One of the wondrous aspects of Homer are the extended metaphors, taking in four, eight, ten lines, building a whole scenario before your eyes, before likening it to the actual scene or events being described.  Logue has taken this in his stride, and refreshingly uses a faraway place to create the noise of Hector’s heroes launching an attack.  So the autumn coming to the Dnieper …

See also the bestellar reviews, complete with rich quote-mosaics, of Adam Nicolson’s magnificent Why Homer Matters and Logue’s War Music, a muscular rendition of several books of the Iliad. 

‘Now.’

Think of the noise that fills the air

When autumn takes the Dnieper by the arm

And skein on skein of honking geese fly south

To give the stateless rains a miss.

So Hector’s moon-horned, shouting dukes

Burst from the tunnels, down the counterslope…

Source: Christopher Logue, War Music: An account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer’s Iliad, London: Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 89