Laudator Temporis Acti

Homer, Iliad 13.754-755 (tr. A.T. Murray, rev. William F. Wyatt):

So he spoke, and set out like a snowy mountain, and with loud shouting he sped through the Trojans and allies.

Ἦ ῥα, καὶ ὁρμήθη ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι ἐοικώς,
κεκλήγων, διὰ δὲ Τρώων πέτετ᾿ ἠδ᾿ ἐπικούρων.

754 ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι codd.: ὀρνέῳ θύοντι Francis W. Newman, κίρκῳ ἴρηκι Henrik van Herwerden, Βορέῃ νιφόεντι Nicholas Lane

The same, tr. Peter Green, with his note:

So he spoke, and at once set off, like some snowclad mountain,⁹
shouting, and sped through the ranks of the Trojans and their allies.

9. It is hard not to be brought up short by this image. We are here being asked to consider not only Hektōr’s hugeness, but also his speed (and perhaps the dazzle of his armor). Despite scholarly support, the metaphor remains disconcerting. Mountains neither move (at any speed) nor do they shout. Yes, Homer sometimes nods.

Walter Leaf ad loc. (2nd ed., 1902, vol. II, p. 56):

The comparison of a warrior rushing at full speed to a snowy mountain is extraordinarily inappropriate. If we adopt Nitzsch's explanation that ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι means an avalanche, this objection is removed, but only to make way for two others: first, that the words could hardly give the sense: secondly, that the avalanche is apparently unknown in Greece, and in any case cannot have ever been familiar on the coasts of Asia Minor. All attempts to amend the text are futile. The simile is imitated by Virgil (Aen. xii.699 ff. Quantus Athos . . gaudetque nivali Vertice se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras) without avoiding bombast. When Suhrab in the Shahnama drives his charger at the foe 'like a moving mountain' we feel of course no offence.

Some discussions:

• Francis W. Newman, The Iliad of Homer Faithfully Translated Into Unrhymed English Metre (London: Walton and Maberly, 1856), p. 236, and Homeric Translation in Theory and Practice. A Reply to Matthew Arnold (London: Williams and Norgate, 1861), pp. 54-55
• H. van Herwerden, "Adnotationes ad Iliadem," Mnemosyne 12.2 (1884) 113-128 (at 122)
• Hermann Fränkel, Die homerischen Gleichnisse (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1921), p. 21
• Edward M. Bradley, "Hector and the Simile of the Snowy Mountain," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 98 (1967) 37-41
• Nicholas Lane, "Homer, Iliad 13.754—55," Illinois Classical Studies 30 (2005) 1-5
• Tom Phillips, "Iliad 13.754: ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι ἐοικώς," Classical Quarterly 65.2 (December, 2015) 439-443
• Konstantine Panegyres, "Ὄρεϊ νιφόεντι ἐοικώς: Iliad 13.754-755 Revisited," Mnemosyne 70 (2017) 477-487