Cratylus

Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

HERMOGENES: Shall we bring the question to Socrates here? CRATYLUS: If you like. HERMOGENES: Socrates, Cratylus here says that there is a correctness of names belonging to each thing by nature, and that a name is not whatever people agree to call a thing, uttering some fragment of their own speech, but that there is a certain correctness in names, the same for Greeks and for foreigners alike. So I asked him whether "Cratylus" is truly his name, and he agreed that it is. And what about Socrates, I said. "Socrates," he said. Then isn't this also the name that belongs to every other person, whatever we call each of them? But he said, no, not "Hermogenes" for you, not even if everyone in the world called you that.

HERMOGENES: And when I question him and press him to say what in the world he means, he explains nothing, and he's being ironic with me, pretending to have some private thought of his own about the matter, as if he knew, which, if he cared to state it plainly, would make even me agree and say the same things he says. So if you can somehow make sense of Cratylus's oracle, I'd be glad to hear it, or rather, I'd be even happier to learn from you yourself what you think about the correctness of names, if you're willing. SOCRATES: Hermogenes, son of Hipponicus, there's an old saying that fine things are hard to learn, and the study of names turns out to be no small thing. Now if I had already heard Prodicus's fifty-drachma lecture, which he says gives its hearer a complete education on the subject, nothing would stop you from knowing the truth about the correctness of names right away. But as it is I haven't heard that one, only the one-drachma version. So I don't know how the truth stands on such matters, but I'm ready to look into it together with you and Cratylus. As for his denying that "Hermogenes" is truly your name, I suspect he's teasing you, since he probably thinks you're always failing to acquire the wealth you're after. But, as I was just saying, such things are hard to know, and we should pool our resources and examine whether the matter stands as you say or as Cratylus says.

SOCRATES: Perhaps you're saying something, Hermogenes. Let's look into it. Whatever anyone calls a thing, is that its name? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Whether a private person calls it that, or a whole city? HERMOGENES: I say yes. SOCRATES: Well then, if I call some existing thing something, say what we now call "man," if I address that as "horse," and what we now call "horse" as "man," will the same thing publicly be named "man" but privately "horse"? And privately "man" but publicly "horse"? Is that what you're saying? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Now tell me this: do you speak of things being said truly and falsely? HERMOGENES: I do. SOCRATES: So there would be a true statement and a false one? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the one that says what is, as it is, is true, while the one that says it as it is not, is false? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: So it's possible in speech to say both what is and what is not? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: A true statement, then, is it true as a whole while its parts are not true? HERMOGENES: No, the parts too. SOCRATES: Are the large parts true and the small ones not, or all of them? HERMOGENES: All, I think. SOCRATES: Is there any part of a statement smaller than a name? HERMOGENES: No, that's the smallest. SOCRATES: So this too, a name, is said to belong to the true statement? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: True, as you say. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the part of the false statement isn't false? HERMOGENES: It is, I say. SOCRATES: So it's possible for a name to be spoken falsely and truly, if a statement can be? HERMOGENES: How could it not? SOCRATES: So whatever each person says is the name of a thing, that is its name for that person? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And however many names each person says a thing has, will it have that many, whenever he says so? HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, because I don't have any other correctness for a name than this, that it's one thing for me to call each thing whatever name I've assigned it, and another thing for you, whatever you in turn assign. And this is how I see it with cities too, each having its own names privately set on the same things, and Greeks differing from other Greeks, and Greeks differing from foreigners.

SOCRATES: Well then, let's see, Hermogenes, whether things themselves seem to you to stand this way too, that their being is private to each person, as Protagoras used to say, claiming that man is the measure of all things, meaning that whatever things appear to me to be, such they are for me, and whatever they appear to you to be, such they are for you. Or does it seem to you that they have some fixed stability of their own being? HERMOGENES: There was a time, Socrates, when I was at a loss and was carried along to what Protagoras says, but it doesn't altogether seem right to me. SOCRATES: What then? Have you been carried so far as to think there's no such thing as a wicked man? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, but I've often had the experience of thinking some men quite wicked, and a good many of them. SOCRATES: What then, have quite good men never seemed to you to exist? HERMOGENES: Very few. SOCRATES: But some have seemed so? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: How do you classify this, then? Would it be that the quite good are quite wise, and the quite wicked quite foolish? HERMOGENES: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: Is it possible, then, if Protagoras spoke truly and this is the truth, that whatever seems to each person to be so, is so, that some of us are wise and others foolish? HERMOGENES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: And this, I imagine, seems quite right to you: since wisdom and foolishness exist, it's not really possible for Protagoras to be speaking the truth. For surely neither of two people would in truth be wiser than the other, if whatever seems true to each person is going to be true. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: But surely you don't think, following Euthydemus either, that all things are alike for everyone at once and always; for then there wouldn't be good people and wicked ones in this way, if virtue and vice were alike for everyone always. HERMOGENES: What you say is true. SOCRATES: So if things aren't alike for everyone at once and always, nor is each existing thing private to each person, then it's clear that things themselves have some fixed being of their own, not in relation to us, nor dragged up and down by our imagining, but existing by themselves in relation to their own being, in whatever way they naturally are. HERMOGENES: That's how it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Would things themselves, then, be so by nature, while actions concerning them are not the same way? Or aren't actions too one class of existing things? HERMOGENES: Certainly, they are too.

SOCRATES: Then actions too are performed according to their own nature, not according to our opinion. For instance, if we undertake to cut something, should we cut it however we wish, and with whatever we wish, or if we wish to cut each thing according to nature, according to what cutting and being cut naturally are, and with what is natural for it, will we cut successfully and accomplish something and do it correctly, whereas if we go against nature we'll fail and accomplish nothing? HERMOGENES: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: And if we undertake to burn something, shouldn't we burn it not according to every opinion, but according to the right one? And this is the way in which each thing naturally is burned and burns, and with what is natural for it. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: And isn't it the same with everything else? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then isn't speaking too one of the actions? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: So will a person speak correctly by speaking however it seems to him things should be spoken, or will he, if he speaks in the way things naturally are to be said and to say, and with what they're naturally said with, accomplish something and actually say something, whereas otherwise he'll fail and accomplish nothing? HERMOGENES: It seems to me to be as you say. SOCRATES: So isn't naming a part of speaking? For people speak statements, I take it, by naming things within them. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So isn't naming also a kind of action, if speaking was indeed a kind of action concerning things? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And actions turned out for us to not be relative to us, but to have some nature of their own? HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: So we must name things in the way it's natural for things to be named and to name, and with what's natural for it, not however we might wish, if anything we said before is to be consistent, and in that way we'll accomplish something and be naming, but not otherwise? HERMOGENES: It appears so to me. SOCRATES: Come then, what needed cutting, we say, needed to be cut with something? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what needed weaving needed to be woven with something, and what needed boring needed to be bored with something? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what needed naming needed to be named with something?

HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: What was that thing one needed to bore with? HERMOGENES: An auger. SOCRATES: And to weave with? HERMOGENES: A shuttle. SOCRATES: And to name with? HERMOGENES: A name. SOCRATES: Well said. So a name too is a kind of instrument. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now if I asked, what sort of instrument is a shuttle? Isn't it the thing we weave with? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And when we weave, what do we do? Don't we separate out the warp and weft threads that were tangled together? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And could you say the same sort of thing about an auger, and about the others? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Can you say the same sort of thing about a name too? When we name with a name, which is an instrument, what do we do? HERMOGENES: I can't say. SOCRATES: Don't we teach one another something, and separate out things according to how they really are? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: A name, then, is a kind of instrument for teaching, and for separating out being, just as a shuttle is for separating out a woven fabric. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And a shuttle is an instrument for weaving? HERMOGENES: Of course. SOCRATES: So a weaver will use a shuttle well, and using it well means using it as a weaver would. And a teacher will use a name well, and using it well means using it as a teacher would. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Whose work, then, will the weaver be using well when he uses the shuttle? HERMOGENES: The carpenter's. SOCRATES: Is every man a carpenter, or the one who has the craft? HERMOGENES: The one who has the craft. SOCRATES: And whose work will the borer be using well when he uses the auger? HERMOGENES: The smith's. SOCRATES: Is every man a smith, or the one who has the craft? HERMOGENES: The one who has the craft. SOCRATES: Very well. And whose work will the teacher be using when he uses a name? HERMOGENES: That too I can't say. SOCRATES: Can't you say this either, who hands down to us the names we use? HERMOGENES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: Doesn't it seem to you that it's the law that hands them down? HERMOGENES: It seems so. SOCRATES: So the teacher will be using the work of a lawgiver when he uses a name? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Does it seem to you that every man is a lawgiver, or only the one who has the craft?

SOCRATES: So it isn't every man, Hermogenes, who can assign a name, but only a certain craftsman of names. And this, it seems, is the lawgiver, who is the rarest of craftsmen among men. HERMOGENES: So it seems. SOCRATES: Come then, consider what the lawgiver looks to when he assigns names. Go back to what we said before. What does the carpenter look to when he makes a shuttle? Isn't it something naturally suited for the work of weaving? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if his shuttle breaks while he's making one, will he make another by looking at the broken one, or at that same form which he was looking at when he made the one that broke? HERMOGENES: At that form, I should think. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't we most rightly call that very thing 'what a shuttle is'? HERMOGENES: I should think so. SOCRATES: So whenever he needs to make a shuttle for a fine cloak or a coarse one, for linen or wool or whatever, all of them must have the form of shuttle, but each must be given whatever shape is naturally best suited to its particular job. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the same holds for every other tool. Once you've discovered the tool naturally suited to each task, you must render it in whatever material you're working with — not however you yourself happen to want, but however it's naturally suited to be. It seems the craftsman must know how to put the naturally suited form of drill into the iron. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the naturally suited form of shuttle into the wood. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Because, it seems, each kind of fabric naturally calls for its own kind of shuttle, and so with everything else. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then, my good man, mustn't the lawgiver also know how to put into sounds and syllables the name naturally suited to each thing — must he not make and assign all names looking to what a name itself is, if he's going to be an authoritative namer? And if different lawgivers don't put it into the same syllables, that needn't trouble us — no more than every blacksmith puts the same form into the same iron, though he's making the same tool for the same purpose. As long as he renders the same form, the tool is correct whether it's made of different iron, and whether it's made here or among foreigners. Isn't that so?

HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So won't you likewise judge that the lawgiver here and the lawgiver among foreigners, as long as he renders the form of name appropriate to each thing in whatever syllables, is no worse a lawgiver than one anywhere else? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then who is to know whether the appropriate form of shuttle lies in a given piece of wood — the one who made it, the carpenter, or the one who will use it, the weaver? HERMOGENES: More likely the one who will use it, Socrates. SOCRATES: And who is it that will use the lyre-maker's work? Isn't it the one who would know best how to oversee its making, and who would know, once it's made, whether it's well made or not? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Who is that? HERMOGENES: The lyre-player. SOCRATES: And who oversees the shipwright's work? HERMOGENES: The pilot. SOCRATES: And who would oversee the lawgiver's work best, and judge it once done, both here and among foreigners? Isn't it the one who will use it? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't this the one who knows how to ask questions? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the same one knows how to answer them too? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the one who knows how to ask and answer — do you call him anything but a dialectician? HERMOGENES: No, that's just what I call him. SOCRATES: So it's the carpenter's job to make a rudder, under the pilot's oversight, if the rudder is to be a good one. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And it's the lawgiver's job, it seems, to make a name under the oversight of a dialectician, if names are to be well assigned. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: So it's likely, Hermogenes, that assigning names is no trivial matter, as you think, nor a task for trivial men or just anyone. And Cratylus speaks the truth when he says names belong to things by nature, and that not everyone is a craftsman of names, but only the one who keeps his eye on the name that belongs to each thing by nature and who can render its form in letters and syllables.

HERMOGENES: I don't see how to oppose what you're saying, Socrates. Still, it isn't easy to be persuaded so suddenly. I think I'd be won over more readily if you showed me what this natural correctness of names actually is that you're talking about. SOCRATES: My dear Hermogenes, I'm not talking about any correctness at all — you've forgotten what I said just a little earlier, that I didn't know, but would look into it together with you. But now, as we've been examining it, you and I, this much already appears clearer than before: that a name has some natural correctness, and that not just anyone knows how to assign it well to any given thing. Isn't that so? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the next thing to look for, if you really want to know, is what exactly this correctness is. HERMOGENES: Well, I certainly do want to know. SOCRATES: Then consider it. HERMOGENES: How should I go about it? SOCRATES: The most correct way to inquire, my friend, is together with those who know — paying them fees and showing them gratitude. These are the sophists, the very men your brother Callias paid a great deal of money to and is thought wise for it. But since you're not master of your father's estate, you should press your brother and beg him to teach you the correctness he learned from Protagoras on such matters. HERMOGENES: It would be strange of me to make that request, Socrates, when I reject Protagoras's Truth altogether, yet welcome what was said on the basis of such a truth as if it were worth something. SOCRATES: Well, if that doesn't suit you either, you should learn from Homer and the other poets. HERMOGENES: And what does Homer say about names, Socrates, and where? SOCRATES: In many places. But the grandest and finest are where he distinguishes, for the same things, the names men use from the names the gods use. Or don't you think he says something great and remarkable there about the correctness of names? For clearly the gods call things by their correct names, the ones that belong to them by nature — or don't you think so? HERMOGENES: I'm quite sure that if they do call them anything, they call them correctly. But what examples do you mean? SOCRATES: Don't you know that concerning the river in Troy that fought single-handed with Hephaestus, he says the gods call it Xanthus, but men call it Scamander? HERMOGENES: I do.

