Corhali abstracts

“Corhali” Colloquium XXII
THE SIMILES OF THE ILIAD
A. D. White House, Cornell University
Thursday-Saturday May 30-June 1 2013

Abtracts of Papers in alphabetical order

David Bouvier: Achilles, the Lion and the Fountain.

Je lis les comparaisons de l'Iliade comme les pièces d'un puzzle compliqué. Je me promène dans ce labyrinthe pour m'y perdre. Il me fallait un point de départ et j'ai choisi, sur le conseil d'Ugolino Martelli (a very old friend from Firenze), l'une des comparaisons qui ouvrent le chant IX. Agamemnon pleure comme une source d'eau noire :

ἵστατο δάκρυ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος
ἥ τε κατ’ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ· (15)
ὣς ὃ βαρὺ στενάχων ἔπε’ Ἀργείοισι μετηύδα (9.14-16)

Or, si l'on étudie les comparaisons comme les pièces d'un système qui a ses règles d'économie et d'extension liées à des mécanismes analogiques similaires, finalement, au système formulaire mis en évidence par M. Parry, il importe de regarder comment une image en appelle une autre, avec des variations et des permutations pertinentes. Les comparaisons sont comme une déclinaison de l'imaginaire poétique. Je vais m'intéresser ici à l'image de la source : κρήνη μελάνυδρος, à la façon dont l'Iliade décline cette image pour en faire une pièce significative de la composition poétique. Regardons d'autres comparaisons liées aux "sources". On voit bientôt surgir près des «sources» des loups et des lions:

a) les loups:
Μυρμιδόνας δ’ ἄρ’ ἐποιχόμενος θώρηξεν Ἀχιλλεὺς
πάντας ἀνὰ κλισίας σὺν τεύχεσιν· οἳ δὲ λύκοι ὣς
ὠμοφάγοι, τοῖσίν τε περὶ φρεσὶν ἄσπετος ἀλκή,
οἵ τ’ ἔλαφον κεραὸν μέγαν οὔρεσι δῃώσαντες
δάπτουσιν· πᾶσιν δὲ παρήϊον αἵματι φοινόν·
καί τ’ ἀγεληδὸν ἴασιν ἀπὸ κρήνης μελανύδρου (160)
λάψοντες γλώσσῃσιν ἀραιῇσιν μέλαν ὕδωρ
ἄκρον ἐρευγόμενοι φόνον αἵματος· ἐν δέ τε θυμὸς (16.155-162).

b) les lions:
ὡς δ’ ὅτε σῦν ἀκάμαντα λέων ἐβιήσατο χάρμῃ,
ὥ τ’ ὄρεος κορυφῇσι μέγα φρονέοντε μάχεσθον
πίδακος ἀμφ’ ὀλίγης· ἐθέλουσι δὲ πιέμεν ἄμφω· (825)
πολλὰ δέ τ’ ἀσθμαίνοντα λέων ἐδάμασσε βίηφιν·
ὣς πολέας πεφνόντα Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμον υἱὸν …(16.823-827).

La source devient ici le lieu d'un combat à mort et l'eau noire se teint de sang. Ces deux images invitent à réfléchir sur la présence fréquente des animaux sauvages près des sources. C'est l'apparition du lion qui m'intéresse le plus. Il faut aussi se souvenir que les fontaines ont en Grèce ancienne très souvent des déversoirs à tête de lion. C'est souvent le cas sur les vases qui montent le mythe de Troilos et sa mise à mort près des fontaines de Troie (krênê, cf. le vase François). Ce lion qui rode autour des fontaines m'intéressent. Les comparaisons examinées dessinent, en arrière plan, un paysage qui sera bientôt la scène directe du drame iliadique, quand Achille vient tuer Hector près des sources du Scamandre et des fontaines de Troie.

Manon Brouillet
Can gods be compared to men?

In five similes in the Iliad (IV 127-133, V 855-863, XIV 147-152, XV 78-83, XV 360-366), Homeric gods are compared to men or, at least, to an action belonging to the human world. This does not always happen when the gods are dealing with men, but they are always in some way involved in human affairs. I intend to show that these similes have a special meaning and reveal something about the relationship between the human and the divine worlds.
Such similes can be used in order to confirm once again the Homeric gods' anthropomorphism. On the contrary, I think that the similes never express anything precise about the nature of the gods (or even the human nature). But they are always connected with the narration and reveal the way gods are involved in action and, above all, how this involvement either changes at the very moment when the simile appears, or has to be reevaluated because of the simile.

