While the Achaeans and Trojans fought around the ship of Protesilaos, Patroclus came to Achilles with tears running down his face like dark water from a spring that pours over a sheer rock.
Achilles looked at him with pity and asked why he wept like a little girl tugging at her mother's dress and begging to be picked up. Had bitter news come from Phthia about Peleus or Menoitios still alive? Or did he grieve only because the Argives were dying by their ships for their own wrongs?
Patroclus answered with a heavy sigh. "Achilles, do not be angry. Diomedes, Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Eurypylos are wounded, and the healers are busy with their herbs. The people are dying, and you will not help them."
He said no hard-hearted parents could have raised such a man; the gray sea and sheer cliffs must have been his mother and father. If some prophecy from Thetis held Achilles back, then let Patroclus at least wear his armor and lead the Myrmidons into war.
"Give me your gear," he said, "and I will lead your men. The Trojans may take me for you and draw away from the ships. Even a short breathing space would save many lives." He did not know he was asking for his own destruction.
Achilles groaned and answered that no oracle kept him from battle. His grief was still Agamemnon's insult, taking Briseis as if Achilles were a worthless man without honor among the Achaeans.