I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home like a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright’s drill that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl and the drill keeps twisting, never stopping –So we seized our stake with it fiery tip and bored it round and round in the giant’s eye. its crackling roots blazed and hissed - as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam and its temper hardens - that’s the iron’s strength - so the eye of Cyclops sizzled round that stake. Her mind in torment, wheeling like some lion at bay, dreading the gangs of hunters closing their cunning ring around him for the finish."
Explanation: Odysseus gives a descriptive account of how he defeats the Cyclops Polyphemus. Because he is speaking to the Phaecians, a sea-faring people, they would understand the comparison to a shipwright’s drill. : Odysseus compares the sizzling sound of the Cyclops’ eye to that of sticking fire-hot metal in cold water. Penelope expresses her feeling of helplessness by comparing the suitors to hunters and herself to a trapped lion. The lion reference shows she still considers herself noble.
