Book Xll ~ Line 137-143 ~ Epic Similie

"... Turnus is driven by the Furies;
he glows with sparks; his fierce eyes flame with fire:
as when a bull, preparing to do battle, 
awakes tremendous bellowings; trying
to hurl his rage into his horns, before
the fight, he butts against a tree trunk and
he beats the wind with blows and paws the sand."


   The explanation of a furious preparation for the war is supported by the imagery set with this simile.  Furies is the goddess of revenge; hence, Turnus is compared to an awakening bull that is filled with rage seeking for revenge. The fact that he glows with sparks show that he is ready to enlighten people. How he "beats the wind with blows and paws the sand" shows his strength and power over the both the air and land.

Voices ~ John Cavafy

Ideal voices we have greatly loved, of those that death has taken, or of those that are, for us, lost, even as are the dead.   At times we hear them talking in our dreams; at times in thought they echo through the brain.   And, with the sound of them, awhile recur sounds from the first poetry of our lives, — like music, on still nights, far off, that wanes.

Translated by John Cavafy

(Poems by C. P. Cavafy. Translated, from the Greek, by J. C. Cavafy. Ikaros, 2003)