Emilio Capettini
Is there a lion in that simile? The expansion of zoological similes in the Homeric scholia.

In his recent study of the articulations of space in the Iliad, C. Tsagalis has argued that Homeric similes offer the audience “paratopic” narrative snapshots, i.e., background images which “lie outside the space delineated by the narrative.” What matters for the critic who approaches each image from this perspective is to assess how homologous it is with the narrative that surrounds it. Such an approach dates all the way back to the Hellenistic period, when the text of Homer became the object of intensive philological research. As R. Nünlist has shown, ancient scholia on Iliadic and Odyssean similes are replete with considerations of the aptness of the images used by the poet; in some cases, scholiasts, just like modern commentators, present lists of similes which are applied to the same character or which exploit the same comparatum. Despite clear similarities, however, the ancient study of Homeric similes is profoundly different from ours, and it is on this difference, particularly in regard to similes involving lions (one of the favorite animal comparata in the Homeric poems), that I want to focus in my paper.
As I will show, the ancient critics’ desire to prove Homer’s competence in almost every field of human knowledge lead them to provide “scientific” explanations for each of the details employed by the poet in his similes, even when the argument of poetical “convenience” would have been sufficient. For instance, when in book 5 of the Iliad two Achaean brothers killed by Aeneas are compared to two lions, one of the scholiasts informs us that the choice of the dual leonte is zoologically appropriate: a lioness gives birth only to two cubs in her lifetime, because the cubs scratch her uterus with their claws and make her barren (schol. bT Il. V 544). An even more extreme case of scientific reinterpretation and expansion of a Homeric simile is preserved by Aelian; in a chapter of book 3 of the Natura Animalium, Aelian claims that lions cannot be found in the Peloponnese, and buttresses this claim with a quotation of an Odyssean simile in which Artemis is said to hunt deer and boars on the Taigetus (Od. VI 103-105). The (not so clear) connection with lions is explained immediately afterwards: Homer has mentioned deer and boars but not lions because lions cannot be found on the Taigetus. Modern scholars of the Natura Animalium (e.g., Kindstrand) seem to believe that Aelian himself drew this conclusion e silentio; however, it can be already found in the scholia on the passage. In this case, even the missing details of the Homeric simile are praised for their aptness!
The very desire to prove the merit of similes as “paratopic” snapshots, entirely ancillary to the main narrative, resulted then – paradoxically, one might say – in the interpretation of similes as autonomous images, not confined to the background anymore. As a consequence, these images had not only to be explained in each detail, but also to be supplemented so as to present a satisfying and almost independent picture, one in which a missing lion is just as important as a present one.

Marcello Carastro
As a woman: Aedic songs and Odysseus' tears (Odyssey, 8, 523‐531)

The scene of Odysseus weeping as a woman (Odyssey, 8, 523‐531) while listening to Demodocus’ song about the wooden horse and the sack of Troy has attracted commentators’ attention since the Hellenistic period. Although scholiasts and a large part of modern scholars have focused on the pathos of this Homeric simile, I propose to analyze it as a cultural response to the aedic performance rather than an emotional reaction or a device used by the poet to arouse emotion. Odysseus is one of the main characters whose glory is sung by Demodocus, and yet he is alive. Because he is highly concerned, he cannot rejoice like any other person of the audience, but weeps and adopts female funerary behavior crying high and shrill. Accordingly, the anthropological analysis I propose will be twofold. On the one hand, by recalling the scene of encountering the Sirens, I will focus on the funerary value of their song and its sound effects. On the second hand, following the tears traces, I intend to put into question the current gendered interpretation. Instead of viewing the simile as an analogical device based on an irreducible opposition between male hero and female wife reduced to slavery, I will propose to look at such a specific dynamics that allows Odysseus to recover and unveil his own identity experiencing woman grief.

