return. 
    So spake the Thunderer, and his sable brows
  Shaking, confirm’d the word.  But Hector found
  The armor apt; the God of war his soul 255
  With fury fill’d, he felt his limbs afresh
  Invigorated, and with loudest shouts
  Return’d to his illustrious allies. 
  To them he seem’d, clad in those radiant arms,
  Himself Achilles; rank by rank he pass’d 260
  Through all the host, exhorting every Chief,
  Asteropaeus, Mesthles, Phorcys, Medon,
  Thersilochus, Deisenor, augur Ennomus,
  Chromius, Hippothoues; all these he roused
  To battle, and in accents wing’d began. 265
    Hear me, ye myriads, neighbors and allies! 
  For not through fond desire to fill the plain
  With multitudes, have I convened you here
  Each from his city, but that well-inclined
  To Ilium, ye might help to guard our wives 270
  And little ones against the host of Greece. 
  Therefore it is that forage large and gifts
  Providing for you, I exhaust the stores
  Of Troy, and drain our people for your sake. 
  Turn then direct against them, and his life 275
  Save each, or lose; it is the course of war. 
  Him who shall drag, though dead, Patroclus home
  Into the host of Troy, and shall repulse
  Ajax, I will reward with half the spoils
  And half shall be my own; glory and praise 280
  Shall also be his meed, equal to mine. 
    He ended; they compact with lifted spears
  Bore on the Danai, conceiving each
  Warm expectation in his heart to wrest
  From Ajax son of Telamon, the dead. 285
  Vain hope! he many a lifeless Trojan heap’d
  On slain Patroclus, but at length his speech
  To warlike Menelaus thus address’d. 
    Ah, Menelaus, valiant friend!  I hope
  No longer, now, that even we shall ’scape 290
  Ourselves from fight; nor fear I so the loss
  Of dead Patroclus, who shall soon the dogs
  Of Ilium, and the fowls sate with his flesh,
  As for my life I tremble and for thine,
  That cloud of battle, Hector, such a gloom 295
  Sheds all around; death manifest impends. 
  Haste—­call our best, if even they can hear. 
    He spake, nor Menelaus not complied,
  But call’d aloud on all the Chiefs of Greece. 
    Friends, senators, and leaders of the powers 300
  Of Argos! who with Agamemnon drink
  And Menelaus at the public feast,
  Each bearing rule o’er many, by the will
  Of Jove advanced to honor and renown! 
  The task were difficult to single out 305
  Chief after Chief by name amid the blaze
  Of such contention; but oh, come yourselves
  Indignant forth, nor let the dogs of Troy
  Patroclus rend, and gambol with his bones!