SOCRATES: Well then? Don't you think it's a solemn thing to know why it's actually correct to call that river Xanthus rather than Scamander? Or if you like, take the bird he says—the gods call it chalkis, but men call it kymindis—do you think it's a trivial lesson to learn how much more correct it is for that same bird to be called chalkis than kymindis? Or Batieia and Myrine, and many other such examples from this poet and from others? But perhaps those are too big a task for you and me to work out. The names Scamandrius and Astyanax, though, are easier and more human to examine, I think — the names he says belong to Hector's son — what correctness he means by them. You know the verses I mean, of course. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then which do you think Homer considered the more correct name for the boy — Astyanax or Scamandrius? HERMOGENES: I can't say. SOCRATES: Consider it this way. If someone asked you whether you think the wiser people or the more foolish give more correct names, what would you say? HERMOGENES: Clearly the wiser, I'd say. SOCRATES: And in cities, do you think women as a class are wiser than men? HERMOGENES: The men. SOCRATES: Then you know that Homer says Hector's child was called Astyanax by the Trojans, while Scamandrius was clearly the name used by the women, since the men called him Astyanax? HERMOGENES: So it seems. SOCRATES: And didn't Homer also consider the Trojans wiser than their women? HERMOGENES: I think he did. SOCRATES: So he thought Astyanax the more correct name for the boy than Scamandrius? HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Let's consider why. Doesn't he himself give us the best guide to the reason? For he says: 'For he alone defended their city and its long walls.' For this reason, it seems, it's correct to call the son of the protector Astyanax — 'lord of the city' — since it was that very city his father was protecting, as Homer says. HERMOGENES: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: But why exactly? I don't yet understand it myself, Hermogenes — do you? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I don't either.

SOCRATES: But tell me, my good man — did Homer himself assign the name to Hector too? HERMOGENES: Why do you ask? SOCRATES: Because it seems to me that this name too is something like Astyanax, and both names look Greek. For anax, 'lord,' and Hector are pretty much the same in meaning — both are royal names. For whatever a man is lord (anax) of, he is surely also hector (Hector) of — clearly he holds it, possesses it, and has it. Or do you think I'm talking nonsense, and merely imagine I've caught hold of some trace of Homer's view on the correctness of names? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I don't think it's nonsense — I think you really have caught hold of something. SOCRATES: It's only right, it seems to me, to call the offspring of a lion a lion, and the offspring of a horse a horse. I don't mean if some freak is born from a horse unlike a horse — I mean whatever is naturally the offspring of that kind. If a horse should, contrary to nature, bear the offspring of an ox, we shouldn't call it a foal but a calf. And if what's born isn't the natural offspring of a human being, I don't think it should be called human, but whatever it actually is. The same goes for trees and everything else. Or don't you agree? HERMOGENES: I agree. SOCRATES: Good — watch me, in case I somehow trick you along the way. By the same reasoning, if some offspring comes from a king, it should be called king. It makes no difference if the same meaning is expressed in different syllables — nor does it matter if a letter is added or taken away, so long as the being of the thing signified by the name still holds firm. HERMOGENES: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: Nothing complicated. You know that we speak the names of the letters, not the letters themselves — except for four: E, U, O, and O-long. For the rest, both vowels and consonants, we speak them by adding other letters around them, making them into names. But as long as we build in the power that belongs to the letter, it's correct to call it by the name that will make it clear to us. Take beta, for instance: you see that adding eta, tau, and alpha caused no harm — it didn't prevent the whole name from making clear the nature of that letter, in the way the lawgiver intended. So skillfully was it arranged, to assign names to the letters. HERMOGENES: I think you're right.

SOCRATES: And doesn't the same reasoning apply to a king? A king will in time be born of a king, a good man of a good man, a beautiful one of a beautiful one, and so on for everything else—each kind producing another offspring of the same sort, unless some monstrosity occurs. So the same names must be applied. But it's possible to vary them with different syllables, so that someone unfamiliar with the matter might think things that are really the same are different from one another—just as, to us, doctors' medicines look different when they're dressed up with colors and smells, though they're really the same, while to the doctor, who examines the medicines' actual power, they look the same, and he isn't thrown off by what's added to them. In the same way, I suppose, someone who understands names looks at their power, and isn't thrown off if some letter is added, or moved, or taken away, or even if the name's power resides in entirely different letters. Take what we were just saying: Astyanax and Hector share no letters except the tau, and yet they mean the same thing. And Archepolis—what does it share, letterwise? Yet it signifies the very same thing. And there are many other names that signify nothing but 'king'; and others again that mean 'general,' like Agis and Polemarchus and Eupolemus. And others that belong to medicine, Iatrocles and Acesimbrotus; and we could probably find plenty more that disagree in syllables and letters but say the same thing in their power. Does it appear so, or not? HERMOGENES: It certainly does. SOCRATES: So to things born according to nature, the same names must be assigned. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But what about things contrary to nature, that turn out as a kind of monstrosity? For instance, when an impious man is born from a good and god-fearing man—isn't it just as in the earlier cases, where if a horse produces the offspring of an ox, it shouldn't, I take it, get the name of its begetter, but of the kind it belongs to? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And so to the impious man born of the pious one, the name of his own kind must be given. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Not Theophilus, it seems, nor Mnesitheus, nor anything of that sort—but a name meaning the opposite of these, provided the names hit their proper correctness. HERMOGENES: Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES: Just as Orestes too, Hermogenes, seems likely to have the right name—whether it was chance that gave it to him or some poet—pointing, by that name, to the beastly and wild and mountain-like side of his nature.

HERMOGENES: So it appears, Socrates. SOCRATES: And his father's name too seems to fit nature. HERMOGENES: It appears so. SOCRATES: For Agamemnon seems to be the sort of man who, once he'd resolved on something, would labor at it and hold out to the end, sticking to what he'd decided out of virtue. The proof of this is his staying at Troy through all that suffering and endurance. So this name Agamemnon signals that this man is admirable (agastos) for his persistence (epimonē). And perhaps Atreus too is correctly named. For the murder of Chrysippus and the savage things he did to Thyestes—all of these are ruinous and harmful (atēra) to virtue. So the meaning of this name is bent a little to one side and disguised, so that it doesn't reveal the man's nature to everyone; but to those with adequate understanding of names, it shows plainly enough what Atreus means. For by 'unyielding' (ateires) and by 'unflinching' (atrestos) and by 'destructive' (atēron), the name is rightly given to him in every way. And it seems to me that Pelops' name too fits him fittingly; for this name signifies one who sees only what is near (pelas) and is worthy of that title. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: Well, it's said of that man, in the murder of Myrtilus, that he was unable to plan ahead or foresee any of the distant consequences for his whole line, how much misfortune he was filling it with—seeing only what was near and immediate (and that's what 'near' means)—when he was eager to win the marriage of Hippodamia by any means at all. And as for Tantalus, everyone would agree his name was rightly and naturally given, if the stories told about him are true. HERMOGENES: What stories are those? SOCRATES: The many terrible misfortunes that came upon him while he still lived, which ended in the total overthrow of his homeland, and then, after his death, the famous stone balanced (talanteia) over his head in Hades—how well it harmonizes with his name! And it's exactly as if someone, wanting to call him 'most wretched' (talantatos) but hiding what he meant, said 'Tantalus' instead—it seems some such thing is what chance contrived for him in giving him this name and this reputation.

SOCRATES: And it appears to me that his father, as he's called, Zeus, has a name given most beautifully—though it isn't easy to grasp. For the name of Zeus is really like a whole sentence, which we split into two, and some of us use one part, some the other—some say Zena, others Dia—and put together into one they reveal the god's nature, which we say a name ought to be able to do. For there is no one, for us or for anyone else, more responsible for life than the ruler and king of all things. So it turns out this god is rightly named, this being through whom living always belongs to all living things; the name, though one, has been split in two, as I say, into Dia and Zena. Now if you heard suddenly that he's the son of Cronus, you might think that an insult, but it's reasonable that Zeus should be the offspring of some great intellect. For 'Cronus' signifies not a child, but the purity and unsulliedness of his mind (korron). And this Cronus, so the story goes, is the son of Uranus; and the upward gaze is rightly called by this name, ourania, 'looking at things above,' and that, Hermogenes, is exactly where the astronomers say pure mind comes from, and so 'heaven' (ouranos) has the right name too. If I remembered Hesiod's genealogy, and which still earlier ancestors he names before these, I wouldn't stop going through how correctly their names too are given, until I'd tested this wisdom that has suddenly fallen upon me from I don't know where, just now, to see what it will do—whether it will give out or not. HERMOGENES: Yes indeed, Socrates, you really do seem to me like one of those who suddenly, like the inspired, start prophesying. SOCRATES: And I do blame it, Hermogenes, mostly on having caught it from Euthyphro of Prospalta; I was with him a great deal since early this morning, lending him my ears. It seems that in his inspired state he's not only filled my ears with this divine wisdom but has taken hold of my soul as well. So I think we ought to do this: for today, let's make use of it and go on examining the rest about names, but tomorrow, if you all agree, we'll perform a rite of banishment on it and get purified, once we find someone skilled at purifying such things, whether some priest or some sophist.

HERMOGENES: Well, I agree—I'd be very glad to hear the rest about names. SOCRATES: Then that's what we should do. Where do you want us to begin our inquiry, now that we've stepped into a kind of pattern, so we can see whether the names themselves will bear witness for us that they aren't simply assigned at random in each case, but have some correctness? Now, the names given to heroes and to men might well deceive us; for many of them are given after their ancestors' names, which doesn't fit some of them at all, as we said at the start, and many are given as a kind of wish, like Eutychides and Sosias and Theophilus and plenty of others. So I think we should leave such names aside; it's much more likely we'll find the correctly given names among things that always exist and are so by nature. For it's there above all that the giving of names ought to have been done with care; though perhaps some of them were even established by a power more divine than that of men. HERMOGENES: You seem to me to be speaking well, Socrates. SOCRATES: Isn't it right, then, to start from the gods, examining how it is that this very name, 'gods,' came to be rightly given to them? HERMOGENES: That's reasonable. SOCRATES: Well, here's what I suspect: it seems to me that the earliest people around Greece believed only in those gods that many of the barbarians believe in even now—sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven. Seeing all these always moving and running (theonta) in their course, it was from this nature of 'running' that they named them theous, 'gods'; and later, once they came to recognize all the other gods, they went on calling them by this same name. Does what I'm saying resemble the truth at all, or not? HERMOGENES: It certainly does resemble it. SOCRATES: What should we examine after this? HERMOGENES: Clearly, spirits (daimones) and heroes and men. SOCRATES: And truly, Hermogenes, whatever might the name 'daimones' mean? See what you think of what I'm about to say. HERMOGENES: Just say it. SOCRATES: Do you know who Hesiod says the daimones are? HERMOGENES: I don't recall. SOCRATES: Nor that he says the first race of men to come to be was the golden race? HERMOGENES: That much I do know.

SOCRATES: Well, he says of it—'but when fate covered over this race, they are called sacred spirits beneath the earth, good, warders-off of evil, guardians of mortal men.' HERMOGENES: What of it? SOCRATES: Because I think what he means by the golden race is not one made of gold, but one that was good and beautiful. My proof of this is that he says we are a race of iron. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: And don't you think he'd say that anyone good among people today belongs to that golden race? HERMOGENES: That's reasonable. SOCRATES: And the good are nothing other than the wise (phronimoi)? HERMOGENES: Wise, yes. SOCRATES: This, then, more than anything, I think, is what he means by the daimones: that because they were wise (phronimoi) and knowing (daēmones), he named them daimones. And in our own old language this name actually comes out that way. So he speaks well, and so do many other poets, who say that when a good man dies, he holds great fortune and honor, and becomes a spirit, in accordance with the title of wisdom. That's how I too hold that every man who is wise (daēmōn) and good is something divine (daimonion), in life and in death, and is rightly called a daimon. HERMOGENES: And I think, Socrates, I'm quite in agreement with you on this. But what would a 'hero' be? SOCRATES: That's not too hard to work out. Their name has been slightly altered, revealing its birth from Eros, love. HERMOGENES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Don't you know that heroes are half-gods? HERMOGENES: What of it? SOCRATES: All of them, surely, were born from a god's love for a mortal woman, or a mortal man's for a goddess. If you look at this too according to the old Attic speech, you'll understand better: it will show you that, starting from the name of Eros, from which the heroes were born, it's been slightly altered for the sake of the name. And either this is what 'heroes' means, or else it means that they were wise and skilled speakers and clever in argument, being capable questioners (erōtan)—for eirein means 'to speak.' So, as we were just saying, in Attic speech, those called heroes turn out to be a kind of speakers and questioners, so that the heroic tribe turns out to be a race of orators and sophists. But that's not hard to grasp; what's harder is the question of men—why on earth they're called anthrōpoi. Can you say? HERMOGENES: Where would I get that from, my good man? Even if I were able to find it, I wouldn't strain myself, since I think you're more likely to find it than I am.

