The shocking squadrons meet in mortal fight.
(. . .) this deadly fray
A cast of scatter’d dust will soon allay,
And undecided leave the fortunes of the day.
On this occasion the scattered dust had no effect, for the winged army poured on.
Dusky they spread a close-embodied crowd,
And o’er the vale descends the living cloud.
Another evening, two lads returning home with our painting traps suddenly put down their loads. One of them, Kassi, troubled with great animal spirits, always up to mischief, made passes with a stick at a bush by the wayside, protecting himself by throwing his burnous about his head. We found him in great excitement, thrusting at a wasp’s nest hanging in the bush. It reminded me of another of Homer’s similes in the ‘Iliad.’
As wasps, provok’d by children in their play,
Pour from their mansions by the broad highway,