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This is an excerpt from The Odyssey. I have to find a homeric simile in it,if there is one,and I've tried too hard, but I just can't find one...

'Two nights, two days, in the solid deep sea-swell
he drifted, many times awaiting death,
until with shining ringlets in the East
the dawn confirmed a third day, breaking clear
over a high and windless sea; and mounting
a rolling wave he caught a glimpse of land.
What a dear welcome thing life seems to children
whose father, in the extremity, recovers
after some weakening and malignant illness:
his pangs are gone, the gods have delivered him.
So dear and welcome to Odysseus
the sight of land, of woodland, on that morning.'

-MC

3 answers

I don't know who the translator is, but the word that introduces a simile is missing.

What a dear welcome thing life seems to children
whose father, in the extremity, recovers
after some weakening and malignant illness:
his pangs are gone, the gods have delivered him.
Translated by Robert Fitzgerald

But can you explain to me how this is a homeric simile?

Thanks
-MC
In a simile, Homer always used a completely different situation or thing or animal or ??? to explain something else thoroughly. The word "like" or "as" that we use in English is not always there, but the simile is clearly there.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Homeric%20simile

What two "things" are being compared with this simile?