SOCRATES: You're putting your trust in Euthyphro's inspiration, it seems. HERMOGENES: Clearly. SOCRATES: And you're right to trust it—since even now I seem to myself to have hit on something rather clever, and I run the risk, if I'm not careful, of becoming wiser than I ought to be, this very day. Consider what I mean. First we need to notice this about names: we often insert letters, and remove others, changing what we mean to name, and we shift the accents too. Take "dear to Zeus"—to turn that phrase into a single name, we dropped one of the iotas straightaway and pronounced the middle syllable with a grave accent instead of an acute one. In other cases we do the opposite—we insert letters, and pronounce what was low-pitched as high-pitched. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: Well, the word for "human being" has undergone one of these very changes, in my view. It's become a name out of a phrase, with the alpha dropped and the ending made grave. HERMOGENES: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Like this. This name signifies that whereas the other animals neither examine nor reason about nor scrutinize anything they see, the human being, as soon as he has seen something—that's what "has seen" means—scrutinizes and reasons about what he has seen. So it's from this alone that a human being was rightly named human, as one who scrutinizes what he has seen. HERMOGENES: What comes after that? There's something I'd love to ask you. SOCRATES: Go ahead. HERMOGENES: It seems to me there's something that follows naturally on these—soul and body, as we call the two parts of a human being. SOCRATES: Of course. HERMOGENES: Let's try to analyze these too, the way we did the earlier ones. SOCRATES: You mean examine whether "soul" fits its name for a good reason, and then "body" after that? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, to speak off the cuff, I think those who named the soul had something like this in mind: that it, whenever present in the body, is the cause of its living, supplying the power to breathe and cooling it, and as soon as this cooling agent gives out, the body perishes and comes to an end. That, I think, is why they called it soul. But if you like—wait a moment, I think I see something more persuasive to offer Euthyphro's circle. The explanation I just gave, I suspect, they'd look down on and consider crude. But consider this one, and see if it pleases you too.

HERMOGENES: Just say it. SOCRATES: What do you think holds and sustains the nature of the whole body, so that it lives and moves about, if not the soul? HERMOGENES: Nothing else. SOCRATES: And what about the nature of everything else? Don't you believe Anaxagoras, that it's mind and soul that arrange and hold all things together? HERMOGENES: I do. SOCRATES: Then this name would fit well for that power which sustains and holds nature—one might call it "physechē." It's also possible, more elegantly, to say "psyche," soul. HERMOGENES: Quite so, and I think this is more skillfully done than the other account. SOCRATES: And so it is—though it does look rather absurd as the name was actually formed. HERMOGENES: Well, what shall we say comes next? SOCRATES: You mean the body? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: This one seems to me to admit of many accounts—if one twists it even slightly, a great many. Some say it is the "sema"—the tomb—of the soul, on the ground that the soul is buried in it during this present life; and again, because it is by means of this that the soul signifies whatever it signifies, on this count too it's rightly called "sema," a sign. But I think it's above all the followers of Orpheus who gave it this name, on the view that the soul is paying a penalty for whatever it is paying it for, and that it has this enclosure around it, like a prison, to keep it safe—an image of a jail—being, then, exactly what its name says, a "soma," the body of the soul, until it has paid off what it owes, with not even a single letter needing to be changed. HERMOGENES: I think that's been said adequately enough, Socrates. But as for the names of the gods—as you were just saying about Zeus—could we examine along the same lines by what kind of correctness their names are established? SOCRATES: Yes indeed, Hermogenes, if we have any sense—there's one way, the finest one: that we know nothing about the gods, neither about themselves nor about the names by which they call themselves, whatever those may be, for clearly they call themselves by the true ones. The second way of correctness is the one prescribed by custom in our prayers—to call the gods by whatever names and titles please them to be called, since we know nothing else—for this seems to me to be a fine custom.

SOCRATES: So if you're willing, let's examine things having first told the gods that we won't be inquiring into them at all—since we don't claim to be capable of that—but into human beings, and what notion they had in mind when they gave the gods these names. That, at least, incurs no blame. HERMOGENES: Well, Socrates, I think that's a fair way to put it—let's proceed like that. SOCRATES: Shall we begin, then, with Hestia, as custom dictates? HERMOGENES: That's only right. SOCRATES: What, then, would one say the namer had in mind in naming Hestia? HERMOGENES: By Zeus, I don't think that's an easy one either. SOCRATES: In any case, my good Hermogenes, the first name-givers run the risk of having been no ordinary people, but sky-gazing chatterers of a sort. HERMOGENES: Why do you say that? SOCRATES: It appears to me that the giving of names is the work of people of just that kind, and if one examines foreign names too, one finds no less clearly what each one means. Take, for instance, what we call "ousia," being: some call it "essia," others "ōsia." Now, first, by the one of these names, it makes sense that the being of things should be called Hestia, and also because we ourselves say that what partakes of being "is"—by this too Hestia would rightly be the name, since it seems we too used to call being "essia" in olden times. Further, one might come to this understanding by considering our sacrifices too: it's likely that those who named the being of all things "essia" would be the ones to offer first sacrifice to Hestia before all the other gods. And those who instead say "ōsia" would probably hold, in the manner of Heraclitus, that all things are in motion and nothing stands still, so that the cause and the first principle of things is "the pushing," whence it would be fitting for that to be named "ōsia." Let this much be said on the matter, as coming from people who know nothing at all; and after Hestia it's proper to examine Rhea and Cronus. And yet we've already gone over the name of Cronus. Perhaps, though, I'm talking nonsense. HERMOGENES: Why do you say that, Socrates? SOCRATES: My good man, I've just noticed a whole hive of wisdom. HERMOGENES: What sort of thing is this?

SOCRATES: It's quite absurd to say, and yet I think it has some plausibility. HERMOGENES: What is it? SOCRATES: I seem to see Heraclitus uttering ancient bits of wisdom—exactly what applies to Cronus and Rhea—which Homer, too, was talking about. HERMOGENES: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Heraclitus says somewhere that everything moves on and nothing stands still, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step into the same river twice. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Well then, do you think the one who set Rhea and Cronus as the ancestors of the other gods had any different notion from Heraclitus? Do you suppose it was by pure accident that he gave both of them names having to do with flowing? Just as Homer, too, says that Ocean was the origin of the gods, and Tethys their mother; and Hesiod, I think, says the same. Orpheus, too, says somewhere that "fair-flowing Ocean was first to begin the marriage, he who took to wife his sister born of the same mother, Tethys." Consider, then, how these all agree with one another and all tend toward the doctrine of Heraclitus. HERMOGENES: I think you're onto something, Socrates. But the name Tethys—I can't make out what it means. SOCRATES: In fact this name itself all but says outright that it is the disguised name of a spring; for what is filtered and strained is an image of a spring, and the name Tethys is put together out of both of these words. HERMOGENES: That's clever, Socrates. SOCRATES: Of course it is. But what comes after this? We've dealt with Zeus. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then let's speak of his brothers, Poseidon and Pluto, and that other name by which they call him. HERMOGENES: Very well. SOCRATES: Now it seems to me that Poseidon was named by the one who first gave the name because the nature of the sea checked him as he was walking and would not let him go further, but became like a bond upon his feet. So he named the god who rules over this power Poseidon, as being a "foot-bond"—posi-desmon; the epsilon is inserted, perhaps, for the sake of elegance.

SOCRATES: Or perhaps that isn't what he meant, but rather two lambdas were originally said in place of the sigma, on the ground that the god knows many things—"polla"; or maybe the "shaking one" is named from "to shake"—"seiein"—with the pi and the delta then added on. As for Pluto's name, that was given with respect to the giving of wealth—"ploutos"—since wealth is sent up from below out of the earth. And Hades—most people, I think, take this name to mean "the unseen"—"aïdes"—and, being afraid of the name, they call him Pluto instead. HERMOGENES: And how does it seem to you, Socrates? SOCRATES: In many ways I think people have gone quite wrong about the power of this god, and fear him more than he deserves. They're afraid because once any of us has died, he remains there forever, and they're afraid too because the soul departs to him stripped naked of the body. But to my mind all of this points to one and the same thing—both the god's office and his name. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: I'll tell you what appears to me. Tell me, of all the bonds that hold any living creature in one place, which is the stronger—necessity or desire? HERMOGENES: Desire is far stronger, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then don't you think Hades would lose a great many, if he did not bind those who go there with the strongest possible bond? HERMOGENES: Clearly so. SOCRATES: So it must be some desire that binds them, if indeed it's the greatest of bonds that binds them, and not necessity. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And there are many desires, are there not? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then he must bind them with the greatest of all desires, if he means to hold them with the greatest bond. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And is there any greater desire than this—when someone, in another's company, believes he will become a better man because of him? HERMOGENES: By Zeus, none whatsoever, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then let's say, Hermogenes, that this is why no one down there has ever wanted to come back up—not even the Sirens themselves—but they, and everyone else, have been utterly enchanted; so fine, it seems, are the words Hades knows how to speak. And, to judge by this account, this god is a consummate sophist and a great benefactor to those in his company—one who sends up so many good things even to us up here, so abundant are the riches he has to spare down there—and it's from this, in fact, that he got the name Pluto.

SOCRATES: And this business of the soul being unwilling to keep company with people while they still have bodies, but only coming together with them once it's been purified of all the evils and desires connected with the body — doesn't that seem to you the mark of someone philosophical, someone who has thought hard about the fact that this is the only way to hold people fast, by binding them with a desire for excellence, whereas if they still had the body's frenzy and madness on them, not even Kronos their father, for all his famous chains, could keep them bound to himself? HERMOGENES: You may be onto something there, Socrates. SOCRATES: And as for the name Hades, Hermogenes, it is far from being named for the unseen — quite the opposite, it was given by the lawgiver from his knowing all things beautiful, and that is why he was called Hades. HERMOGENES: All right — but what about Demeter and Hera and Apollo and Athena and Hephaestus and Ares and the rest of the gods — how do we account for them? SOCRATES: Demeter seems to be called Demeter, 'the mother who gives,' because of her giving of food, as a mother does. Hera is a kind of 'beloved' — that's in fact why they say Zeus fell in love with her and took her as his wife. But perhaps the lawgiver, speaking of things up in the sky, called the air Hera, disguising it by putting the beginning at the end — you'd see it if you said the name Hera over and over. As for Pherephatta — many people are frightened of that name too, and of Apollo, out of sheer inexperience, it seems, with the correctness of names. They change it around and consider it as Phersephone, and it strikes them as something dreadful; but really it signifies that the goddess is wise. Since all things are in motion, whatever grasps them and touches them and is able to follow along with them would be wisdom. So Pherepapha would be the correct name for the goddess, on account of her wisdom and her touching of what is in motion — or something along those lines — and that is exactly why Hades, being wise himself, keeps company with her, because she is of that nature. But as things stand people shy away from her real name, caring more for a pleasant-sounding word than for the truth, and so they call her Pherrephatta. It's the same with Apollo, as I said — many people are frightened of the god's name, as though it signified something dreadful. Haven't you noticed that? HERMOGENES: I certainly have, and you're right. SOCRATES: Yet it is, in my opinion, a name most beautifully suited to the god's power. HERMOGENES: How so?

SOCRATES: I'll try to say how it looks to me. There could hardly be a name better fitted to be one and yet touch all four of the god's powers at once, so as to take hold of them all and somehow signify music and prophecy and medicine and archery. HERMOGENES: Go on then — you make the name sound like a strange thing indeed. SOCRATES: It is thoroughly harmonious, in fact, seeing that the god is a musician. First of all, purification and purifying rites, both in medicine and in prophecy, and the fumigations with medicinal drugs and with the sulfur used in divination, and the washings and sprinklings used in such rituals — all of these have one single aim, to render a person pure both in body and in soul. Isn't that so? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't the god who purifies, who washes away and releases people from such evils, be this very god? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So with respect to these releasings and washings, since he is a physician of such things, he would rightly be called Apolouon, 'the one who washes away.' And with respect to prophecy and truth and simplicity — which are the same thing — he would most correctly be called, just as the Thessalians call him: for all Thessalians call this god Aplous, 'the simple one.' And because he always has mastery over his shots, he is Aeiballon, 'ever-shooting.' As for the musical side, we should understand it the way we understand akolouthos, 'companion,' and akoitis, 'bedmate' — that the letter alpha often signifies 'together,' and here it signifies the joint revolving, both in the heavens, where they call the poles homopoloi, and in the harmony found in song, which is called symphonia, 'sounding together' — because all these things, as those clever about music and astronomy say, revolve together in a single harmony. And this god presides over that harmony, making all things revolve together, both among gods and among men. So just as we formed akolouthos and akoitis from homokeleuthos and homokoitis by changing homo- to a-, in the same way we formed Apollon from one who makes-things-revolve-together, homopolon, inserting an extra lambda, because otherwise it would have sounded the same as that harsh word for destruction.

