Status Updates From The Destruction of Troy

'In the front of the entrance-hall, and right in the gateway of the palace, stood Pyrrhus, a figure of armed insolence sparkling in a sheen of bronze; like a snake which after a winter spent hidden below ground, swollen from a fare of poisonous weeds, now emerges into the light, and shedding its slough becomes shiningly fresh and young, then raises its breast tall to the sun, coils a slithering back, ... (p. 52)