After Achilles died, Thetis wept in a deep, secluded cave. Other sea nymphs sat around her, weeping with her over her son's fate, lamenting that this flawless young man would die on Troy's fertile soil, far from home.
Achilles had actually escaped his inevitable doom for a time. Because he and Agamemnon had fallen out over the matter of "war prizes," he had refused to fight. If he had not gone to war, he would not have been shot in the heel on the battlefield.
But to avenge Patroclus, he set aside his grievance with Agamemnon and rejoined the allied army.
And Patroclus had died because he had put on Achilles's armor and gone into battle disguised as him.
The course of the war rose and fell. Zeus granted the soldiers victory, yet never allowed them true confidence, because Thetis had once begged him.
She told Zeus, "Honor my son. He is fated to die before others, and now King Agamemnon has humiliated him and taken away his prize of honor. Wise god of Olympus, avenge him. Give the Trojans strength for now, so that the Achaeans will respect my son and grant him the compensation he deserves."
Just as she wept in sorrow, Olympus sent a messenger. Thetis picked up a black veil and rose into the sky with the sea nymphs.
Pomona also chose a black outfit. Whenever she moved, it swayed like ripples on the Black Lake.
Among Zeus's many children was one named Dike. Her mother, Themis, also represented justice, but she represented the order of the gods, while Dike represented the secular laws through which humans imitated that divine order.
After Odysseus was battered unconscious by the sea's raging waves and drifted ashore, he soon encountered a foreign princess and her maids. Their cries as