Ombretta Cesca
Similes and the characterization of Paris in the Iliad

Book III of the Iliad begins with five similes in rapid succession, each corresponding to a character with an important role in the scene preceding the duel between Paris and Menelaus. At Il. III, 2-7 the Trojan army is compared to a flock of cranes; at 10-14 the Greek army is like fog; at 23-28 Menelaus sees his enemy Paris and stares at him as a lion stares at the body of a dead animal; at 34-37 Paris notices Menelaus’ glance and, struck by fear, jumps backwards as a man seeing a snake; at 60-63 Paris, rebuked by Hector for his cowardice, tells him that his heart is inflexible as a hatchet.
The simile of Paris as a man seeing a snake in particular interests me. He becomes pale, shivers and jumps backwards: his fear stands in contrast to the appetite of lion-Menelaus and with Hector’s perseverance.
Do the similes play an important role in characterization? Do they have a part in making the public perceive certain nuances of the characters’ personality? In order to answer these kinds of questions, I chose to focus my research on Paris and to analyze the few similes connected with this character in the Iliad.
In book VI, 506-511 Paris, ready to go to war, is compared to a beautiful and proud stallion galloping in the fields; certain details of this simile share common traits with Paris’ personality. At XI, 380-390, during his duel with Diomedes, Paris compares the Trojans to goats bleating at a lion and he is compared by his opponent to a woman or a child. The analysis of the lexical and metrical choices in these similes allows the classification of comedic elements in the characterization of Paris as presented in the Iliad.

David F. Elmer
Iliad 2.478-79 and Dumézilian Trifunctionalism

In the dense concatenation of similes leading up to the Catalogue of Ships, a remarkable comparison likens Agamemnon, as he musters the troops, to three different divinities, each paired with a distinct part of the king’s body (2.477-79):

μετὰ δὲ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων
ὄμματα καὶ κεφαλὴν ἴκελος Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ,
Ἄρεϊ δὲ ζώνην, στέρνον δὲ Ποσειδάωνι.

This simile exhibits a number of unusual features that call for explanation. I offer some speculative possibilities, based on the trifunctional system outlined by Georges Dumézil. Evidence from other parts of the Indo-European world (Rome, India) suggests that sacrificial ritual may lie somewhere in the background. The narrative context (establishing kosmos after a period of crisis) arguably lends itself to such an interpretation. I go on to consider the possibility that the rituals of a festival like the Panathenaia might provide the basis, within Greek culture, for the Iliadic simile.

Sylvie Galhac (Lille 3)
The similes of the Iliad and the Odyssey compared : mirror effects between human beings and animals?

Considering first the fact that Iliadic and Odyssean similes, including animal similes, show enough similarities to be compared, secondly the fact that in the animal similes the human body is often compared with the animal body, I will compare Iliadic and Odyssean similes as for the way they link the animal to the human being in order to establish whether the human body is or is not conceived as having its own specificity, and, if the case arises, to what extent it is, in each one of the two poems. Thus I will first focus on the lion similes of the Iliad and the Odyssey compared, and I will show that in the Odyssey, unlike the Iliad, comparisons between human beings and animals are rarely possible, unless the mirror effects between the tenor and the vehicle are either broken or remotivated. I will secondly give a quick survey of the other animal similes of the Odyssey, which will confirm this distinctive feature of the Odyssean animal similes. As a conclusion I will try to bring out the questions raised by such a distinctive feature.

Xavier Gheerbrant
How does didactic simile work in the Iliad ? The analysis of an early poet and philosopher, Empedocles”.

This presentation analyses how Empedocles uses homeric similes to create a potentially original form of didactic simile in fragment B 84 D.-K. , and is designed as an analysis of an early view on how Homeric simile works. Developed similes are hardly ever used by early hexametric poets such as Hesiod, Xenophanes and Parmenides : Empedocles is the first real exception, as we possess four comparisons though some are fragmentary. Due to the brevity of the presentation, I have no time to discuss the many difficult debates among scholars about fr. 84's meaning, so my analysis will be based on a modified version of Jean Bollack's 1969 interpretation. The presentation aims at identifying the intellectual process involved in rereading and rewriting iliadic similes which is at issue in this complex and contested fragment. This is achieved (1) by noting the differences between the iliadic way of building a simile and Empedocles' own, and (2) by interpreting the numerous references to iliadic comparisons in the fragment. This analysis enables us to pinpoint which traits of homeric didactic similes seemed relevant to an early poet and philosopher such as Empedocles, and which aspects of the way comparisons work were more emphasised by Empedocles than in his original model.

