Father Zeus! To think in all my misery not one god
can bring himself to rescue me from this river!
Then I’d face any fate. And no god on high,
none is to blame so much as my dear mother –
how she lied, she beguiled me, she promised me
I’d lie beneath the walls of the armored Trojans
cut down in blood by Apollo’s whipping arrows!
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 21, lines 308-314. As Achilles continues to flee Xanthus and the river god keeps pulling him down, the Greek warrior cries out to Zeus. Achilles thinks Xanthus is going to kill him, and he accuses Thetis of lying to him that he was fated to be cut down by Apollo’s arrows.