How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #4
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night. (36-37)
This is, by now, a pretty famous metaphor. The speaker imagines human life as an awful, confused battle, where you can't separate enemies from friends, and where armies smash together without any rhyme or reason. This comparison takes one of the main kinds of human suffering—war—and turns it into a way of thinking about the pain of all human existence.