它们就是一个耳朵进，一个耳朵出的缩影，我妈妈总是用这句比喻来形容连接失败。

They are the epitome of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other, which was my mother's trope for a failure to connect.

youdao

Homer and Virgil and, well after them, Dante and innumerable others have all applied the simile of the leaves or some version of it to describe the numberless-ness of the dead.

荷马，维吉尔，在他们之后还有但丁,以及无法计数的曾经用过这个落叶比喻,或者变种版本来形容死者的数量极多的其他诗人们。

耶鲁公开课 - 弥尔顿课程节选