization available from such a moment. First, the dangerous beast is never disambiguated. The boar-or-lion seems equally fit for the situation’s needs. Second, the peril in the simile really seems to be for the animal—the hunters retreat, but there is a dissonance between their actions and the panicked, frantic defense mounted by the Achaeans in the book. The simile evokes the larger narrative world where everyone knows that the boar/lion/Hektor will eventually fall. The choice of language to draw the tenor-vehicle pair together (here’ “like a fortification”, purgêdon) increases these ties, while the statement that “it is his bravery that kills him” would make any reasonable audience member think of Hektor.

That reasonableness is part of what I think is fascinating about this simile. We don’t know why the boar/lion is surrounded and under attack; but we can’t be surprised that it is doing so. I read a mismatch, something of a single or double dissonant note, sounding through the composition asking the audience to think a little longer about the aptness of the scene. As a single moment in time, it strains to evoke the collective nature of a group against a single assailant. Can it be true for Hektor or the beast that his bravery kills him if he has no choice?

There are other questions here. I think a simplistic reading of this simile—and others—would be that the traditional language doesn’t fit the scene as well as it could and the dissonance is accidental. But I wonder what it does to consider this an image-schematic clash that invites the audience to re-consider Hektor’s position at during this book. The key, I suspect, may be the stacking of similes: Hektor is both the trapped beast and the divine whirlwind. The conflict of images, rather than being sloppy or ill-considered, instead produces a deeper response in the audience, potentially yielding a deeper understanding of Hektor’s plight and all the troubles Zeus has to offer.

More on Iliad 12

1. Looking Up and Out: Starting to Read Iliad 12: The Achaean Wall, again; Kleos; Impermanence; Bird Omens; Hektor and Polydamas; “Don’t Look Up!”

2. Why Must We Fight and Die?: Reading Sarpedon’s Speech to Glaukos in Iliad 12: Heroism; Noblesse Oblige; Kleos

3. Scarcity and the Iliad: Thinking about Similes in Book 12: Similes in Homer; Cognitive models for reading, 2

A Starter Bibliography on Similes in Homer

n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.

Bassett, Samuel E. “The Function of the Homeric Simile.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 52 (1921): 132–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/282957.

Ben-Porat, Ziva. “Poetics of the Homeric Simile and the Theory of (Poetic) Simile.” Poetics Today 13, no. 4 (1992): 737–69. https://doi.org/10.2307/1773297.

Mandel, Oscar. “Homeric Simile.” Prairie Schooner 69, no. 2 (1995): 124–124. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40633938.

Minchin, Elizabeth. “Similes in Homer: image, mind’s eye, and memory.” Speaking volumes: orality and literacy in the Greek and Roman world. Ed. Watson, Janet. Mnemosyne. Supplements; 218. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2001. 25-52.

Moulton, Carroll. “Similes in the Iliad.” Hermes 102, no. 3 (1974): 381–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4475864.

Muellner, Leonard. “The Simile of the Cranes and Pygmies a Study of Homeric Metaphor.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 93, 1990, pp. 59–101. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/311283. Accessed 6 Jan. 2024.

Naiden, Fred S.. “Homer’s leopard simile.” Nine essays on Homer. Eds. Carlisle, Miriam and Levaniouk, Olga Arkadievna. Greek Studies. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield, 1999. 177-203.

Notopoulos, James A. “Homeric Similes in the Light of Oral Poetry.” The Classical Journal 52, no. 7 (1957): 323–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3294076.

Pache, Corinne. “Mourning lions and Penelope’s revenge.” Arethusa, vol. 49, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1-24.

Porter, David H. “Violent Juxtaposition in the Similes of the ‘Iliad.’” The Classical Journal 68, no. 1 (1972): 11–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3296022.

Ready, Jonathan. 2011. Character, Narrator and Simile in the Iliad. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ready, Jonathan L. “The Comparative Spectrum in Homer.” The American Journal of Philology 129, no. 4 (2008): 453–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27566727.

Scott, William C. 2009. The Artistry of the Homeric Simile. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press.

Andreas Thomas Zanker, Metaphor in Homer: time, speech, and thought. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. x, 263 p.. ISBN 9781108491884 $99.99.