SOCRATES: And that is exactly what some people now suspect, since they don't examine the power of the name correctly, and so they're afraid of it, taking it to signify some kind of destruction. But in truth, as I just said, it takes hold of all the god's powers at once — of the simple, the ever-shooting, the washing-away, the revolving-together. And the Muses, and music generally, got their name, it seems, from mosthai, 'to seek,' and from inquiry and philosophy. Leto is named from the gentleness of the goddess, from her willingness to grant whatever one asks of her. Or perhaps it's as foreigners call her — many call her Letho — and it seems that name was given, by those who use it, to mark that her character is not harsh but tame and smooth. Artemis seems named for artemes, 'sound' and 'orderly,' because of her desire for virginity; or perhaps whoever named her called the goddess an inquirer into virtue, or perhaps because she hates the sowing of man in woman — for one or all of these reasons, whoever gave the goddess this name gave it to her. HERMOGENES: And what about Dionysus and Aphrodite? SOCRATES: You're asking big questions, son of Hipponicus. But there is both a serious account of the names of these gods and a playful one. The serious one, you'll have to ask someone else; but nothing stops us going through the playful one, since the gods too are fond of play. Dionysus might be, in play, Didoinysos, 'the one who gives wine,' and wine might most fittingly be called oionous, since it makes most of those who drink it think they have sense when they don't. And as for Aphrodite, there's no point arguing with Hesiod — let's just agree that she was called Aphrodite from her birth out of the sea-foam, aphros. HERMOGENES: But surely you, an Athenian, won't forget Athena, Socrates — nor Hephaestus and Ares. SOCRATES: No, that wouldn't be likely. HERMOGENES: No indeed. SOCRATES: Well, one of her names isn't hard to explain. HERMOGENES: Which one? SOCRATES: We call her Pallas, don't we? HERMOGENES: Of course. SOCRATES: I think we'd be right to suppose this was given from the brandishing involved in weapons-dancing; for we use the words pallein and pallesthai, and orchein and orcheisthai, for lifting either oneself or something else up off the ground, or brandishing it in one's hands.

HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: That accounts for Pallas, then. HERMOGENES: And rightly so. But what about the other name — how do you explain that? SOCRATES: Athena's own name? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: That one is weightier, my friend. It seems the ancients thought of Athena the same way today's experts on Homer do. Most of these interpreters, explaining the poet, say that he made Athena stand for mind and thought, and the maker of names appears to have had something similar in mind about her — indeed he says something still grander, calling her, as it were, 'the mind of god,' as though he were saying ha theonoa — using an alien alpha in place of eta, and dropping the iota and the sigma. Or perhaps that isn't it either, and he called her Theonoe because she understands divine things beyond all others. Nor is it out of the question that he wanted to call this goddess Ethonoe, as one whose understanding lies in character; and then either the name-giver himself, or others afterward, altered it, thinking to improve it, into Athenaa. HERMOGENES: And Hephaestus — what do you say about him? SOCRATES: Are you really asking me about that noble lord, the master of light? HERMOGENES: It seems I am. SOCRATES: Then isn't it plain to everyone that he is Phaestos, 'the shining one,' with an eta drawn in? HERMOGENES: That's probably so — unless, as usual, some other view strikes you. SOCRATES: Well, so that none does, ask me about Ares instead. HERMOGENES: I'm asking. SOCRATES: Well then, if you like, Ares might be named from arren and andreion, 'male' and 'manly'; or again from the hard and unyielding, which is called arraton, and in that sense too the name Ares would fit a god of war in every respect. HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then, let's get ourselves clear of the gods, before the gods themselves — I'm rather afraid of discussing them further. Ask me about anything else you like, so you can see what sort of horses Euthyphro's are. HERMOGENES: I'll do that — but first let me ask you one more thing, about Hermes, since Cratylus says I'm no true Hermogenes. Let's try to examine what the name Hermes really means, so we can tell whether there's anything to what he says.

SOCRATES: Well, it does look as though Hermes has something to do with speech — being an interpreter, a messenger, given to thievery and deceit in words, and a trader as well; all this business has to do with the power of speech. As we said earlier, eirein, 'to speak,' has to do with the use of words, and there's that word Homer often uses, emesato, 'he contrived' — which means to devise. So out of both these words, the one for speaking and the one for devising, the lawgiver, so to speak, appoints for us this god who devised speaking and speech — for legein is really the same as eirein — as though saying: 'People, the one who devised eirein would rightly be called by you eiremes'; but as it is, we, thinking to prettify the name, call him Hermes. And Iris too seems to be named from eirein, since she was a messenger. HERMOGENES: By Zeus, I think Cratylus is right after all in saying I'm no true Hermogenes — I'm certainly no master of contriving speech. SOCRATES: And there's good reason, my friend, why Pan should be Hermes' son, and have a double nature. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: You know that speech signifies the whole, and sets everything turning and circling forever, and it is twofold, both true and false. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well, the true part of it is smooth and divine, and dwells above among the gods, while the false part dwells below among the mass of men, and is rough and goatish; for that's where most myths and falsehoods are found, in the realm of the goatish, tragic life. HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: So the one who reveals the whole (pan) and is forever turning (polon) would rightly be Pan the goatherd, of double nature, Hermes' son, smooth above and rough and goat-shaped below. And Pan is either speech itself or speech's brother, if indeed he's Hermes' son — and it's no wonder for one brother to resemble another. But as I was saying, my good man, let's get ourselves free of the gods. HERMOGENES: Free of gods of that kind, Socrates, if you like. But what's stopping you going through names of the following sort — sun and moon, stars and earth, aether and air, fire and water, the seasons, and the year? SOCRATES: You're asking a great deal of me, but still, if it will please you, I'm willing. HERMOGENES: It certainly will please me. SOCRATES: Well then, which do you want first? Shall we go through the sun, as you said? HERMOGENES: By all means.

SOCRATES: This will probably become clearer if we use the Doric word for it — the Dorians say "halios" for sun. "Halios" could come from "halizein," gathering people together, since the sun brings people together once it rises. Or it could come from its always rolling around the earth as it travels. Or it might fit because it embroiders the things that grow from the earth as it goes along — "embroider" and "variegate" mean the same thing. HERMOGENES: And the moon? SOCRATES: That name seems to put Anaxagoras in a tight spot. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: It seems to reveal, long before he said it, the very thing he recently claimed — that the moon gets its light from the sun. HERMOGENES: How does the name show that? SOCRATES: Well, "selas," gleam, and "phos," light, are the same thing. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And this light around the moon is always both new and old, if the followers of Anaxagoras are right — since the sun, circling around it constantly, is always casting new light onto it, while what remains from the previous month is old. HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And many people call the moon "Selanaia." HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Since it always has gleam that is new and old, the most correct name for it would be "Selaenoneoaeia" — but compressed together it's called "Selanaia." HERMOGENES: That's a positively dithyrambic name, Socrates! But what do you say about the month and the stars? SOCRATES: The month, "meis," would rightly be called "meies" from "meiousthai," to grow smaller. And the stars, "astra," seem to take their name from "astrape," lightning. And lightning, since it turns the eyes back on themselves — "anastrephei ta opa" — would be "anastrope," though nowadays it's been prettied up into "astrape." HERMOGENES: And fire and water? SOCRATES: Fire baffles me. Either the muse of Euthyphro has abandoned me, or this is simply a very hard case. But look at the device I bring in for all such cases where I'm stuck. HERMOGENES: What device? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. Answer me this: could you say in what way the word "fire" got its name? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I certainly could not. SOCRATES: Then consider what I suspect about it. I notice that the Greeks, especially those living among foreign peoples, have taken many words from those foreigners. HERMOGENES: What of it? SOCRATES: If someone tried to trace such words back through Greek, as though they made sense in Greek, rather than through the language they actually come from, you know he'd get nowhere. HERMOGENES: Naturally.

SOCRATES: So consider whether this word "fire" might also be foreign. It's not easy to connect to Greek speech, and it's clear the Phrygians call it something very close to this, with just a slight twist — and the same goes for water, and dogs, and many other words. HERMOGENES: That's true. SOCRATES: So we shouldn't force these into a Greek explanation, even though one could invent something to say about them. I set aside fire and water on those grounds. But air, Hermogenes — is it called "aer" because it raises things up from the earth? Or because it always flows? Or because wind, "pneuma," arises from its flowing? For the poets, I think, call winds "aetai." Perhaps, then, what he means is something like "pneumatorroun" — flowing as wind — shortened to "aetorroun," and from there he wants to call it "aer." As for the aether, I take it this way: since it always runs, "thei," flowing around the air, it would rightly be called "aeithees" — ever-running. And "ge," earth, shows its meaning better if one uses the form "gaia": for "gaia" would rightly be called the "begetter," "gennetteira," as Homer says — for he uses "gegaasin" to mean "to have been born." Well then — what came next on our list? HERMOGENES: Seasons, Socrates, and "eniautos" and "etos" — both words for year. SOCRATES: The seasons, "horai," should be pronounced the old Attic way, if you want to know the likely truth — "HORAI," spelled with the rough breathing, because they mark off, "horizein," the winters and summers and winds and the crops that come from the earth. Since they mark boundaries, they'd rightly be called "horai." As for "eniautos" and "etos," they're probably really one and the same word. Whatever brings each growing and coming-to-be thing forward into the light in its turn, and examines it in itself — this, just as in our earlier example the name of Zeus was split in two, with some saying "Zena" and others "Dia," so here too some call it "eniautos," because it is "in itself," en heautoi, and others "etos," because it "examines," etazei. The whole account is that this thing which examines within itself is addressed by two names though it is one, so that "eniautos" and "etos" have arisen as two words from a single account. HERMOGENES: Well really, Socrates, you're making great strides. SOCRATES: I do think I appear to be racing far ahead into wisdom now. HERMOGENES: Very much so. SOCRATES: You'll say so even more shortly.

HERMOGENES: But after this class of words, I'd be glad to look at those beautiful names connected with virtue — words like practical wisdom, understanding, justice, and all the rest of that kind — and see by what correctness they're given. SOCRATES: You're stirring up no small family of names, my friend! Still, since I've already put on the lion's skin, I mustn't shrink back now — I must examine, it seems, practical wisdom, understanding, judgment, knowledge, and all those other fine words you mention. HERMOGENES: We certainly mustn't turn back now. SOCRATES: And indeed, by the dog, I think I'm divining something not badly here — a thought that just occurred to me, that the very ancient people who established names, more than anything else — like most of today's clever people who get so dizzy from spinning round and round in their search for how things really are — grow dizzy themselves, and then it seems to them that things are spinning around and moving every which way. They blame this impression not on the condition within themselves, but claim that reality itself is like this — that nothing in it is stable or fixed, but that everything flows and moves and is always full of every kind of motion and coming-to-be. I say this having thought it through with all the names we've just been discussing. HERMOGENES: How do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: Perhaps you didn't notice that what we've just been saying applies throughout, as if names were imposed on things entirely as though they were moving, flowing, and coming into being. HERMOGENES: I hadn't really thought about it that way. SOCRATES: Well, take the very first word we discussed — it's entirely of that sort. HERMOGENES: Which word? SOCRATES: Practical wisdom, "phronesis" — it's understanding, "noesis," of motion and flow, "phora" and "rous." Or one might take it as grasping the benefit, "onesis," of motion — in any case it concerns being carried along. And if you like, "gnome," judgment, plainly shows an examination, "skepsis," of begetting, "gone," and a distributing, "nomesis" — for "to distribute," "noman," and "to examine," "skopein," are the same thing. And if you like, "noesis" itself is a reaching, "hesis," for the new, "neon" — and for things to be new means that they are always coming to be. So the name-giver, in calling it "neoesis," shows that the soul reaches for this. For the old word wasn't "noesis" — instead of the eta they had to say two epsilons, "noeesis."

SOCRATES: And "sophrosyne," self-control, is the preservation, "soteria," of the very thing we just examined — practical wisdom, "phronesis." And indeed knowledge, "episteme," shows that as things are being carried along, the worthy soul follows along with them, neither falling behind nor running ahead — so we should insert the epsilon and call it "hepeisteme," the following-onto. "Synesis," understanding, in turn, might seem to be a kind of reasoning-together, "syllogismos" — but when we say someone "understands," "synienai," it turns out to mean exactly the same thing as "knowing," "epistasthai": for "synienai" says that the soul travels along together with things. And "sophia," wisdom, signifies grasping, "ephaptesthai," of motion — though this one is rather obscure and more foreign-sounding. But we should recall from the poets that they often say of something just beginning to move quickly that it "rushed forward," "esuthe." And there was a famous Spartan man actually named "Sous" — for the Spartans call swift onrush by this name. So "sophia" signifies a touching, "ephe," of this motion, "thoou," on the assumption that reality is in motion. And indeed "agathon," the good — this name is meant to be applied to whatever in the whole of nature is admirable, "agaston." Since things are in motion, they contain both speed and slowness. Not everything fast is admirable — only some part of it is. So this name, "agathon," belongs to what is admirable, "agaston," about the swift, "thoou." As for justice, "dikaiosyne" — that this name is given for understanding, "synesis," of the just, "dikaion," is easy enough to work out; but the just itself, "dikaion," is hard. It seems that up to a point many people agree about it, but beyond that point they start to disagree. Those who hold that everything is in motion suppose that most of it is such that it simply passes through, and that there's something passing all the way through everything, through which all that comes to be, comes to be — and that this is the fastest and finest thing there is. For it couldn't pass through the whole of reality otherwise, unless it were so fine that nothing could contain it, and so fast that it could treat everything else as standing still by comparison. So since it governs everything else by passing through it, this thing was rightly called "dikaion," just — taking on the sound of kappa for the sake of pleasant pronunciation.

