A description that appeals to the senses (what is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched) and makes the reader perceive the scene, not merely understand it.
In the Odyssey
but Odysseus, wishing to see at least the smoke rising from his land, longs to die.
Odysseus's longing becomes an image that can be seen from afar, the smoke rising from the houses of Ithaca. The reader sees what the hero wants to see, and the homesickness becomes concrete instead of abstract.
Book I: The council of the gods and Telemachus, Athena
as when someone hides an ember in the dark ash, at the edge of the field, where there are no other neighbors, keeping the seed of fire so as not to have to kindle it elsewhere, so Odysseus covered himself with leaves.
Book V: Calypso and the raft, the narrator
and they wailed in shrill voices, more loudly than birds, sea eagles, or hook-clawed vultures, whose young the peasants took before they could fly;
Book XVI: Father and son, the narrator
with its tail it wagged and dropped both ears, but it could no longer come close to its master; and Odysseus, looking aside, wiped away a tear,
Book XVII: The beggar in the palace, the narrator
the lament burns, the faces are wet with tears; the walls and the fine rafters are spattered with blood; the portico is full of shapes, the courtyard too, shapes running toward Erebus under the gloom; the sun has vanished from the sky, and a foul mist has spread.
Book XX: The omens, the seer Theoclymenus
within the enclosure grew an olive tree with long leaves, vigorous, in full bloom; its trunk was thick as a column. Around it I built the room, until I finished it, with close-fitted stones, roofed it well over, and fixed close-jointed doors, well fitted.
Book XXIII: The bed of olive wood, Odysseus
as when land appears welcome to swimmers whose well-built ship Poseidon shatters on the sea, driven by wind and heavy wave; few escape the gray salt sea to the mainland by swimming, and much brine has grown thick on their skin, and gladly they step onto the land, having fled their misery; so welcome to her was the husband she looked upon, and she did not yet fully release her white arms from his neck.
Book XXIII: The bed of olive wood, the narrator
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