Download Epic Similes in The Odyssey

NAME: _________________________________ DATE: _________________ PERIOD: ____________
Epic Similes in The Odyssey
simile: uses like or as to compare two items
epic simile: a really long simile that uses like, as, so, or just so to compare two items
Directions: Read the epic simile. Fill in all the boxes. Complete number 1 as a class, number 2 with
a partner, and numbers 3 and 4 on your own.
1. In a smithy one sees a white-hot axhead or an adze
plunged and wrung in a cold tub, screeching steam—
the way they make soft iron hale and hard—
just so that eyeball hissed around the spike.
pg. 766
Box 1: Which episode is this epic simile from?
Box 2: What two things are being compared in this epic simile?
________________________________________________ is like
________________________________________________
Box 3: What is the epic simile REALLY about? Come up with one theme subject word.
Complete with a partner:
2. A man surf-casting on a point of rock
for bass or mackerel, whipping his long rod
to drop the sinker and the bait far out,
will hook a fish and rip it from the surface
to dangle wriggling through the air;
so these were borne aloft in spasms toward the cliff.
She ate them as they shrieked there, in her den,
pg. 783
Box 1: Which episode is this epic simile from?
Box 2: What two things are being compared in this epic simile?
________________________________________________ is like
________________________________________________
Box 3: What is the epic simile REALLY about? Come up with one theme subject word.
Complete on your own.
3. Going forward,
he kissed the young man’s head, his shining eyes
and both hands, while his own tears brimmed and fell.
Think of a man whose dear and only son,
born to him in exile, reared with labor,
has lived ten years abroad and now returns:
how would that man embrace his son: Just so
the herdsman clapped his arms around Telemachus
and covered him with kisses—for he knew
the lad had got away from death.
pg. 791
Box 1: Which episode is this epic simile from?
Box 2: What two things are being compared in this epic simile?
________________________________________________ is like
________________________________________________
Box 3: What is the epic simile REALLY about? Come up with one theme subject word.
4. But the man skilled in all ways of contending
satisfied by the great bow’s look and heft,
like a musician, like a harper, when
with quiet hand upon his instrument
he draws between his thumb and forefinger
a sweet new string upon a peg: so effortlessly
Odysseus in one motion srung the bow.
pg. 801-802
Box 1: Which episode is this epic simile from?
Box 2: What two things are being compared in this epic simile?
________________________________________________ is like
________________________________________________
Box 3: What is the epic simile REALLY about? Come up with one theme subject word.