other Nereids who
dwell in the depths of the sea. The crystal cave was filled with their
multitude and they all beat their breasts while Thetis led them in
their lament.

"Listen," she cried, "sisters, daughters of Nereus, that you may hear
the burden of my sorrows. Alas, woe is me, woe in that I have borne the
most glorious of offspring. I bore him fair and strong, hero among
heroes, and he shot up as a sapling; I tended him as a plant in a
goodly garden, and sent him with his ships to Ilius to fight the
Trojans, but never shall I welcome him back to the house of Peleus. So
long as he lives to look upon the light of the sun he is in heaviness,
and though I go to him I cannot help him. Nevertheless I will go, that
I may see my dear son and learn what sorrow has befallen him though he
is still holding aloof from battle."

She left the cave as she spoke, while the others followed weeping
after, and the waves opened a path before them. When they reached the
rich plain of Troy, they came up out of the sea in a long line on to
the sands, at the place where the ships of the Myrmidons were drawn up
in close order round the tents of Achilles. His mother went up to him
as he lay groaning; she laid her hand upon his head and spoke
piteously, saying, "My son, why are you thus weeping? What sorrow has
now befallen you? Tell me; hide it not from me. Surely Jove has granted
you the prayer you made him, when you lifted up your hands and besought
him that the Achaeans might all of them be pent up at their ships, and
rue it bitterly in that you were no longer with them."

Achilles groaned and answered, "Mother, Olympian Jove has indeed
vouchsafed me the fulfilment of my prayer, but what boots it to me,
seeing that my dear comrade Patroclus has fallen--he whom I valued more
than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life? I have lost him;
aye, and Hector when he had killed him stripped the wondrous armour, so
glorious to behold, which the gods gave to Peleus when they laid you in
the couch of a mortal man. Would that you were still dwelling among the
immortal sea-nymphs, and that Peleus had taken to himself some mortal
bride. For now you shall have grief infinite by reason of the death of
that son whom you can never welcome home--nay, I will not live nor go
about among mankind unless Hector fall by my spear, and thus pay me for
having slain Patroclus son of Menoetius."

Thetis wept and answered, "Then, my son, is your end near a