Its headlong impulse checked, it rolls no more.”
Or take another similitude drawn from the sea. When the poet wishes to describe how the Achæan phalanxes come on to battle, this is the image he employs:—
“And as a goatherd from his watch-tower crag
Beholds a cloud advancing o’er the sea
Beneath the west wind’s breath; as from afar
He gazes, black as pitch, it sweeps along
O’er the dark face of ocean, bearing on
A hurricane of rain; he, shuddering, sees
And drives his flock beneath the sheltering cave.
So thick and dark about the Argives stirred,