Euchenor goes to heaven

English: Arabian mare standing in a show halter pose (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Was prepared to find nothing much interesting happening here, but Oswald has cleverly turned another simile on its ear.  The simile about the well-fed, pampered aristocrat of horses, happily breaking its halter and running off to the river and where the mares are, is applied by Homer to Paris when he runs off home to visit Helen in the middle of a battle in Book 6 (granted, with Aphrodite's help); Paris is exactly that pampered, over-nourished, over-sexed, gleaming, self-centred figure, beautiful but wholly dedicated to his own pleasure, and inclined to break his halter and run away from his duty when he sees a mare.  

But here the simile is turned round and it is used of Euchenor, whom Paris has just killed. (So once again, subject to object, or object to subject; Euchenor, the object of the arrow, becomes the subject of the simile, whose former subject was the man who killed him).  Euchenor was happy to die because his father the seer told him it was die gloriously and quickly at Troy or miserably of illness at home.  So he knew this was going to happen.  And the simile is of a horse breaking free of its halter - its duty, its life - and going running on, a young happy horse, forever, in Paradise. 

Related articles

• Brain sees metaphor and simile differently

  ---

• Turn out to pasture

  ---