When Thetis and her companions, clad in black veils, arrived on Olympus like cumulonimbus clouds swept skyward by a whirlwind, she saw Zeus, the thunderous son of Kronos, seated among all the immortal gods. Athena gave up her seat for Thetis, and Hera placed an exquisite golden cup in her hands. Thetis took it and drained it in one gulp.
Hera was Hephaestus's birth mother. Although they had "had their conflicts," by the time of the Iliad, those conflicts had been "resolved." She got along quite well with Thetis, his foster mother. At the very least, she was smiling pleasantly.
Faced with a goddess who had just lost her son, was it appropriate for Hera to smile like that, even if she could not weep and sing laments like the other sea nymphs?
But if she had looked as though her parents had died, or acted solemn and grave, that would not have been right either. This war had begun because three goddesses fought over the Golden Apple.
A smile at least showed friendliness, and given Thetis's state of mind at the time, she probably had no energy to dwell on such things. Then Zeus conveyed his command to her.
Both sides stopped fighting to bury their dead. This had become a standard ritual on the battlefield of Troy. No matter how Hector had killed Achilles's beloved friend and broken Achilles's heart, he could not continue to withhold his body.
Though Hector was gone, Troy had not fallen, just as Polydamas had said, because of its sturdy walls.
Then came the aftermath of the Trojan Horse and the fall of the city. The victorious Achaeans and Spartans set sail for home.
Because of the sins they had committed in the city, Odysseus and the others encountered a shipwreck, and all