Using the same terms Homer uses on the battlefield, he wrote that love has the power of breaking or weakening the knees, and that the look of a woman can have the same effect as a javelin that spills forth “life-blood” onto the battlefield. All of these terms employ the same verbs, and even Sappho, who was known to use Homeric language, used them too. In one of her poems, she wrote that Penelope’s suitors’ knees “are loosened under the charm of love,” a Homeric turn of phrase that is more often used to describe the final fall of a felled soldier in battle.