SOCRATES: Up to this point, then — what we've just been saying — most people agree that this is what the just is. But I, Hermogenes, since I've been quite persistent about it, have learned all this in secret — that this is the just, and also the cause, "aition" (for that through which something comes to be is the cause) — and someone told me it's for this reason that it's correct to call it "Zeus," Dia. But when I calmly press them further, having heard all this, and ask: well then, my excellent friend, what actually is the just, if this account is right? — I seem already to be asking questions longer than I should, and leaping beyond the bounds we set. For they say I've heard quite enough already, and, wanting to satisfy me, they each start saying something different, and no longer agree with one another. One of them says the just is the sun — since only the sun, passing through and burning, governs what exists. So when I go and joyfully repeat this to someone else, as though I'd heard something fine, he laughs at me when he hears it and asks whether I really think there's nothing just among human beings once the sun sets. When I then persist and ask what he says it is, he says it's fire. But that's not easy to make sense of either. Someone else says it's not fire itself, but the heat that exists within fire. Yet another claims all of this is laughable, and says the just is what Anaxagoras calls mind, "nous" — for mind, being self-ruling and mixed with nothing, orders all things by passing through them all. At this point, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity than before I ever tried to learn what the just actually is. Still, for the purpose we set out to examine, it does appear that this is why the name is given as it is. HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to have heard this from someone, and not to be making it up on the spot. SOCRATES: And the rest? HERMOGENES: Not so much. SOCRATES: Listen then — perhaps I can fool you about the rest too, into thinking I'm not speaking from something I've heard. What's left for us after justice? Courage, I think — we haven't gone through that yet. Injustice, clearly, is an obstruction, "empodisma," to what passes through, "to diaion." And courage, "andreia," signifies something named as if in battle — for battle within reality, if indeed everything flows, could only be a counter-flow. So if one removes the delta from the word "andreia," the name itself, "anreia," reveals the very thing it does.

SOCRATES: So it's clear that courage doesn't mean flowing against every current, but only against the current that runs contrary to justice — otherwise courage wouldn't be praised. And the words for "male" and "man" point to something similar, an upward flow. "Woman," I think, wants to be "begetting." "Female" seems to be named from "nipple," and the nipple, Hermogenes, perhaps because it makes things bloom, the way watered plants do? HERMOGENES: So it seems, Socrates. SOCRATES: And "blooming" itself seems to me to picture the growth of the young, because it happens fast and suddenly. That's just what the word imitates — it's built by joining "run" and "leap." But you're not watching me the way I'm running off the track once I get hold of something smooth — and we've still got plenty of the words that are supposed to matter. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: One of them is worth seeing — what "skill" is actually meant to say. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Doesn't this signify a holding of mind — if you drop the "t" and insert an "e" between the "ch" and the "n," and then another between the "n" and the... HERMOGENES: That's stretching it rather thin, Socrates. SOCRATES: My good man, don't you know the earliest words have long since been buried by people wanting to dress them up tragically — adding letters, removing them, twisting them every way for the sake of a smoother sound, all for style, and time does the rest. Take a mirror — doesn't it seem strange to you that an "r" got inserted into its name? But I think that's what people do who care nothing for truth, only for shaping the mouth nicely — piling so much onto the original words that in the end no human being could work out what a word is actually supposed to mean. They even call the Sphinx "Sphinx" instead of "Phix," and plenty of others besides. HERMOGENES: That's how it is, Socrates. SOCRATES: And if we're going to let anyone insert or remove whatever they like in words, there'll be no end of resourcefulness, and anyone could fit any name to anything. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: True indeed. But I think you, as the wise overseer of this, need to keep to what's moderate and plausible. HERMOGENES: I'd like that.

SOCRATES: So would I, Hermogenes. But don't press for excessive precision, my dear fellow — don't drain the strength out of me. I'm working my way up to the peak of what I've been saying, once we've looked at "contrivance" after "skill." "Contrivance" seems to me a sign of achieving a great deal, since "much" somehow signifies length — so the word "contrivance" is put together from both of these, length and achieving. But as I just said, we need to reach the peak of what's been said — we must look into what "virtue" and "vice" are meant to say. One of them I can't yet make out, but the other seems clear to me — it agrees with everything said before. Since things are in motion, whatever moves badly would be "vice," and when this happens in the soul — moving badly toward things — that above all earns the name of vice as a whole. And what "moving badly" actually is, I think is shown also in "cowardice," which we haven't yet gone through but skipped over, though it ought to have been examined right after courage — I think we've skipped quite a few other things too. Well, "cowardice" signifies a strong binding of the soul, since "excess" is a kind of strength. So the greatest binding, the excessive one, would be cowardice — just as helplessness is bad, and so, it seems, is anything that stands in the way of moving and proceeding. So this appears to be what "moving badly" shows — proceeding held back and obstructed, which, whenever the soul has it, becomes full of vice. And if "vice" is the name for such a condition, the opposite of this would be virtue, signifying first ease of movement, and then that the flow of a good soul is always released, so that flowing without restraint and without hindrance has earned, it seems, this very name — which properly ought to be called "ever-flowing" but perhaps means "choiceworthy," as this condition is the most choiceworthy — and it's been compressed and is called "virtue." And perhaps you'll say again that I'm making this up; but I say that if what I said earlier about "vice" is correct, then this word for "virtue" is correct too.

HERMOGENES: And what about "bad," the word behind much of what you've said — what would it mean? SOCRATES: By Zeus, that one strikes me as strange and hard to work out. So I'll bring in that same device for this one too. HERMOGENES: Which device is that? SOCRATES: Saying that this one too is some foreign word. HERMOGENES: And you're probably right about that. But if you're willing, let's leave that aside and try to see how "noble" and "shameful" make sense. SOCRATES: Well, "shameful" already seems clear enough to me — it agrees with what came before. The one who assigns names seems, throughout, to be finding fault with whatever hinders and holds back the flow of things, and now he's given the thing that always holds back the flow the name "ever-holding-flow" — which, compressed, they now call "shameful." HERMOGENES: And "noble"? SOCRATES: That one's harder to grasp. Yet it does say something — it's only been stretched out in harmony and length from "the mind." HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: This word seems to be a kind of name for thought. HERMOGENES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Tell me, what do you think is responsible for each thing being called what it's called? Isn't it whatever assigned the names? HERMOGENES: Surely. SOCRATES: And wouldn't that be thought — either the gods' or human beings', or both? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: So the thing that named things and the thing that calls them are one and the same — thought? HERMOGENES: Apparently. SOCRATES: And whatever intelligence and thought produce — those are the things that are praised, and whatever they don't produce are blamed? HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And medicine produces medical results, and carpentry carpentry-results — or how do you put it? HERMOGENES: That's how I'd put it. SOCRATES: So what calling produces would be noble things? HERMOGENES: It must be. SOCRATES: And this, as we're saying, is thought? HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: So it's rightly a name derived from good sense, this word "noble," for the thing that produces such things — the things we call noble and welcome. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: So what's left for us of this sort of thing?

HERMOGENES: The words around "good" and "noble" — "advantageous," "profitable," "beneficial," "gainful," and their opposites. SOCRATES: Well, "advantageous" you could probably work out yourself from what we examined before — it looks like a relative of "knowledge." It signifies nothing other than the soul's movement together with things, and what's done by such a person seems to be called "advantageous" and "beneficial" from moving-along-together — and "gainful" from "gain." If you put an "n" in place of the "d" in that word, it shows what it means — since it names "the good" in a different way, by the fact that it mixes through everything it passes through, and naming this power of it, the name was given — putting a "d" in place of the "n" it comes out "gain." HERMOGENES: And what about "profitable"? SOCRATES: It seems, Hermogenes, that it isn't used the way shopkeepers use it, when it just covers the expense — I don't think that's what "profitable" is saying here, but rather that, being the swiftest of things, it doesn't let things come to a standstill, and doesn't let the movement of what's being carried along reach an end and stop, but always dissolves any end that tries to form in it, and keeps it unceasing and immortal — that's how I think "the good" earned the name "profitable": it's the thing that dissolves the end of motion, called "profit-dissolving." "Beneficial" is a foreign word, which Homer too uses often, from "ophellein," to increase — this is a name for increasing and producing. HERMOGENES: And what about the opposites of these? SOCRATES: The ones that are simple denials of them, I don't think we need go through. HERMOGENES: Which ones are those? SOCRATES: "Disadvantageous," "unbeneficial," "unprofitable," "ungainful." HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: But "harmful" and "damaging" are different. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: "Harmful" means the thing that harms the flow; and "harming" in turn signifies wanting to bind — and "binding" and "tying" are the same thing, which the name-giver everywhere condemns. So the thing that wants to bind the flow would most correctly be "want-to-bind-flow," but dressed up for style it's called, it seems to me, "harmful." HERMOGENES: Your words are certainly coming out colorful, Socrates. Just now you struck me as piping the prelude to the hymn of Athena, announcing that word "want-to-bind-flow."

SOCRATES: I'm not to blame for that, Hermogenes, but those who gave the name. HERMOGENES: True enough. But what would "damaging" be? SOCRATES: What indeed could "damaging" be? Look, Hermogenes, how true it is what I keep saying — that by adding and removing letters people change the sense of words so much that with quite small twists they sometimes make them mean the opposite. Take the word "binding" — I thought of it and was just reminded, from something I meant to tell you, that our new, refined-sounding speech has flipped it around to mean the opposite of what it should show, "binding" and "damaging," hiding what it means, while the old form of the word shows both meanings plainly. HERMOGENES: How do you mean? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. You know our ancestors made good use of the iota and the delta, and none more than the women, who preserve the old speech best of all. But nowadays people change the iota into an epsilon or an eta, and the delta into a zeta, as if these were grander sounds. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: For instance, the very earliest people called "day" (hemera) "himera," others "hemera," and now it's "hemera." HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Do you know only the ancient form of this word shows the intention of the one who gave it? Because light came to people who were glad and longing to escape the darkness, that's how they named it "himera." HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: But now, so dressed up, you couldn't work out what "hemera" is meant to mean at all. Yet some people think it's named that way because "day" (hemera) makes things "tame" (hemera). HERMOGENES: I think so too. SOCRATES: And you know that "yoke" (zygon) the ancients called "duogon." HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And "zygon" shows nothing at all, while "duogon," for the sake of the binding of the two (duoin) for drawing, was rightly named "duogon" — but now it's "zygon." And plenty of other words are like this. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: In just the same way, then, "binding" (deon), spoken this way, means the opposite of all the words connected with the good; since being a form of the good, "binding" appears instead to be a chain and an obstacle to motion — practically a brother of "the harmful." HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, that's certainly how it appears.

SOCRATES: No — not if you use the ancient form of the word, which is far more likely to be correct than the modern one. It will agree with the good qualities mentioned before, once you restore the iota in place of the eta, as they used to write it long ago. For it then signifies 'that which goes through' — not 'that which is needed' — 'the good,' which is exactly what it praises. And so the namer of things does not contradict himself: rather 'the needed,' 'the beneficial,' 'the profitable,' 'the gainful,' 'the good,' and 'the advantageous' all turn out to mean the same thing under different names — the thing that orders all and moves through everything, which is everywhere praised — while the thing that holds back and binds is blamed. And likewise 'damaging,' if you restore delta for zeta according to the ancient pronunciation, will turn out to be a name given to what binds the flow — 'daminaging,' one might say. HERMOGENES: But what about pleasure and pain and desire and things of that sort, Socrates? SOCRATES: They don't seem very difficult to me, Hermogenes. 'Pleasure' looks like an action tending toward benefit that has this name — though a delta has slipped in, so that it's called 'pleasure' instead of 'the benefiting-action.' 'Pain' seems to be named from the dissolving of the body which the body undergoes in that condition. And 'distress' is that which impedes going. 'Anguish' looks like a foreign word to me, derived from 'anguished.' 'Suffering' seems to be named from the entering-in of pain. 'Grief' is plainly likened by everyone to the weight of a burden carried. 'Joy' seems to be named from the dissolving and easy flowing of the soul's current. 'Delight' comes from 'delightful,' and 'delightful' is named from the soul's creeping — likened to a breath, so that by rights it should be called 'creepful,' but time has drawn it out into 'delightful.' 'Gladness' needs no explanation of why it's so called — it's plain to everyone that it got this name from the soul faring well with events, so that by rights it should be 'well-faring,' though we call it 'gladness.' Nor is 'desire' difficult — it's clearly named from the power that goes toward spiritedness. And 'spirit' would get its name from the seething and boiling of the soul.

