O my son, my sorrow, why did I ever bear you? All I bore was doom... Would to god you could linger by your ships without a grief in the world, without a torment! Doomed to a short life, you have so little time

And Thetis answered, bursting into tears,
"O my son, my sorrow, why did I ever bear you?
All I bore was doom…
Would to god you could linger by your ships
without a grief in the world, without a torment!
Doomed to a short life, you have so little time.
And not only short, now, but filled with heartbreak too,
more than all other men alive – doomed twice over.
Ah to a cruel fate I bore you in our halls!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 491-499. A weeping Thetis tells her son Achilles that cruel fate has determined he will have a short life filled with heartbreak. His destiny is so bad that she laments the fact he had ever been born. As a mother she is understandably upset that she is fated to love her son.

Homer Quotes