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Book Twelve
Age warrior going into action with his two spears - a clear indication that
he intends to throw them. It says much for the conservatism of Homeric
diction that this useful and apposite phrase has failed to enter the formular
repertoire.
299-306 The finest lion simile in the Iliad. The lion in the epic is a
generic idea, a type of fearless aggressive behaviour (ccynvopir]), and the
fiercest animal known to the Homeric imagination. This lion is a hero in its
own right; it is inspired by its Ouuos dyfjvcop to attempt a well-nigh impossible
task (Is TTUKIVOV 86|iov IA0eTv, like the assault on the wall); it will not
retreat in the face of resistance, but will be victorious or die. As often the
simile clarifies the emotional colour of the narrative rather than the action
to which it ostensibly relates; Sarpedon too, we understand, is resolved to
carry the wall or die in the attempt, as he himself says at 328 below. — The
whole simile of this mountain-bred lion must be compared with Od. 6.130-4
(similar phrases underlined):
$r\ 6' ipiev a>s T6 Aecov 6psoriTpo