Plucking chickens in Australia
One of the inventive elements of Logue’s metaphors is the way he mixes up eras, blithely planting a country called...
Strategic consideration
The wild card of ancient Greek military planning was the existence and randomness of divine intervention. You never knew which...
Fast and strong
Three triologisms to describe the fine, fast, strong ships that brought the Greeks to Troy. I particularly like 'sea-wandering'. May you be...
Cobalt polar lapis blue
A dazzlingly variegated Greek sky. It was under such a sky, which for me also includes hyacinth blue and lilac,...
Bronze-armoured Achaians
The Trojan war was a Bronze Age affair, magnificently evoked in different sea-surrounded places by two books of Adam Nicolson....
Half a prayer
A perfect example of mercurial Greek god behaviour. No rhyme or reason, I grant this, I grant that, I refuse...
Grey-eyed Athena
An unusual hue for goddess eyes. With the habitually random intervention of a god, Athena appears before Achilles to tell...
Achilles’ face
This is an intriguing description of a face – I see a chalk-white face with a lion’s mane of golden...
Blank-eyed face
A shield features a terrifying Gorgon's head to project fear and dread onto any assailant. Elsewhere, that same blank-eyed stare...
Fine wrought and strong wheeled
I happen to love fine descriptions of things well crafted, chariots, ships, bridges, tables, pots...
Particularly striking is the first...
Athene’s disguise
Here Zeus spurs Athene to intervene in the Trojan war, and she descends to earth in the guise of a...
Chopping and changing
I like how Logue places the words so they don’t flow smoothly but themselves wallop, slap back, chop and change,...
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