The two similes in the passage present an image of Odysseus as
Read the passage from The Odyssey - Amphimedon
The swineherd led him to the manor later
in rags like a foul beggar, old and broken,
propped on a stick. These tatters that he wore
hid him so well that none of us could know him
when he turned up, not even the older men.
We jeered at him, took potshots at him, cursed him.
Daylight and evening in his own great hall
he bore it, patient as a stone.
elderly but lively.
Obattered but unruffled.
O dirty but amusing.
O needy but rude.