All were silent, stunned by the hardness of his word. Phoenix, the old horseman, broke into tears, fearing for the ships, and spoke. If Achilles was truly thinking of home, how could Phoenix be left behind? Peleus had sent him with Achilles because the boy knew neither war nor assemblies, and Phoenix had taught him to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.
Phoenix told his own bitter story: how he left his father's house after strife over his father's concubine, how he nearly killed his father but was held back by a god and by the shame of being called a father-killer.
He fled through Hellas to Phthia, where Peleus welcomed him, made him rich, and set him over the Dolopians. There Phoenix had loved and raised Achilles like a son, cutting meat for him and holding the cup while the child spilled wine on his tunic.
He urged Achilles to master his great spirit. Even the gods can be turned, though their honor and strength are greater than ours. Prayers are daughters of Zeus, lame and wrinkled but careful; they follow after Ruin, who is strong and swift and harms men first. Whoever honors the Prayers when they come near receives help; whoever refuses them is given over to Ruin.
Now the Achaeans were sending prayers and gifts.
If Achilles entered battle later without gifts, when the fire was already on the ships, he might stop the ruin but would not win the same honor. Phoenix begged him not to be like Meleagros, who stayed angry while his city was besieged and rose only when his own chamber was threatened, saving the people without receiving the gifts they had offered before.
Phoenix told the whole tale: the Kouretes and Aitolians fighting around Kalydon, Artemis angered because Oineus forgot her in sacrifice, the wild boar she sent, Meleagros killing it, and his mother Althaia cursing him after he killed her brothers.
Meleagros lay beside Cleopatra and refused the elders, priests, father, mother, sisters, and friends until Kleopatra herself begged him as the city burned.
So Meleagros put on armor at last and drove back the enemy, but the gifts were gone. Phoenix begged Achilles not to let his heart travel that same road. Let him go while gifts and honor were offered, before the ships burned and need alone dragged him into battle.