Yes, my son, you’re right. No coward’s work,
to save your exhausted friends from headlong death.
But your own handsome war-gear lies in Trojan hands,
bronze and burnished – and Hector in that flashing helmet,
Hector glorifies in your armor, strapped across his back.
Not that he will glory in it long, I tell you:
his own destruction hovers near him now. Wait –
don’t fling yourself in the grind of battle yet,
not till you see me coming back with your own eyes.
Tomorrow I will return to you with the rising sun,
bearing splendid arms from Hephaestus, god of fire!
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 18, lines 152-162. There is a close relationship between Thetis and her son Achilles. When he vows to return to the war effort and confront Hector, the killer of his friend, Thestis shows how love and protectiveness. She tells him to stay out of the battle until the next dawn, when she will return with splendid new arms fashioned by the god Hephaestus. Hector may be glorifying in Achilles’s armor, but he won’t glory in it for long, she says – foreshadowing the Trojan warrior’s own death.