Madeleine Goh
Tradition, Narrative, and Reversed Role Similes in Homer

When Priam arrives in Achilles' tent in Book 24 of the Iliad, Homer compares Priam to a murderer who flees his own land and seeks protection at a wealthy foreigner's house. Although it is Achilles who has killed Hector, in this "reverse simile" the roles of the two men are reversed. This paper examines the significance of these and other rarely occurring similes in which unexpected reversals of roles occur. I argue that in Homer such "reverse similes" appear only in emotionally heightened moments that are significant in the narrative development, and almost exclusively in describing the hero of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Achilles and Odysseus, respectively. A notable example in the Odyssey occurs in Book 8, where Odysseus, who although the victor in the Trojan War, is compared to a captive slave woman. (In her 1978 article, Helene Foley examined reverse similes but concentrated on gender reversals between Odysseus and Penelope, and in this paper I attempt to consider such reversed role similes in the Iliad in the context of her discussion.) In conclusion, I examine how such types of similes function in the Iliad as a powerful narrative device of the "master narrator" who foreshadows the action that follow the simile: Achilles' eventual empathy with Priam, and consider the implications for our understanding of the Homeric narrative.

Ella Haselwerdt
Iliadic Similes in the Scutum Hesiodi? Time and Narrative in Catalogue Epic

Between the exchange of insults and the piercing of Cycnus' throat by Herakles, the duel between the two heroes, which is the climax of the Shield, takes place over the course of 51 diagetic lines. Only 14 of those describe actual fighting. The rest consist of a dizzying waterfall of similes that unmoor the listener from the action, shouldering their way into the foreground and relegating the narrative to the background. From the point of view of Homeric Epic, and the guidelines asserted by Aristotle, these similes are unsuccessful. The signifier has ranged too far from the signified, and the thread of the action lost. But perhaps this is holding the Shield to the wrong generic standards. Arguably, the most comparable passage in the Iliad is the scene before the Catalogue of Ships, in which four successive and extensive similes describe the movement of the Greek army. A series of similes that describe the same actions (here, or when the heroes in the Shield fall upon one another) creates a recursive time loop – the moment is lived and relived from various perspectives. In the Iliad, this serves to slow down time and prepares the listener for an extended excursus in the catalogue mode. This paper argues that although the Shield is steeped in Homeric themes and diction, it might be better served by being approached as 'catalogue epic,' rather than, say, 'pulp epic' (as Richard Martin argues). The poem has a close relationship with the Catalogue of Women, and both of these pieces are characterized not by one great action, the inexorable forward motion of the plot, occasionally sweetened and clarified with associative imagery, but by a series of still, ekphrastic images given shape by a familiar story. The driving force is taxis rather than praxis. The battle similes, though Homeric in form and content are largely different in function.

Leopoldo Iribarren
When similes become images. On the relation between themes in Iliadic comparisons and scenes in the shield of Achilles

My paper questions a parallel frequently made by scholars (Redfield 1975, Edwards 1991, Buxton 2004 et al.): that between the vehicle of Homeric similes and the scenes represented on Achilles’s shield. The general idea underlying this parallel is that both the similes and the Shield offer a view of the world beyond the war, and more specifically, that of the poet’s own day. Aside from the more obvious thematic relations between the Shield and the similes, these scholars also define a common poetic function for the similes and the Shield: one that consists in “likening” something in the narrative to the daily life of the poet and his audience. A fundamental question arises from this position: are the two forms of “likeness” produced by each artifice equivalent?
In the first part of my paper, I will explore the positive connection that relates three agricultural scenes in the Shield with their corresponding similes in the Iliad (18, 541-547≈13, 703-708; 18, 550-560≈11, 67-77; 18, 573-586≈17, 61-69). With evidence drawn from these examples, in the second part I will discuss two distinct ways in which the poem creates “likeness”. First, by means of the semantic interaction between two alien objects underlying similes; and secondly, through the fabrication of a visual image which presents itself as a vivid copy of a given reality. In both cases, “likeness” is not something that is empirically given; rather, it is a poetic construction objectified by a meaningful symbolic mediation, be that the comparans in the simile, or Hephaestus’s artistry as the Shield’s craftsman. In both cases, the poet makes explicit the kind of mediation he uses to create likeness.

