Cratylus

Socrates. Up to this point, as I said just now, many men agree about justice (δίκαιον); and I, Hermogenes, being very much in earnest about it, have persistently asked questions and have been told in secret teachings that this is justice, or the cause—for that through which creation takes place is a cause—and some one told me that it was for this reason rightly called Zeus (Δία). But when, after hearing this, I nevertheless ask them quietly, What then, my most excellent friend, if this is true, is justice? they think I am asking too many questions and am leaping over the trenches.[*](A trench was the limit of the leap for the pentathletes.) They say I have been told enough; they try to satisfy me by saying all sorts of different things, and they no longer agree. For one says the sun is justice, for the sun alone superintends all things, passing through and burning (διαϊόντα καὶ καίοντα) them. Then when I am pleased and tell this to some one, thinking it is a fine answer, he laughs at me and asks if I think there is no justice among men when the sun has set. So I beg him to tell me what he thinks it is, and he says Fire. But this is not easy to understand. He says it is not actual fire, but heat in the abstract that is in the fire. Another man says he laughs at all these notions, and that justice is what Anaxagoras says it is, mind; for mind, he says, is ruled only by itself, is mixed with nothing, orders all things, and passes through them. Then, my friend, I am far more perplexed than before I undertook to learn about the nature of justice. But I think the name—and that was the subject of our investigation—was given for the reasons I have mentioned.

Hermogenes. I think, Socrates, you must have heard this from some one and are not inventing it yourself.

Socrates. And how about the rest of my talk?

Hermogenes. I do not at all think you had heard that.

Socrates. Listen then; perhaps I may deceive you into thinking that all I am going to say is my own. What remains to consider after justice? I think we have not yet discussed courage. It is plain enough that injustice (ἀδικία) is really a mere hindrance of that which passes through (τοῦ διαϊόντος, but the word ἀδρεία (courage) implies that courage got its name in battle, and if the universe is flowing, a battle in the universe can be nothing else than an opposite current or flow (ῥοή). Now if we remove the delta from the word ἀνδρεία, the word ἀνρεία signifies exactly that activity.

Socrates Of course it is clear that not the current opposed to every current is courage, but only that opposed to the current which is contrary to justice; for otherwise courage would not be praised. The words ἄρρεν (male) and ἀνήρ (man) refer, like ἀνδρεία, to the upward (ἄνω) current or flow. The word γυνή (woman) seems to me to be much the same as γονή (birth). I think θῆλυ (female) is derived from θηλή (teat); and is not θηλή, Hermogenes, so called because it makes things flourish (τεθηλέναι), like plants wet with showers?

Hermogenes. Very likely, Socrates.

Socrates. And again, the word θάλλειν (flourish) seems to me to figure the rapid and sudden growth of the young. Something of that sort the namegiver has reproduced in the name, which he compounded of θεῖν (run) and ἅλλεσθαι (jump). You do not seem to notice how I rush along outside of the race-course, when I get on smooth ground. But we still have plenty of subjects left which seem to be serious.

Hermogenes. True.

Socrates. One of which is to see what the word τέχνη (art, science) means.

Hermogenes. Certainly.

Socrates. Does not this denote possession of mind, if you remove the tau and insert omicron between the chi and the nu and the nu and the eta (making ἐχονόη)?

Hermogenes. It does it very poorly, Socrates.

Socrates. My friend, you do not bear in mind that the original words have before now been completely buried by those who wished to dress them up, for they have added and subtracted letters for the sake of euphony and have distorted the words in every way for ornamentation or merely in the lapse of time. Do you not, for instance, think it absurd that the letter rho is inserted in the word κάαπτρον (mirror)? I think that sort of thing is the work of people who care nothing for truth, but only for the shape of their mouths; so they keep adding to the original words until finally no human being can understand what in the world the word means. So the sphinx, for instance, is called sphinx, instead of phix, and there are many other examples.

Hermogenes. Yes, that is true, Socrates.

Socrates. And if we are permitted to insert and remove any letters we please in words, it will be perfectly easy to fit any name to anything.

Hermogenes. True.

Socrates. Yes, quite true. But I think you, as a wise director, must observe the rule of moderation and probability.

Hermogenes. I should like to do so.