SOCRATES: And indeed 'longing' is named from the current that draws the soul most strongly — because it flows as one is drawn on and reaches for things, and so pulls the soul forcibly along through the pull of its current; from this whole power it got the name 'longing.' And then again 'yearning' is the name applied not to the longing and current for what is present, but for what is elsewhere and absent — hence 'yearning,' which is what that same longing is called once the thing longed for is gone, though while it was present it was called 'longing.' 'Love,' because it flows in from outside and this current does not belong naturally to the one who has it but is brought in through the eyes, was in ancient times called, from 'inflowing,' 'inflow' — for they used omicron where we now use omega — but now it's called 'love,' through the change of omega for omicron. But what else do you want us to look at? HERMOGENES: How do 'belief' and things like that strike you? SOCRATES: 'Belief' is named either from the pursuit which the soul carries out in pursuing knowledge of how things stand, or from the shooting of an arrow. It seems more like the latter. At any rate, 'supposal' agrees with this — it seems to indicate the soul's aiming at every object, at what each thing that exists is like, just as 'counsel' is somehow related to 'a cast,' and 'to will' signifies 'to aim at,' as does 'to deliberate.' All these appear to be, in a sense, followers of belief, likenesses of the cast — just as, conversely, 'irresolution' seems to be 'missing the mark,' as when one has not cast well nor hit what one was aiming at, what one willed, what one was deliberating about, what one was reaching for. HERMOGENES: You seem to me now, Socrates, to be piling these up rather thick and fast. SOCRATES: Yes, because I'm already running for the finish line. Still, I want to work through 'necessity,' since it comes next in order, and 'the voluntary' too. 'The voluntary,' then — that which yields and does not resist, but, as I say, yields to what is moving — would be indicated by this very name, as what happens in accordance with one's will. But 'the necessary' and 'the resistant,' being contrary to one's will, would belong to the domain of error and ignorance, and is likened to travel through a ravine, since ravines, being hard to pass, rough, and overgrown, hold back one's going. So perhaps it was called 'necessary' from this, likened to travel through a ravine. As long as the strength holds out, let's not let up on it — and don't you let up either, but keep asking.

HERMOGENES: Well, I'll ask about the greatest and finest things — truth and falsehood and being, and this very thing we're now discussing, name — why it has the name it has. SOCRATES: Do you call something 'seeking'? HERMOGENES: I do — that is, searching. SOCRATES: Then 'name' seems to be a compressed statement, one that says: 'this is the being that is the object of the search.' You'd recognize it better in the form we use, 'nameable' — for there it plainly says that this is 'being of which there is a search.' Now 'truth,' too, seems to be compounded like the others; for the divine motion of being seems to be described by this word, 'truth,' as if it were 'divine wandering.' 'Falsehood,' on the other hand, is the opposite of that motion — for again there comes, as a term of reproach, that which is held back and forced to keep still; it is likened to those who are asleep, and the added 'sh' sound conceals the intended meaning of the name. 'Being' and 'essence' agree with 'the true,' once you remove the iota — for it signifies 'going,' and so does 'not-being,' as some also call it, meaning 'not-going.' HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to have hammered all this out quite boldly. But if someone were to ask you about this 'going,' this 'flowing,' this 'binding' — what correctness these names have — SOCRATES: What would we answer him? Is that what you mean? HERMOGENES: Exactly. SOCRATES: Well, we already found one way, a moment ago, to seem to be saying something in reply. HERMOGENES: What way was that? SOCRATES: To say that whatever we don't understand is some foreign word. And perhaps some of these really are of that kind; and it may also be that, because of their sheer antiquity, the earliest names have become undiscoverable — since names get twisted every which way, it would be no wonder if the ancient language, compared to today's, is no different from a foreign tongue. HERMOGENES: And that's not an unreasonable thing to say. SOCRATES: No, for I'm saying what's likely. Still, I don't think the contest allows for excuses — we must press on and examine these things eagerly. Let's consider this: if someone keeps asking, for whatever words a name is explained by, what those words in turn mean, and again, for whatever words those are explained by, keeps asking the same question without ever stopping — isn't it inevitable that the one answering will finally have to give up?

HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Then at what point would someone who gives up rightly stop giving answers? Isn't it when he reaches those names which are, so to speak, the elements of the other words and names? For it wouldn't be right, presumably, for these to turn out to be composed of other names, if that's really how it is. Take, for instance, 'the good,' which we just said is composed of 'admirable' and 'swift' — we might say 'swift' in turn is composed from other elements, and those from still others. But if we ever get hold of something no longer composed of other names, we'd rightly say we've now reached an element, and that we no longer need to trace it back to other names. HERMOGENES: I think you're right. SOCRATES: So now too, do the names you're asking about happen to be elements, and must their correctness be examined in some other way? HERMOGENES: Likely so. SOCRATES: Very likely indeed, Hermogenes — at any rate, all the earlier ones appear to trace back to these. And if that's how it is, as I think it is, come, join me in looking again, so I don't talk nonsense in saying what the correctness of the primary names ought to be. HERMOGENES: Just say it, and I'll join in examining it as far as I'm able. SOCRATES: Well, that there's some single correctness belonging to every name, both the first and the last, and that it makes no difference which one is a name and which isn't — I think you agree with me on that. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But surely the correctness we found for the names we've gone through just now was meant to be of the sort that shows what each of the beings is like. HERMOGENES: Of course. SOCRATES: Then the first names must have this quality no less than the later ones, if they're really going to be names. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But the later ones, it seems, were able to accomplish this through the earlier ones. HERMOGENES: Apparently. SOCRATES: Well then — the first names, which have no others underlying them, in what way will they make the things that exist as clear to us as possible, if they're really going to be names? Answer me this: if we had no voice and no tongue, but wanted to show one another the things around us, wouldn't we try to signify them, as the deaf do now, with our hands and head and the rest of our body?

HERMOGENES: How else could we, Socrates? SOCRATES: If we wanted, I imagine, to show what is above and light, we'd raise a hand toward the sky, imitating the very nature of the thing; and if what is below and heavy, toward the earth. And if we wanted to show a horse running, or any other animal, you know we would make our own bodies and postures as like theirs as possible. HERMOGENES: I think that must be so, as you say. SOCRATES: For that, I imagine, is how a showing of some body would come about — by the body imitating what it wanted to show. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: But since we want to show things using voice and tongue and mouth, won't our showing of each thing come from what results from these, whenever an imitation of something comes about through them? HERMOGENES: I think it must. SOCRATES: A name, then, it seems, is a vocal imitation of that which it imitates, and the one who imitates with his voice names the thing he imitates. HERMOGENES: That's what I think. SOCRATES: By Zeus, but it doesn't yet seem well said to me, my friend. HERMOGENES: Why not? SOCRATES: We'd be forced to agree that those who imitate sheep, and roosters, and other animals, are naming the very things they imitate. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: Does that seem right to you, then? HERMOGENES: Not to me. But then, Socrates, what kind of imitation would a name be? SOCRATES: First of all, I think, not the kind by which we imitate things the way music does — even though we're also imitating with voice there — and next, not by imitating the very things music imitates, do I think we'd be naming. Here's what I mean: each thing has a sound and a shape, and many have a color too. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it seems that the art of naming doesn't consist in imitating these qualities, nor is it concerned with such imitations — those belong, one to music, the other to painting. Right? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: But what about this — doesn't each thing also seem to you to have a being, just as it has a color and the other things we just mentioned? Isn't there some being that belongs to color itself and to sound itself, and to everything else that's deemed worthy of the title 'being'? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Well then — if someone could imitate this very thing about each thing, its being, using letters and syllables, wouldn't he show what each thing is? Or not?

HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what would you call the person who can do this — just as with the earlier examples you said one man was a musician and another a painter — what would you call this one? HERMOGENES: This, Socrates, seems to me to be exactly what we've been searching for all along — this would be the namer, the name-craftsman. SOCRATES: If that's true, then it seems we now need to examine those words you asked about — flow, and going, and holding-fast — and see whether the letters and syllables get hold of what really is, so as to imitate its nature, or whether they don't. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Come, let's see whether these are the only original names, or whether there are many others. HERMOGENES: I think there are many others. SOCRATES: Likely so. But what would the method of division be, the point from which the imitator begins to imitate? Since the imitation of reality happens by way of syllables and letters, isn't it most correct to distinguish the elements first — just as those who work on rhythms first distinguish the values of the elemental sounds, then those of the syllables, and only then move on to consider the rhythms themselves, not before? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then shouldn't we do the same — first distinguish the vowels, then, among the rest, sort by kind the voiceless-and-soundless ones (that's how the experts on these matters put it), and then those that are neither vowels nor yet soundless; and among the vowels themselves, distinguish the different kinds they have from one another? And once we've properly sorted all the things that are, the ones we need to give names to, we should ask whether there's anything they can all be traced back to, the way letters can, from which we can see both the things themselves and whether there are kinds within them the same way there are within the elements. Once we've surveyed all this well, we'll know how to apply each name according to likeness — whether one thing needs to be applied to one, or many blended together into one, the way painters, wanting to make a likeness, sometimes use only ochre-red, sometimes some other pigment, and sometimes blend many together, as when they're preparing a human likeness or something of that sort — using, I suppose, whatever pigments each image seems to require. In just this way we too will apply the elements to things, one to one where that seems needed, and several together, making what people call syllables, and then combining syllables in turn, out of which names and verbs are composed; and then again out of names and verbs we'll put together something great and beautiful and whole, just as painting produces a living creature — here, speech is produced by the naming-art, or the rhetorical art, or whatever the craft should be called.

SOCRATES: Or rather — not we, I got carried away in speaking. For it was the ancients who composed things this way, however they're now put together; we, if we're going to examine all this with any skill, need to divide things up this way and see whether the earliest names and the later ones have been laid down properly or not — but stringing things together any other way would be shoddy and off the path, my dear Hermogenes. HERMOGENES: Perhaps so, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then — do you trust yourself to be able to make these distinctions this way? I certainly don't. HERMOGENES: Far from it, I assure you. SOCRATES: Shall we drop it, then, or would you rather we try as best we can, and if we're able to make out even some small part of it, attempt it — first declaring, as we did a little while ago to the gods, that we know nothing of the truth and are only guessing at human opinions about them — and now saying to ourselves in the same way that if it were necessary for anyone at all, ourselves or another, to make these distinctions, this is how they'd have to be made, but as things stand we'll have to do what we can with them? Does that seem right, or how do you put it? HERMOGENES: That seems exactly right to me. SOCRATES: I imagine it will look ridiculous, Hermogenes — things being made plain by being imitated in letters and syllables — yet it's necessary. We have nothing better to appeal to for the truth of the earliest names — unless, like the tragic poets, who resort to hoisting up gods on machines whenever they're stuck, we too should get ourselves out of this by saying that the gods established the earliest names, and that's why they're correct. Is that the strongest argument available to us too? Or is it this one — that we received them from certain foreigners, and foreigners are older than we are?

SOCRATES: Or that because of their sheer antiquity it's impossible to examine them, just as with foreign words? All these would be very clever ways of slipping out for someone unwilling to give an account of how the earliest names are correctly established. And yet whoever doesn't know in what way the correctness of the earliest names stands can hardly know that of the later ones, since these must be made clear by names one knows nothing about. No — it's plain that anyone claiming to have expert knowledge of names must above all be able to give the clearest possible demonstration concerning the earliest names, or else know full well that what he says about the later ones will be nonsense. Or do you think otherwise? HERMOGENES: Not in the least otherwise, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, what I myself have come to sense about the earliest names strikes me as quite outrageous and ridiculous. I'll share it with you, if you like — and if you have anything better from some other source, try to share it with me in turn. HERMOGENES: I will. Go on, speak boldly. SOCRATES: First, then, the letter rho seems to me to be a kind of instrument for all motion — though we haven't said why it has this name. But it's clear that it's meant to be hesis, a going; we didn't use eta but epsilon in the old days. Its root comes from kiein — a foreign word — meaning 'to go.' If, then, one could find its old form fitted into our own language, it would rightly be called hesis; but as it is, from the foreign kiein, and from the change of the eta, and the insertion of the nu, it's called kinesis, motion, though it ought to be called kieinesis, or heisis. Rest, stasis, is meant to be the negation of going, but for the sake of elegance it's been named stasis. Now the letter rho, as I say, seemed to the name-giver a fine instrument for motion, for making likenesses of movement, and he uses it a great deal for that purpose. First, in the very words rhein, to flow, and rhoe, flow, he imitates the movement through this letter; then in tromos, trembling; then in trechein, to run; and further in verbs like krouein, to strike, thrauein, to shatter, ereikein, to rend, thryptein, to crush, kermatizein, to break into pieces, rhymbein, to whirl — all these he represents for the most part by means of the rho. I suppose he observed that the tongue is least at rest and most shaken in pronouncing it, which is why he seems to have put it to use for these things. The letter iota, on the other hand, he applied to all things fine and subtle, which above all can pass through everything.

