Page 172 - the-iliad

not return alive but my name will live for ever: whereas if
I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death
shall take me. To the rest of you, then, I say, ‘Go home, for
you will not take Ilius.’ Jove has held his hand over her to
protect her, and her people have taken heart. Go, therefore,
as in duty bound, and tell the princes of the Achaeans the
message that I have sent them; tell them to find some other
plan for the saving of their ships and people, for so long as
my displeasure lasts the one that they have now hit upon
may not be. As for Phoenix, let him sleep here that he may
sail with me in the morning if he so will. But I will not take
him by force.’
They all held their peace, dismayed at the sternness with
which he had denied them, till presently the old knight
Phoenix in his great fear for the ships of the Achaeans, burst
into tears and said, ‘Noble Achilles, if you are now minded
to return, and in the fierceness of your anger will do nothing
to save the ships from burning, how, my son, can I remain
here without you? Your father Peleus bade me go with you
when he sent you as a mere lad from Phthia to Agamemnon.
You knew nothing neither of war nor of the arts whereby
men make their mark in council, and he sent me with you
to train you in all excellence of speech and action. Therefore,
my son, I will not stay here without you—no, not though
heaven itself vouchsafe to strip my years from off me, and
make me young as I was when I first left Hellas the land of
fair women. I was then flying the anger of father Amyntor,
son of Ormenus, who was furious with me in the matter of
his concubine, of whom he was enamoured to the wrong-

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