Sarah Lagrou
The cranes, the flies and the bull : some suggestions for the interpretation of the sequence of similes in the second book of the Iliad (vv.455-483).

Cette communication se propose d'étudier la succession de comparaisons que l'on trouve dans le deuxième chant de l'Iliade, aux vers 455-483. Ce passage, de par sa situation et sa nature, pose en effet deux problèmes majeurs. D'une part, il convient de s'interroger, comme on le ferait pour toute comparaison, sur la façon dont cette succession de comparaisons s'intègre à la narration, et sur ce qu'elle lui apporte ; cela est d'autant plus problématique dans notre cas que la succession de comparaisons se trouve précisément à la jointure entre deux parties du deuxième chant, l'une s'achevant, après un épisode de doute, sur la préparation des Achéens au combat et l'autre s'ouvrant sur le catalogue des héros achéens. D'autre part, il est également nécessaire de questionner, puisqu'il s'agit d'une succession de comparaisons et non d'une seule comparaison, l'organisation et la cohérence interne du passage ; ici encore, le passage pose un problème particulier, dans le sens où sa tonalité jugée pastorale a souvent suscité les interrogations des commentateurs. Étant donné le format de cette communication, je me contenterai de proposer un certain nombre de pistes pour la compréhension de cette succession de comparaisons. En adoptant un point de vue unitarien et en me plaçant à la suite notamment de W. Scott [The oral nature of the homeric simile (1974), The artistry of the homeric simile (2009)] et de C. Moulton [Similes in the homeric poems (1977)], je m'intéresserai dans un premier temps à la structure de cette succession de comparaisons, en insistant sur son mouvement interne et sur les réseaux thématiques qui sont tissés entre les différentes comparaisons. J'étudierai ensuite la cohérence du passage avec son contexte, en proposant d'y voir à la fois un résumé de ce qui précède et une annonce de la suite du récit.

In this presentation I intend to analyse the sequence of similes in the second book of the Iliad, on lines 455-483. Because of its location and nature, this section poses a twofold problem. On the one hand, we have to wonder, as for any simile, how this sequence fits in the narration and what it brings to the narration ; in our case this is all the more problematic, as this sequence is precisly located between two parts of the book, the former ending with the Acheans preparing themselves to fighting after a period of uncertainty , and the latter beginning with the catalogue of the Acheans ships. On the other hand, as it is a sequence of similes and not just one simile, we also need to wonder about the layout and the internal consistency of the section ; here again the section is problematic in that its tone, which has often been considered as pastoral, has raised many interrogations among the commentators. This presentation being quite short, I will just offer some suggestions on this sequence's interpretation. Adopting a unitarian point of view and following W. Scott's Oral nature of the homeric simile (1974) and Artistry of the homeric simile (2009) and C. Moulton's Similes in the homeric poems (1977), I will study the sequence in two points : first, I will deal with its layout, pointing out at its coherent movement and at the thematic links made in-between its different similes. I will then look at the consistency of the section in relation to its context, which I propose to see both as a summary of what has just happened and a hint of what happens next.

Carlamaria Lucci
Questions of Temporality in the Similes of the Iliad

Is there a notion of temporality in the similes of the Iliad?
I will try to give an answer through the analysis of a simile concerning Sarpedon in Il. XII 299-308. There the hero rushing upon the wall of the Greeks is compared to a lion hunting cattle. I will try to show that temporality is not in the construction of the simile, but rather in the situation: cattle raid does not occur normally in the main action in the Iliad, but rather in the past, namely in a Nestor’s past tale concerning his youth (Il. XI 670-81).

