And the lord of the battle cry could not refuse
but dragged his heels like a lion leaving sheepfolds,
bone-weary from harrying hounds and field hands.
They’ll never let him tear the rich fat from the oxen,
all night long they stand their guard but the lion craves meat,
he lunges in and in but his charges gain him nothing,
thick-and-fast from their hardy hands the javelins
rain down in his face, and waves of roaring torches –
these the big cat fears, balking for all his rage,
and at dawn he slinks away, his spirits dashed.
And so the lord of the war cry left Patroclus,
resisting all the way.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 17, lines 738-749. Menelaus reluctantly moves away from the corpse of Patroclus, leaving it prey for the Trojans, after Great Ajax calls to him to get news to Achilles that his great friend Patroclus is dead. Menelaus is compared to a raging but dispirited lion slinking away, exhausted by harrying hounds and field workers, in one of Homer’s famous epic similes.