Seba.Health
Thetis to Achilles · divine
The Iliad 1.414–427
since your span of life is brief and endures no long time; but now you are doomed to a speedy death and are laden with sorrow above all men; therefore to an evil fate I bore you in our halls. Yet in order to tell this your word to Zeus who delights in the thunderbolt I will myself go to snowy Olympus, in hope that he may be persuaded. But remain by your swift, sea-faring ships, and continue your wrath against the Achaeans, and refrain utterly from battle; for Zeus went yesterday to Oceanus, to the blameless Ethiopians for a feast, and all the gods followed with him; but on the twelfth day he will come back again to Olympus, and then will I go to the house of Zeus with threshold of bronze, and will clasp his knees in prayer, and I think I shall win him.
ὤ μοι τέκνον ἐμόν, τί νύ σʼ ἔτρεφον αἰνὰ τεκοῦσα;
αἴθʼ ὄφελες παρὰ νηυσὶν ἀδάκρυτος καὶ ἀπήμων
ἧσθαι, ἐπεί νύ τοι αἶσα μίνυνθά περ οὔ τι μάλα δήν·
νῦν δʼ ἅμα τʼ ὠκύμορος καὶ ὀϊζυρὸς περὶ πάντων
ἔπλεο· τώ σε κακῇ αἴσῃ τέκον ἐν μεγάροισι.
τοῦτο δέ τοι ἐρέουσα ἔπος Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ
εἶμʼ αὐτὴ πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἀγάννιφον αἴ κε πίθηται.
ἀλλὰ σὺ μὲν νῦν νηυσὶ παρήμενος ὠκυπόροισι
μήνιʼ Ἀχαιοῖσιν, πολέμου δʼ ἀποπαύεο πάμπαν·
Ζεὺς γὰρ ἐς Ὠκεανὸν μετʼ ἀμύμονας Αἰθιοπῆας
χθιζὸς ἔβη κατὰ δαῖτα, θεοὶ δʼ ἅμα πάντες ἕποντο·
δωδεκάτῃ δέ τοι αὖτις ἐλεύσεται Οὔλυμπον δέ,
καὶ τότʼ ἔπειτά τοι εἶμι Διὸς ποτὶ χαλκοβατὲς δῶ,
καί μιν γουνάσομαι καί μιν πείσεσθαι ὀΐω.