Marco Romani Mistretta,
Glowing Similes: Semantics and Symbolics of Fire in the Iliad

Among the largest and most important families of Homeric similes, those depicting fire and flames seem to be an Iliadic prerogative, and to serve a variety of functions in the narrative. Fighting armies and individual heroes, for example, are often compared to the destructive might of a forest fire, and their anger is analogously likened to a raging flame. Graphic images of fire and fiery objects (both earthly and heavenly) are also painted by comparisons involving the flash of gleaming bronze, e.g. helmets, shields, spears, and breast plates. In the world of similes, fire manifests its power either through relentless destructiveness or through the astonishing radiance of its light and gleam. At a symbolic level, the value of the vehicle has a twofold aspect: it will be argued that fire and fiery objects elicit a dialectical interplay of deadliness and salvation. This paper examines the ways in which, at specific moments in the plot, both elements appear to be intertwined. In this regard, a comparative study of fire similes and star similes is relevant. The later books of the poem, in particular, provide an unparalleled concentration of fire and star similes with the same tenor, i.e. Achilles: as recent criticism has shown, the narrative tends towards a climactic identification of the hero with heroic and cosmic fire. An analysis of the adaptation of comparable formulaic and lexical material to different contexts can shed light on the dynamics of composition-in-performance that shape the language of similes belonging to the same category or to related categories.

Philippe Rousseau
One horse, two heroes (Iliade 6, 506-514 ; 15, 263-270)

Les deux comparaisons que l’on se propose d’étudier offrent un cas de répétition rare dans les poèmes homériques, l’itération littérale d’un comparant, ou phore, « étendu » dans deux situations narratives différentes en relation avec deux personnages bien distincts, Pâris et son frère Hector. Cette répétition a attiré l’attention des critiques et des interprètes depuis l’Antiquité. L’identité du phore et la différence des thèmes ont suscité des jugements contradictoires de la part des commentateurs, de la négation pure du fait même de la répétition (l’athétèse de tout ou partie de l’un des deux passages ou réification de la genèse du poème) aux tentatives pour rendre compte du sens visé par la répétition dans le texte tel que nous le lisons (et la performance des rhapsodes). La discussion engage assurément les représentations que l’on se fait de la cohérence narrative de l’épopée monumentale, mais cet aspect de l’argument – ou ce préalable – ne sera pas problématisé dans l’exposé. On reviendra en revanche sur les deux points autour desquels se sont nouées les argumentations des commentateurs : l’insertion de chacune des deux comparaisons dans son contexte et les justifications de la répétition d’une part, la pertinence de la relation analogique entre phore et thème et la détermination du point de comparaison (tertium comparationis) dans l’une et l’autre, d’autre part. On se propose de montrer : 1) que la relation d’analogie entre comparant et comparé est bien constituée dans les deux comparaisons ; 2) que cette analogie est dépassée dans les deux cas par un « excès » qui n’est pas imputable, ou imputable seulement, à la part d’irrationalité inhérente à la création poétique, comme on l’a pensé, mais détache consciemment le tableau du comparant de sa pure fonction illustrative pour inciter l’auditoire à s’interroger, au-delà de l’apparence, sur l’usage de la comparaison dans son contexte narratif – une réflexion dont il faut élucider la structure et la signification ; 3) que la répétition, chargée de sens, signale, dans des situations narratives dont le rapprochement demande d’être interprété, le mouvement par lequel Hector « devient Pâris » au cours du poème en dépit de ce qui oppose entre elles les figures des deux frères.

Martin Steinrück
Form and Odyssean Similes in Odyssey 5

The similes in the tempest of Odyssey 5 can be understood as well as a commentary to what happens on the level of form and not only, as Bergren thought1, in a narrative way, which is the task of the speeches rather. I would like to argue this hypothesis by three steps. First by a short analysis of how the tempest is formally represented and how the steady flow of similes fits into this movement, secondly by metrical considerations and, finally, by showing that these similes are used as isotopic commentaries on a small or middle scale to the extent of what Drerup called a rhapsody, but that they are not themes that could be used on a purely poetic, production aesthetic level, at a large-scale analysis of the whole Odyssey.

James Townshend
Crawling Between Heaven and Earth: Insect Similes in the Iliad

In their book Greek Insects (Oxford: 1986), Malcolm Davies and Jeyaraney Kathirithamby open with a disclaimer that their literary survey begins not with Homer, as is customary, but with Aesop and the fable-tradition. Their reason is simple: while insects make regular appearances in fables, they do not feature prominently in the Iliad and Odyssey since the “unelevated associations of insects would be at odds with the heroic atmosphere of these poems” (Davies-Kathirithamby 8). With one or two exceptions, references to insects in the Homeric poems are in fact limited to similes. This paper investigates whether Davies and Kathirithamby are correct about the “unelevated associations” of insects and what that may mean about the tone of the insect similes and the passages in which they appear.