οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδὲ Τρῶας ἀγήνορας εἴασεν Ἕκτωρ / εὕδειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἄμυδις κικλῄσκετο πάντας ἀρίστους
At the beginning of Iliad 10, where Agamemnon cannot sleep because of worry, he looks out at the Trojan encampment and wonders at both the sight of the many fires and the sounds of flutes and pipes and the clamor of men (see 10.11–13). From that description, we already know that the Trojans are not sleeping. But this passage can also be a compressed version of the theme of a leader who cannot sleep and so calls together a council to make a plan. We see such a theme at the beginning of Iliad 2, as well as in this book (see comments at 10.1ff.). In the process of oral composition-in-performance, the singer can compress or expand a theme, Lord’s term for “the groups of ideas regularly used in telling a tale in the formulaic style of traditional song” (Lord 1960/2000:68; for the singer’s ability to expand and compress themes, see Lord 1960/2000:78–80, 88–91). So here the singer, who has already sung a version of the theme for the scene at the Achaean camp, merely mentions sleeplessness and the calling together of the council without the development and expansion seen earlier. Even the enjambment of the verb εὕδειν on the second line of this compressed version is reminiscent of that at Iliad 2.2 and 10.2, indicating a compositional pattern.