Epic Simile

[Moontahan Ahmed]

"With this wand in his hands, the mighty giant killer made his
flight.
From the upper air he dropped to the
Pierian range, and from there swooped down on the sea, and skimmed
the wave like a seagull
drenching the feathers of its wings, with spray as it pursues the
fish
down fearsome troughs of
the unharvested deep.
55-5, pg 64


The simile within the epic simile is within the quote " skimmed the
wave like a
seagull”, and is made epic by the description of his flight through
the sea just like a seagull. The simile is very strong in the
reader’s mind because it is as if the messenger of Zeus takes the
shape of a seagull because of the vivid description. Also it shows
the
hunger in Hermes, because of the reference to the fish in the
unharvested deep. The hunger refers to Hermes’s desire to help Zeus
fulfill his prophecy.
The context of the simile involves Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, who
had just been
ordered by Zeus himself to deliver a message about the journey
Odysseus would partake in. The journey involves no help of gods and
many specific events which Zeus tells his messenger about.