... The removal of connecting particles gives a quick rush and "torrent
rapture" to a passage, the writer appearing to be actually almost left
behind by his own words. There is an example in Xenophon: "Clashing
their shields together they pushed, they fought, they slew, they
fell."[1] And the words of Eurylochus in the _Odyssey_--
"We passed at thy command the woodland's shade;
We found a stately hall built in a mountain glade."[2]
Words thus severed from one another without the intervention of stops
give a lively impression of one who through distress of mind at once
halts and hurries in his speech. And this is what Homer has expressed by
using the figure _Asyndeton_.
[Footnote 1: Xen. _Hel._ iv. 3. 19.]
[Footnote 2: _Od._ x. 251.]