The wave foreseen
A magnificent image of a proud and then crashing wave, thundering up a shaken coast, and used to signify the...
Cloud-shadowing mountains
What a landscape to overcome if you want to reach Pythia – mountains shadowed by clouds and deep sea troughs.
...An Antarctic tsunami
I loved the slowly growing momentum of this vast wave, though one has to hope it would never make landfall,...
Ugly birds and beautiful plumes
An odd image this. Gleaming helmets topped with bobbing plumes of beautiful birds can create mirages of battlefield glamour, building...
Like sardine from a tin
This horrifyingly vivid image is made more painful by its casual tone, with a boy likened to a sardine.
See...
Troy the spoiler
Agamemnon appealing to God with a sour grape Greek’s spitting contempt for the Trojans, like a school yard bully’s name-calling...
To charm, to change …
Odysseus is a tricky hero, part noble, upstanding and brave, part slippery, trickery, too-clever-by-half. He is a compelling orator, and...
Chopping and changing
I like how Logue places the words so they don’t flow smoothly but themselves wallop, slap back, chop and change,...
When autumn takes the Dnieper by the arm
One of the wondrous aspects of Homer are the extended metaphors, taking in four, eight, ten lines, building a whole...
World-class Achilles
World-class Achilles – as a warrior yes, but as a man, there are other Homeric heroes more admirable, though most...
That’s no way to speak to God
Here we have Helen’s cuckolded husband Menalaus screaming at God in the most colourful terms. I like the idea of...
Gleaming bronze
So, how did they clean their bronze shields and helmets? I like this impression of gleaming bronze scoured with lime....
© Beatrice Otto 2021 - design & content unless otherwise stated - all rights reserved