This anxiety of not being able to escape (or catch up) was borrowed from Homer by Virgil in Book XII of the Aeneid, where Turnus is unable to catch up with Aeneas; subsequently the dream is found (always in simile, never reported directly) in Oppian's Halieutica, in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, and in Phineas Fletcher's Locusts and Purple Island, to be "burlesqued" in Samuel Butler's Hudibras.
The poem includes a simile comparing a warrior to an 'Arthur' who some have thought to refer to King Arthur which (if not a later addition) may be one of the earliest references to Arthur, and hints at a possibility that his fame might have led to one of the hillforts — and, subsequently, the hill — being named after him.
Pete Townshend of The Who, a follower of Meher Baba, used this simile in his song Don't Let Go the Coat, the second track on The Who's 1981 Face Dances album.
During this time, Carter even took the two leaders to the nearby Gettysburg National Military Park in the hopes of using the American Civil War as a simile to their own struggle.
and Milton, in a simile to describe Satan visiting Rome: "Just so Summanus, wrapped in a smoking whirlwind of blue flame, falls upon people and cities".