Mother!
You gave me life, short as that life will be.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 1, lines 416-417. Achilles’s short life and early death are emphasized in his meeting with his mother Thetis. This is the first foreshadowing in the poem of the great warrior’s premature demise. Achilles is pleading with his goddess mother to appeal to Zeus to grant him honor in his short time on earth. He wants Zeus to help the Trojan cause, so that Agamemnon will see how mad he was to disgrace and wrong Achilles.