Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Sting
Sting like a hornet.
—Anonymous
Stung like a nettle.
—Anonymous
Stung like bees unhived.
—Robert Browning
Sting like a serpent.
—Robert Burton
Care stings like pois’nous asps to fury wrought.
—Nathaniel Cotton
Stung … like amber asp.
—Matthew Green
Stinging, like the wind when frosts are keen.
—Henrik Hertz
Stings like fire.
—Lucretius
Stung like a bee in the warm core of a rose.
—Ouida
He stings like a scorpion.
—Osmanli Proverb
Stung like fire.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Stingeth like an adder.
—Old Testament