SOCRATES: That's why he imitates ienai, going, and hiesthai, being sent, by means of the iota — just as, through phi, psi, sigma, and zeta, since these are breathy letters, he imitates with them all such things as psychron, cold, zeon, boiling, seiesthai, shaking, and seismos, quaking generally. And whenever he's imitating something windy, it seems that the name-giver mostly applies such letters there. As for the pressing together of the tongue in delta and tau, and its being pinned in place, he seems to have judged this useful for imitating binding and rest. And noticing that the tongue slips most in pronouncing lambda, he made a likeness of it and named all smooth things, and slipping itself, and the oily, and the sticky, and everything else of that kind. Where the tongue's slipping is checked by the force of gamma, he imitated the viscous, the sweet, and the gluey. As for nu, sensing the inward quality of the sound, he named 'within' and 'inside,' making the sounds resemble the things. Alpha he assigned to greatness, and eta to length, because these are large sounds. Wanting a sign for roundness, he mixed a great deal of omicron into the word for it. And in all the rest he seems to proceed the same way, fitting a sign and a name to each thing that is, letter by letter and syllable by syllable — the name-giver — and building the rest out of these same elements by imitation. This, Hermogenes, seems to me to be what the correctness of names is meant to be, unless our friend Cratylus here has something else to say. HERMOGENES: Well, Socrates, Cratylus really does give me a great deal of trouble, just as I said at the start — claiming there's such a thing as correctness of names, but never saying clearly what it is, so that I can't tell whether he speaks so unclearly about it on purpose or not. So now, Cratylus, tell us in Socrates' presence — do you find what Socrates says about names satisfactory, or do you have some better account to give? And if you do, say it, so that either you learn something from Socrates, or you teach the two of us. CRATYLUS: Come now, Hermogenes — do you think it's easy to learn or teach any matter so quickly, let alone one as weighty as this, which seems to be among the weightiest of all?

HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I don't. But I think Hesiod put it well — that if a man lays down even a little upon a little, it comes to something. So if you're able to add even a small amount, don't hold back — do a good turn both to Socrates here, since it's only fair, and to me. SOCRATES: And indeed, Cratylus, I myself wouldn't insist firmly on anything I've said — I only examined it as it appeared to me together with Hermogenes, so on that score speak boldly if you have something better, since I'm ready to accept it. And if you do have something finer to say than this, I wouldn't be surprised — you seem to me to have thought about such matters yourself and to have learned from others as well. So if you have something better to say, enroll me too as one of your pupils in the correctness of names. CRATYLUS: Well, Socrates, as you say, I have indeed given thought to these matters, and perhaps I might make you my pupil. Still, I'm afraid it may be quite the opposite — I find myself inclined to say to you what Achilles says to Ajax in the Embassy. He says: 'Ajax, son of Telamon, born of Zeus, lord of the people, everything you've said seems to speak to my very heart' — and you too, Socrates, seem to me to be uttering oracles quite to my mind, whether you've caught your inspiration from Euthyphro, or whether some other Muse has long been dwelling in you unnoticed. SOCRATES: My good Cratylus, I myself have long been amazed at my own wisdom, and I don't trust it. So I think we ought to look back over what I've actually been saying. For being deceived by oneself is the worst thing of all — when the one who will deceive you never departs even a little but is always right there, how could that not be dreadful? We must, it seems, keep turning back again and again to what's been said before, and try, as the poet puts it, to look both forward and back at once. So let's now see what we've actually said. The correctness of a name, we're claiming, is whatever shows what the thing is like — shall we say that's been stated adequately? CRATYLUS: To me it seems entirely adequate, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then names are spoken for the sake of teaching? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then shall we say this too is a craft, and that it has craftsmen? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Who are they?

CRATYLUS: The ones you mentioned at the start—the lawgivers. SOCRATES: Well then, shall we say this craft too arises among men just as the others do, or not? Here's what I mean. There are painters, some worse, some better? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the better ones produce finer works—their pictures—while the worse ones produce shabbier ones? And builders likewise—some build finer houses, others uglier ones? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then don't lawgivers too produce finer works, some of them, and others uglier ones? CRATYLUS: That I no longer think. SOCRATES: So you don't think some laws are better and others worse? CRATYLUS: No, I don't. SOCRATES: And you don't think a name can be laid down worse or better either? CRATYLUS: No. SOCRATES: So all names are laid down correctly? CRATYLUS: All that are actually names. SOCRATES: Well then—what about the case we just mentioned, our friend Hermogenes here? Shall we say this name isn't laid on him at all, unless something of Hermes's lineage belongs to him—or that it is laid on him, but not correctly? CRATYLUS: It seems to me it isn't laid on him at all, Socrates—it only seems to be, and really belongs to someone else, whoever it is whose nature the name reveals. SOCRATES: Then is even the man lying who says he is Hermogenes? Or is it that this statement itself—that he is Hermogenes—can't even be made, if he isn't? CRATYLUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Are you claiming that speaking falsely is altogether impossible? Because plenty of people say this, my dear Cratylus, now and in ages past. CRATYLUS: How could it be otherwise, Socrates? Anyone who says what he says—how could he not be saying what is? Or isn't that exactly what speaking falsely is—saying what is not? SOCRATES: That's a subtler argument than I can handle at my age, my friend. Still, tell me this much: do you think it's not possible to speak falsely, but it is possible to assert falsely? CRATYLUS: I don't think even asserting is possible. SOCRATES: Nor stating, nor addressing someone falsely? Suppose, for instance, someone met you as a foreign guest, took your hand, and said, 'Greetings, Athenian stranger, Hermogenes son of Smicrion'—would he be saying this, or asserting it, or stating it, or addressing you this way—speaking not to you but to this man Hermogenes? Or to no one at all? CRATYLUS: It seems to me, Socrates, such a person would just be making noise, pointlessly, to no purpose.

SOCRATES: Well, that's something at least. Would the one making that noise be speaking truly, or falsely? Or would part of it be true and part false? That would settle things too. CRATYLUS: I would say such a person is just clattering—moving himself pointlessly, the way you'd make noise banging on a bronze pot. SOCRATES: Come then, let's see if we can reach some agreement, Cratylus. Wouldn't you say the name is one thing, and the thing the name belongs to is another? CRATYLUS: I would. SOCRATES: And you agree the name is a kind of imitation of the thing? CRATYLUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And you'd say paintings too are, in another way, imitations of certain things? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Come then—perhaps I'm failing to grasp what exactly you mean, and you may well be right—is it possible to distribute and assign both these kinds of imitation, paintings and names, to the things they imitate, or not? CRATYLUS: It is. SOCRATES: First consider this. Could someone assign the image of the man to the man, and the image of the woman to the woman, and so on for the rest? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And couldn't he do the opposite—assign the man's image to the woman, and the woman's to the man? CRATYLUS: That's possible too. SOCRATES: So are both these assignments correct, or only one? CRATYLUS: Only one. SOCRATES: The one, I suppose, that gives each thing what fits it and resembles it. CRATYLUS: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: Then, so you and I don't quarrel in our talk, being friends, accept what I say. This kind of assignment, applied to both imitations, images and names alike, I call correct; and for names, besides correct, I also call it true. The other kind—handing out and applying what doesn't resemble—I call incorrect, and when applied to names, false. CRATYLUS: But watch out, Socrates, that this failure of correct assignment might hold for paintings but not for names—that with names it may be necessary to always be correct. SOCRATES: What do you mean? How does the one differ from the other? Can't someone go up to a man and say, 'This is your picture,' and show him—if it happens that way—an image of himself, or perhaps of a woman? By 'show,' I mean bring it before his eyes. CRATYLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well then? Suppose someone goes up to that same man again and says, 'This is your name.' A name, after all, is an imitation just as a painting is. So here is what I mean: couldn't he say to him, 'This is your name,' and then bring it before his hearing instead—saying, if it happens that way, the imitation of himself by saying 'man,' or, if it happens that way, the imitation of the female of the human race by saying 'woman'? Doesn't it seem to you this could happen, and does happen sometimes? CRATYLUS: I'm willing to grant you that, Socrates, and let it be so. SOCRATES: You do well to grant it, my friend, if it really is so—there's no need to fight over it too hard right now. But if there is indeed such an assignment here too, then we'll want to call one of these speaking truly, and the other speaking falsely. And if that's the case, and it's possible to assign names incorrectly, not giving each thing what fits it but sometimes what doesn't fit, then the same would hold for verbs too. And if verbs and names can be set down this way, then so, necessarily, can sentences—for sentences, I take it, are a composition of these. Or how do you see it, Cratylus? CRATYLUS: That way—I think you're right. SOCRATES: Then if in turn we compare the first names to letters in a drawing, isn't it possible, just as with paintings, to render all the fitting colors and shapes—or, again, not all of them, but to leave some out, and add others, and too many, and too large? Or isn't that so? CRATYLUS: It is so. SOCRATES: So the one who renders all of them renders fine letters and images, while the one who adds or takes away letters also produces letters and images, but poor ones? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about the one who imitates the being of things through syllables and letters? By the same reasoning, if he renders everything fitting, won't the image—which is to say the name—be fine, while if he leaves out or adds a little here and there, it will still be an image, but not a fine one? So that some of the names will be well made, and others badly? CRATYLUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Then perhaps there will be a good craftsman of names, and a bad one? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And this craftsman was called the lawgiver. CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then perhaps, by Zeus, just as in the other crafts, there will be a good lawgiver and a bad one, if we've agreed on those earlier points.

CRATYLUS: That's so. But you see, Socrates, when we assign these letters—alpha and beta and each of the elements—to names by the art of grammar, if we take one away, or add one, or transpose one, the name hasn't been written for us incorrectly—it hasn't been written at all; it immediately becomes something else the moment any of this happens to it. SOCRATES: Perhaps we're not looking at this rightly, Cratylus, in looking at it that way. CRATYLUS: How so? SOCRATES: Perhaps what you're describing holds true of things that must, by necessity, derive from some fixed number or not exist at all—like the number ten itself, or whatever other number you like—if you take away or add anything, it immediately becomes a different number. But for a thing of a certain quality, and for any image as a whole, perhaps that's not the standard of correctness at all—rather the opposite: it mustn't render everything, in every respect, just as the thing it's the image of, if it's really going to be an image. See if I'm saying something. Suppose there were two things like this—Cratylus, and an image of Cratylus—if some god didn't just copy your color and shape the way painters do, but made all your inner parts too just like yours, reproducing the same softness and warmth, and put in them the same motion and soul and thought that are in you, in a word, set up beside you a duplicate of everything you have—would that be Cratylus and an image of Cratylus, or two Cratyluses? CRATYLUS: It seems to me, Socrates, there would be two Cratyluses. SOCRATES: Then you see, my friend, that we must look for some other standard of correctness for an image than the one we were just discussing, and not insist that if anything is missing or added, it's no longer an image at all? Don't you notice how far short images fall of having the same qualities as the things they're images of? CRATYLUS: I do. SOCRATES: It would be ridiculous indeed, Cratylus, if the things that names belong to suffered the very effects of those names, should everything be made to resemble them in every way. Everything would come in pairs, and no one could ever say which was which—which was the thing itself and which was the name. CRATYLUS: True. SOCRATES: So take heart, my noble friend, and allow that one name may be well laid down and another not, and don't force it to have all the letters needed to be exactly as the thing it names is, but allow even an unfitting letter to be applied. And if a letter, then also a name within a sentence; and if a name, then also a sentence carrying, within discourse, things not quite fitting the matter at hand—and let the thing still be named and spoken of, so long as the outline of the thing the discourse concerns is present in it, just as we said a moment ago about the names of the elements, if you remember what Hermogenes and I were saying then.

CRATYLUS: I do remember. SOCRATES: Good, then. For when that outline is present, even if not all the fitting elements are there, the thing will still be spoken of—well, when all are present, poorly when only a few are. So let's allow that it's spoken of, my good man, so that we don't run afoul the way the night-wanderers in Aegina do, arriving too late on the road—lest we too seem, in reality, to have come to the matter later than we should have—or else you must look for some other standard of correctness for a name, and stop agreeing that a name is a display of a thing by way of syllables and letters. Because if you maintain both of these at once, you won't be able to stay consistent with yourself. CRATYLUS: Well, Socrates, you seem to me to be speaking reasonably, and I accept it on those terms. SOCRATES: Since we agree on this much, then, let's next consider the following. If a name is going to be well laid down, must it have the fitting letters? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the fitting ones are those that resemble the things? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the well-laid ones are laid down this way; but if some were not laid down well, the greater part might still consist of fitting and resembling letters, if indeed it's to be an image at all, yet it might also contain something unfitting, on account of which the name would not be fine or well made. Do we say this, or something else? CRATYLUS: There's no need to fight about it, Socrates, I think—though it doesn't sit well with me to say a thing is a name and yet is not well laid down. SOCRATES: Is it this that doesn't sit well with you—that the name is a display of the thing? CRATYLUS: It is. SOCRATES: But doesn't it seem right to you to say that some names are composed from earlier ones, and others are primary? CRATYLUS: It does. SOCRATES: But if the primary names are to become displays of certain things, do you have any better way for them to become displays than to make them, as much as possible, of just the sort that the things they must display actually are? Or do you prefer instead the way Hermogenes and many others describe—that names are conventions, and display things to those who have agreed on them and already know the things beforehand, and that this—convention—is the correctness of a name, and it makes no difference whether one agrees on names as they now stand, or the very opposite, calling 'big' what is now 'small,' and 'small' what is now 'big'? Which of these ways do you prefer?

