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 …

‘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