Phraseological unit "Achilles' heel" takes sources in the posthomeric myth about one of the strongest and brave heroes of the Greek mythology – Achilles or Achilles. It was sung still by Homer in "Illiad", and subsequently the Roman writer Gigin addressed it in the 1st century BC.
Instruction
1. Achilles is the greatest hero of the Trojan war, the son of Peley and the sea goddess Fetida. According to the myth told by Giginom, the oracle predicted Achilles's death under walls of Troy. Therefore his mother, Fetida, decided to make the son immortal. For this purpose she dipped Achilles into sacred waters of the underground Styx River, holding him at the same time for a heel. According to other version Fetida tempered Achilles on fire. Somehow at night Pelya saw the little son filled with a flame and rushed on the wife with a sword therefore one heel by which Fetida held Achilles remained not tempered.
2. The offended Fetida abandoned the husband and returned back to the sea, but continued to care for the son who received thanks to her impenetrable skin. And Pelya gave Achilles on education to a wise centaur to Chiron. That raised future hero a brain of lions and interiors of bears, taught him to own weapon, to run quicker than deer, to play on a cithara and to heal wounds.
3. The most young of the last generation of heroes Achilles was not among Elena's grooms and should not have participated in a campaign to Troy. Fetida knew that her son is fated to die in the Trojan war which will break out because of Elena, and tried to save him from destiny. It hid Achilles on the island of Skyros, having changed clothes of the girl. But Odysseus cunning enticed the young hero, and Achilles became the participant of a campaign. Knowing that he is fated short life, he tried to live it so that the glory about his bravery and valor remained for ages. Achilles died, as well as it was predicted, at Skeysky gate by hand of "powerful god and the mortal husband". Apollo sent to him the archer Paris's arrows: one of them got into a heel by which mother held once the hero, tempering his body (it was the only weak spot of the hero). From here also the popular expression "Achilles' heel" went. It is used in allegoric value - weakness or a weak spot something.