“Return! (said Hector, fired with stern disdain) What! coop whole armies in our walls again? Was’t not enough, ye valiant warriors, say, Nine years imprison’d in those towers ye lay? Wide o’er the world was Ilion famed of old For brass exhaustless, and for mines of gold: But while inglorious in her walls we stay’d, Sunk were her treasures, and her stores decay’d; The Phrygians now her scatter’d spoils enjoy, And proud Mæonia wastes the fruits of Troy. Great Jove at length my arms to conquest calls, And shuts the Grecians in their wooden walls, Darest thou dispirit whom the gods incite? Flies any Trojan? I shall stop his flight. To better counsel then attention lend; Take due refreshment, and the watch attend. If there be one whose riches cost him care, Forth let him bring them for the troops to share; ’Tis better generously bestow’d on those, Than left the plunder of our country’s foes. Soon as the morn the purple orient warms, Fierce on yon navy will we pour our arms. If great Achilles rise in all his might, His be the danger: I shall stand the fight. Honour, ye gods! or let me gain or give; And live he glorious, whosoe’er shall live! Mars is our common lord, alike to all; And oft the victor triumphs, but to fall.” The shouting host in loud applauses join’d; So Pallas robb’d the many of their mind; To their own sense condemn’d, and left to choose The worst advice, the better to refuse. While the long night extends her sable reign, Around Patroclus mourn’d the Grecian train. Stern in superior grief Pelides stood; Those slaughtering arms, so used to bathe in blood, Now clasp his clay-cold limbs: then gushing start The tears, and sighs burst from his swelling heart. The lion thus, with dreadful anguish stung, Roars through the desert, and demands his young; When the grim savage, to his rifled den Too late returning, snuffs the track of men, And o’er the vales and o’er the forest bounds; His clamorous grief the bellowing wood resounds. So grieves Achilles; and, impetuous, vents To all his Myrmidons his loud laments.