Unfaithfulness

When Thetis and Peleus got married Apollo stood up at the sumptuous wedding feast and blessed the bridal pair for the son who would come from their union. 'Sickness will never visit him,' he said, 'and his life will be a long one.' This pleased Thetis immensely: the words of Apollo, expert in prophecies, seemed a guarantee of security for her child. And when Achilles grew up and all Thessaly said how beautiful he was, Thetis remembered the god's words. But one day some elders came in with the news that Achilles had been killed at Troy. Thetis tore her purple robes, pulled off rings, bracelets, flung them to the ground. And in her grief, remembering that wedding scene, she asked what the wise Apollo was up to, where was this poet who spouts so eloquently at banquets, where was this prophet when they killed her son in his prime? And the elders answered that Apollo himself had gone down to Troy and with the Trojans had killed her son.