Why in tears, Patroclus?
Like a girl, a baby running after her mother,
begging to be picked up, and she tugs her skirts,
holding her back as she tries to hurry off – all tears,
fawning up at her she takes her in her arms…
That’s how you look, Patroclus, streaming live tears.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 16, lines 7-12. When Patroclus returns to Achilles’s camp, crying with pity over the Achaean losses, Achilles says this to him. Patroclus is likened in an epic simile to a baby girl running after her mother tugging her skirts, all tears.