CRATYLUS: It makes all the difference in the world, Socrates, whether you show what you mean by a genuine likeness rather than by whatever happens to come to hand. SOCRATES: Well said. So if a name is going to be like the thing it names, then the letters out of which the first names are put together must themselves be naturally like the things — mustn't they? Here's what I mean. Could anyone ever have put together that painting we were just talking about, so that it resembled some real thing, if colors didn't naturally exist that were like the things — the colors out of which paintings are composed, matching whatever it is that painting imitates? Or is that impossible? CRATYLUS: Impossible. SOCRATES: Then in the same way, names could never come to resemble anything unless the elements out of which names are put together first had some likeness to the things of which the names are imitations. And the elements out of which they must be composed are the letters? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So now you too are in on the argument that Hermogenes and I were just having. Tell me, do you think we were right to say that rho resembles motion and movement and hardness, or not? CRATYLUS: Right, in my view. SOCRATES: And that lambda resembles smoothness and softness and the things we mentioned just now? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then you're aware that for the very same thing, we say 'sklērotēs' — hardness — while the Eretrians say 'sklērotēr'? CRATYLUS: I certainly am. SOCRATES: Well then, do rho and sigma both resemble the same thing, and does the word mean the same thing to the Eretrians ending in rho as it does to us ending in sigma — or does it fail to signify for one or the other of us? CRATYLUS: It signifies for both. SOCRATES: Is that because rho and sigma happen to be alike, or because they aren't? CRATYLUS: Because they're alike. SOCRATES: Are they alike in every respect? CRATYLUS: At least in signifying motion, presumably. SOCRATES: And what about the lambda in the word — doesn't it signify the very opposite of hardness? CRATYLUS: Perhaps it's simply misplaced there, Socrates — the way you yourself were just telling Hermogenes, taking out letters and putting others in wherever needed, and it seemed right to me. So perhaps here too we should say rho instead of lambda. SOCRATES: Well put. But then — as we now speak, do we understand nothing of each other when someone says 'hard'? Don't you know right now what I mean? CRATYLUS: I do, my friend, but only through habit. SOCRATES: And when you say 'habit,' do you think you're saying something different from convention? Or do you mean anything else by habit except that when I utter this word I have that thing in mind, and you recognize that I have it in mind? Isn't that what you mean?

CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So if you recognize what I mean when I speak, doesn't that come to you as a signal from me? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But it comes from something unlike what I have in mind when I speak it, if the lambda really is unlike the hardness you're talking about. And if that's so, then what else is going on except that you yourself have simply agreed to it, and for you the correctness of the name has become a matter of convention — since it signifies both through letters that resemble the thing and letters that don't, once habit and convention have taken hold? And if habit is absolutely not the same as convention, then it would no longer be right to say that likeness is what does the signifying, but habit — since habit, it seems, signifies through both what's alike and what's unlike. Now since we're agreed on this, Cratylus — I'll take your silence as agreement — it must be that convention and habit contribute something toward signifying what we mean when we speak. Because, my good man, if you're willing to go as far as number, where do you think you'll get names resembling each and every number, unless you're going to let your own agreement and convention carry some authority over the correctness of names? For my part, I'd like it if names could, as far as possible, resemble the things they name. But rather than let this pull toward likeness be, as Hermogenes put it, a thin and threadbare thing, I think we're forced to make use of this crude tool too — convention — for the correctness of names. Because presumably a thing is spoken of most beautifully, as far as possible, when it's spoken of through names that are wholly or mostly alike to it — that is, fitting — and most shamefully the opposite way. But tell me this next: what power do names have for us, and what good do we say they accomplish? CRATYLUS: To teach, Socrates, is what I think they do — and this is quite simple: whoever knows the names knows the things as well. SOCRATES: Perhaps, Cratylus, what you mean is something like this: once someone knows what a name is like — and it's just like the thing — he'll then also know the thing, since it happens to be like the name, and there's a single, identical skill involved in knowing all things that are alike to one another. On this view, I take you to be saying that whoever knows the names will also know the things. CRATYLUS: That's exactly right. SOCRATES: Wait, then, and let's see what this manner of teaching about the things that you're now describing could actually be, and whether there's another way — one that's better than this — or whether there's no other way at all except this one. Which do you think it is?

CRATYLUS: I think there's really no other way — this is the only one, and the best one. SOCRATES: And is discovering the things the very same process as this — so that whoever discovers the names has thereby discovered the very things the names belong to? Or must searching and discovering follow one method, and learning another? CRATYLUS: Most certainly, searching and discovering follow this very same method, in just the same way. SOCRATES: Well then, let's think it through, Cratylus. Suppose someone searching for the things followed the names, examining what each one is meant to be — don't you see that there's no small danger of being deceived? CRATYLUS: How so? SOCRATES: Clearly, whoever first laid down the names laid them down to match whatever he supposed the things to be, as we've been saying. Right? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So if he didn't suppose rightly, but laid down names to match what he supposed, what do you think will happen to us who follow him? Anything but being deceived? CRATYLUS: But perhaps it isn't like that, Socrates — perhaps whoever laid down the names had to lay them down knowing the things; otherwise, as I said a while ago, they wouldn't even be names at all. And here's the strongest proof for you that the name-giver hasn't strayed from the truth: he could never have made everything so consistent with itself. Or didn't you yourself notice, when you were speaking, that all the names came out agreeing with one and the same pattern? SOCRATES: But that, my good Cratylus, is no defense at all. Because if the name-giver went wrong right at the start, and then forced everything else to fit that mistake and made it all agree with itself, there's nothing strange in that — it's just like a geometric diagram where a small, unnoticed error creeps in at the very first step, and then everything that follows, however vast, comes out consistent with it. So every person, about the starting point of anything at all, needs a great deal of argument and a great deal of examination as to whether it's rightly laid down or not; and once that's been adequately tested, the rest will show itself to follow from it. All the same, I would be surprised if the names really do agree with one another. Let's go back and reconsider what we went through before. We were saying that names signify to us that reality consists of everything going and moving and flowing. Do you think that's what they mean to show, or not?

CRATYLUS: Very much so, and I think they signify it correctly. SOCRATES: Then let's take these up again and examine them, starting with this very word — 'epistēmē,' knowledge — how ambiguous it is, and how it seems more to signify that it stops our soul upon the things than that it moves along with them; and it would be more correct, the way we're saying it just now, to pronounce the beginning of it the way we do, rather than inserting an extra epsilon and saying 'hepeistēmē' — better to make the insertion in the iota instead of the epsilon. Next take 'bebaion,' the steadfast — it's an imitation of a certain standing and settling, not of motion. Next 'historia,' inquiry, itself surely signifies that it stops the flow. And 'piston,' the trustworthy, entirely signifies something that has been made to stand still. Then again, 'mnēmē,' memory, surely tells everyone that it's a remaining-in-place within the soul, not a motion. And if you like, 'hamartia,' error, and 'symphora,' misfortune — if one follows them by their name — will turn out to be the very same as 'synesis,' understanding, and 'epistēmē,' knowledge, and all the other names having to do with serious matters. Further still, 'amathia,' ignorance, and 'akolasia,' licentiousness, appear closely related to these: for the one, ignorance, appears to be the journeying of one who goes along with a god, and licentiousness appears entirely to be a following-along with things. And so the very names we take to belong to the worst things would turn out most similar to those belonging to the best things. And I think one would find many other cases too, if one took the trouble, from which one might in turn come to believe that whoever laid down the names meant to signify not things that go and move, but things that remain at rest. CRATYLUS: But look, Socrates, you see that the majority of names signified it the other way. SOCRATES: So what of that, Cratylus? Shall we count up the names like counting pebbles, and let correctness rest on that — whichever way turns out to have more names signifying it, that will be the truth? CRATYLUS: That, at least, doesn't seem reasonable.

SOCRATES: Not in the least, my friend. Let's leave that point aside, and go back to where we turned off from before. A little while ago, if you remember, you were saying that whoever lays down the names must necessarily know the things he was laying them down for. Do you still think that, or not? CRATYLUS: I still do. SOCRATES: And do you say that whoever laid down the very first names also laid them down knowing the things? CRATYLUS: Knowing them. SOCRATES: Then out of what names had he learned or discovered the things, if indeed the first names hadn't yet been laid down at all — given that we say it's impossible to learn or discover the things in any other way than by learning the names or by finding out for oneself what they're like? CRATYLUS: I think you have a point there, Socrates. SOCRATES: So in what way are we to say that these people knew the things, or were law-givers, before any name whatsoever had been laid down and before they themselves could know it — given that it isn't possible to learn the things except from the names? CRATYLUS: I think, Socrates, that the truest account of this is that some power greater than human laid down the first names for things, so that they're bound to be correct. SOCRATES: Then do you think that this power, being some spirit or god, would have laid down names contradicting each other? Or did you think we were saying nothing just now? CRATYLUS: But perhaps one set of those names simply wasn't names at all. SOCRATES: Which set, my excellent friend — the ones that lead toward rest, or the ones that lead toward motion? Surely it won't be decided, as was said just now, by a head count. CRATYLUS: No, that certainly wouldn't be fair, Socrates. SOCRATES: So with the names in a state of civil war, some claiming that they themselves are the ones like the truth, others claiming the same for themselves, by what shall we still judge between them, or what shall we turn to? Certainly not to other names besides these — there aren't any — but clearly we must look for something else entirely, apart from names, that will show us, without recourse to names, which of the two sets is true, by showing us plainly the truth of the things themselves. CRATYLUS: I think that's so. SOCRATES: Then it seems, Cratylus, that it's possible to learn the things that are without names at all, if that's really how it stands. CRATYLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then through what else do you still expect to learn them? Through what else could it be, other than what's reasonable and most just — through one another, if they're somehow akin, and through themselves? For anything other than and different from the things themselves would surely signify something other and different, not the things themselves. CRATYLUS: What you say appears true to me.

SOCRATES: Wait, for heaven's sake. Haven't we agreed, more than once, that names correctly given are like the things they name, and are images of those things? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then if it's possible to learn about things through names, but also possible to learn about them directly, which way of learning would be better and clearer -- to learn from the image whether it's been well made, and also to learn the truth of which it's an image, or to learn from the truth itself, both the truth and whether its image was fittingly made? CRATYLUS: It seems to me the learning must come from the truth. SOCRATES: Now, just what method one ought to use to learn or discover the things that are -- that's probably a bigger question than you or I can settle. But we can at least agree on this much: that things should be learned and investigated not from names but far more from themselves. CRATYLUS: So it appears, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then let's look at one more point, so that this great mass of names all tending in the same direction doesn't deceive us -- suppose the people who gave the names really did think, when they gave them, that everything is always moving and flowing (and it does look to me as though they thought exactly that), but suppose that isn't actually how things are, and instead these namers themselves fell into a kind of whirlpool and got stirred up in it, and are now dragging us in after them and pushing us in too. Consider this, my astonishing Cratylus -- something I myself dream about often. Shall we say there is such a thing as the beautiful itself, and the good, and each one of the things that are, just by itself? CRATYLUS: It seems to me there is, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then let's examine that very thing -- not whether some face is beautiful, or something of that sort, since all such things do seem to be in flux -- but rather, isn't the beautiful itself always such as it is? CRATYLUS: It must be. SOCRATES: Then could one even speak of it correctly, if it's always slipping away -- first saying that it is that, and then that it is such -- or must it be that, the very moment we're speaking, it immediately becomes something else and slips away and is no longer as we said? CRATYLUS: It must. SOCRATES: Then how could something be a thing at all, if it never stays the same? For if it's ever in the same state, then clearly, during that time at least, it isn't changing at all; and if it's always in the same state and is always the same thing, how could it possibly change or move, without departing at all from its own form? CRATYLUS: In no way.

SOCRATES: And what's more, it couldn't be known by anyone at all. For the very moment the one who would know it approached, it would become something else, something different, so that it could no longer be known as being of any particular kind or in any particular state. And surely no knowledge knows something that is in no state at all. CRATYLUS: It is as you say. SOCRATES: But then it isn't even reasonable to say that knowledge exists at all, Cratylus, if all things are changing and nothing stays put. For if this very thing, knowledge, did not change from being knowledge, then knowledge would remain forever and would be knowledge. But if even the form of knowledge changes, then at the very moment it changed into another form of knowledge, there would be no knowledge; and if it's always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this argument there would be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always something that knows, and something that is known, and if the beautiful exists, and the good exists, and each one of the things that are exists, then it seems to me these things we're now discussing bear no resemblance at all to flux or motion. Whether things really are this way, or the other way -- the way Heraclitus and his followers and many others describe -- that isn't easy to settle, and it isn't the mark of a sensible man to entrust himself and his own soul to names, putting his trust in them and in the people who coined them, and to assert with confidence that he knows something, condemning both himself and everything that is as having nothing sound about it, but everything flowing like leaky pots, and to believe -- exactly like people suffering from a head cold -- that things themselves are in the same condition, all of them, all things being swept along by some perpetual flux and catarrh. Perhaps that's how it is, Cratylus, and perhaps it isn't. So you must examine it courageously and thoroughly, and not accept things too readily -- you're still young, you have time for it -- and once you've examined it, if you find the answer, share it with me too. CRATYLUS: I'll do that. But you should know, Socrates, that even now I haven't been examining this carelessly, and the more I work at it and trouble myself over it, the more it seems to me things are just as Heraclitus says. SOCRATES: Then you'll teach me another time, my friend, when you come back. For now, go to the country, just as you've made ready to do; Hermogenes here will see you on your way. CRATYLUS: So be it, Socrates -- but you too should try to keep thinking about these things.

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