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So saying, he shouted aloud, and called to the Trojans: “Ye Trojans, and Lycians, and Dardanians that fight in close combat, [185] be men, my friends, and bethink you of furious valour, until I put upon me the armour of peerless Achilles, the goodly armour that I stripped from the mighty Patroclus, when I slew him.” When he had thus spoken, Hector of the flashing helm went forth from the fury of war, and ran, [190] and speedily reached his comrades not yet far off, hastening after them with swift steps, even them that were bearing toward the city the glorious armour of the son of Peleus. Then he halted apart from the tear-fraught battle, and changed his armour; his own he gave to the war-loving Trojans to bear to sacred Ilios, but clad himself in the immortal armour [195] of Peleus' son, Achilles, that the heavenly gods had given to his father and that he had given to his son, when he himself waxed old; howbeit in the armour of the father the son came not to old age. But when Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, beheld him from afar as he harnessed him in the battle-gear of the godlike son of Peleus, [200] he shook his head, and thus he spake unto his own heart: “Ah, poor wretch, death verily is not in thy thoughts, that yet draweth nigh thee; but thou art putting upon thee the immortal armour of a princely man before whom others besides thee are wont to quail. His comrade, kindly and valiant, hast thou slain, [205] and in unseemly wise hast stripped the armour from his head and shoulders. Howbeit for this present will I vouch-safe thee great might, in recompense for this—that in no wise shalt thou return from out the battle for Andromache to receive from thee the glorious armour of the son of Peleus.”

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