The story told by Phoenix about Meleagros and Kleopatra is introduced at the very beginning, I.09.524, by the expression houtō ‘this is how’, which conventionally introduces a discourse containing a moral message, such as a fable. The Greek word for such discourse is ainos, the meaning of which is impossible to translate by way of any single English word. For want of a better alternative, I define ainos pragmatically as ‘coded words’—a ‘coded message’. In the case of the story told by Phoenix, it is intended to carry a moral message for Achilles. The story is described, already at I.09.524, as klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [klea] of men who were heroes’. By convention, such an expression refers to song, especially to the medium of epic. We saw at I.09.185–191 a truncated version of this expression, klea andrōn, ‘the glories [klea] of men’, I.09.189, and the performer in that context was Achilles himself, singing his song while accompanying himself on the lyre. The male hero in the story of Phoenix, Meleagros, is like Achilles. He too is angry at his community, and he too has withdrawn from fighting in a war, leaving his own people in desperate trouble. Those who are near and dear to him now approach Meleagros, imploring him to return to the fight and making their appeals to him as suppliants. The narrative arranges the order of the suppliants in terms of the hero’s ascending scale of affection. Those who are starting off on the lower levels of this scale will be mentioned earlier, while those who end up on the higher levels will be mentioned later. So, the highest someone on this scale will be mentioned last. Near the top of the scale are the hetairoi ‘companions’ of Meleagros, I.09.585, who are described at I.09.586 as philtatoi ‘nearest and dearest’ to him. So also Phoenix thinks that he and his fellow ambassadors, as companions of Achilles, should be placed at the very top of his ascending scale of affection. But the highest person on the ascending scale of affection for Meleagros turns out to be his wife, named Kleopatra, I.09.556. Her name fits the moral message of the story, since Kleopátrā means ‘she who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors’. Thus Kleopatra is the very embodiment of the story described as klea andrōn | hērōōn ‘the glories [klea] of men who were heroes’, since heroes are figured as stylized ancestors of the community. But the question is, what meaning will this story have for Achilles? For this hero, the top of his own ascending scale of affection will turn out to be Patroklos, whose full name, Patrokléēs, has the same meaning as the name of Kleopátrā, but the two elements of the name, kleos ‘glory’ and pateres ‘ancestors’ are in reverse. Each of the two names is a “speaking name” (nomen loquens), and both names mean ‘he/she who has the glory [kleos] of the ancestors’. Further, as noted in the comment for I.09.185–191, the etymology of the name Patrokléēs can be adjusted by way of interpreting the component kléos ‘glory’ in the plural sense of the word, not only in the singular sense: ‘he who has the glories [klé(e)a of the ancestors [patéres]’. And the same can be said for Kleopátrā: ‘she who has the glories [klé(e)a of the ancestors [patéres]’.