His words fresh vigour in the chief infus’d. As some proud steed, at well-fill’d manger fed, His halter broken, neighing, scours the plain, And revels in the widely-flowing stream To bathe his sides; then tossing high his head, While o’er his shoulders streams his ample mane, Light-borne on active limbs, in conscious pride, To the wide pastures of the mares he flies; So vig’rous, Hector plied his active limbs, His horsemen summoning at Heav’n’s command. As when a rustic crowd of men and dogs Have chas’d an antler’d stag, or mountain goat, That ’mid the crags and thick o’ershadowing wood Hath refuge found, and baffled their pursuit: If, by the tumult rous’d, a lion stand, With bristling mane, before them, back they turn, Check’d in their mid career; ev’n so the Greeks, Who late in eager throngs were pressing on, Thrusting with swords and double-pointed spears, When Hector moving through the ranks they saw, Recoil’d, and to their feet their courage fell. To whom thus Thoas spoke, Andraemon’s son, Ætolia’s bravest warrior, skill’d to throw The jav’lin, dauntless in the stubborn fight; By few surpass’d in speech, when in debate In full assembly Grecian youths contend. He thus with prudent speech began, and said: “Great is the marvel which our eyes behold, That Hector see again to life restor’d, Escap’d the death we hop’d him to have met Beneath the hands of Ajax Telamon. Some God hath been his guard, and Hector sav’d, Whose arm hath slack’d the knees of many a Greek: So will he now; for not without the aid Of Jove, the Lord of thunder, doth he stand So boldly forth, so eager for the fight. Hear, then, and all by my advice be rul’d: Back to the ships dismiss the gen’ral crowd; While of our army we, the foremost men, Stand fast, and meeting him with levell’d spears, Hold him in check; and he, though brave, may fear To throw himself amid our serried ranks.”