While they fought like a flaming fire over the plain, Antilochus reached Achilles by the ships. He found him already afraid in his heart, for Achilles had begun to think Patroclus must be dead — the Trojans were shouting so near the fleet, and he knew the gods would not grant Hector the wall while Achilles still lived in anger.
Antilochus spoke through tears. "Alas, son of Peleus, you must hear bitter news which I wish had never been. Patroclus lies dead, and they are fighting over his naked body. Hector of the flashing helmet has his armor."
A dark cloud of grief fell on Achilles. He took dust in both hands, poured it over his head, soiled his beautiful face, and lay stretched in the dust. The captive women whom he and Patroclus had taken cried out and beat their breasts, and Antilochus held Achilles' hands for fear he might cut his own throat.
Achilles groaned so deeply that Thetis heard him in the depths of the sea where she sat beside her old father Nereus. She cried out among the Nereids that she had borne the best of sons to a short life and bitter grief, and that she could not help him though she went to him.
She left the cave, and her sisters followed weeping; the waves opened a path before them. When they reached the Trojan shore by the Myrmidon ships, Thetis took Achilles' head in her hands and asked what grief had come on him now, since Zeus had already granted what he prayed for by the ships of the Achaeans.
Achilles answered that the prayer was fulfilled and worthless. Patroclus was dead, whom he had honored above all companions as himself, and Hector had stripped the marvelous armor the gods gave Peleus on the day Thetis was led to a mortal's bed.
He said he had no will to live unless he could kill Hector and make the Trojans pay for that day. Thetis wept and answered that then his own end was near — for his death waited close behind Hector's.
Achilles said he would accept that fate. He had not been there to help his friend, who fell far from home and lacked Achilles' fighting to keep ruin from him. Now he would put away his anger against Agamemnon, though it had been sweet at first and then swelled like smoke in the chest, and return to war until he found Hector.