Complete Works (30 page)

H
ERMOGENES
: How could
I
do that, Socrates? I wouldn’t strain myself to find it even if I could, because I think you’re much more likely to find it than I am.

S
OCRATES
: You really do have faith in Euthyphro’s inspiration, it seems.
[399]

H
ERMOGENES
: Clearly.

S
OCRATES
: And you’re certainly right to have faith in it. Indeed, I seem to have had such a clever insight just now, that, if I’m not careful, I’ll be in danger of becoming altogether
too
wise before the day is out. So pay attention. First of all, we must bear in mind the following point about names: we often add letters or take them out and change the accents as well, thus swerving aside from what we want to name. For instance, take ‘
Dii philos
’ (‘Friend-to-Zeus’). In order for us to have a name instead of a phrase, we took out the second ‘
i
’, and pronounced the second syllable [b] with a grave accent instead of an acute (‘
Diphilos
’). In other cases, we do the opposite, inserting letters and pronouncing a syllable with an acute accent instead of a grave.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s true.

S
OCRATES
: Now, I think our name for human beings is a case of just this sort. It was a phrase but became a name. One letter—‘
a
’—has been taken away and the accent on the final syllable has become a grave.

H
ERMOGENES
: What do you mean?

S
OCRATES
: The name ‘human’ signifies that the other animals do not [c] investigate or reason about anything they see, nor do they observe anything closely. But a human being no sooner sees something—that is to say, ‘
op
ō
pe
’—than he observes it closely and reasons about it. Hence human beings alone among the animals are correctly named ‘
anthr
ō
pos
’—one who observes closely what he has seen (
anathr
ō
n ha op
ō
pe
).

H
ERMOGENES
: What comes next? May I tell you what I’d like to have explained?

S
OCRATES
: Of course.

[d] H
ERMOGENES
: It seems to me to be next in order. We speak of the body and soul of a human being.

S
OCRATES
: Certainly.

H
ERMOGENES
: Then let’s try to analyze their names as we did the previous ones.

S
OCRATES
: Are you saying that we should investigate whether soul and then body are reasonably named?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: Speaking off the top of my head, I think that those who gave soul its name had something like this in mind. They thought that when the soul is present in the body, it causes it to live and gives it the power [e] to breathe the air and be revitalized (
anapsuchon
), and that when this revitalization fails, the body dies and is finished. It’s for this reason, I think, that they called it ‘soul’ (‘
psuch
ē
). But hold on a minute, if you don’t mind, for I imagine that the followers of Euthyphro would despise this
[400]
analysis and think it crude. But I think I glimpse one they will find more persuasive. Have a look and see whether it pleases you.

H
ERMOGENES
: Tell it to me and I will.

S
OCRATES
: When you consider the nature of every body, what, besides the soul, do you think sustains and supports it, so that it lives and moves about?

H
ERMOGENES
: There isn’t anything.

S
OCRATES
: What about when you consider the nature of everything else? Don’t you agree with Anaxagoras that it is ordered and sustained by mind or soul?

H
ERMOGENES
: I do.

[b] S
OCRATES
: So a fine name to give this power, which supports and sustains (
ochei kai echei
) the whole of nature (
phusis
), would be ‘nature-sustainer’ (‘
phusech
ē
’). This may also be pronounced more elegantly, ‘
psuch
ē
’.

H
ERMOGENES
: Absolutely, and I also think this
is
a more scientific explanation than the other.

S
OCRATES
: Yes, it is. Nevertheless, it sounds funny when it’s named in the true way, with its actual name (i.e., ‘
phusech
ē
’).

H
ERMOGENES
: What are we going to say about the next one?

S
OCRATES
: Are you referring to the name ‘body’?

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: There’s a lot to say, it seems to me—and if one distorted the name a little, there would be even more. Thus some people say that the [c] body (
s
ō
ma
) is the tomb (
s
ē
ma
) of the soul, on the grounds that it is entombed in its present life, while others say that it is correctly called ‘a sign’ (‘
s
ē
ma
’) because the soul signifies whatever it wants to signify by means of the body. I think it is most likely the followers of Orpheus who gave the body its name, with the idea that the soul is being punished for something, and that the body is an enclosure or prison in which the soul is securely kept (
s
ō
zetai
)—as the name ‘
s
ō
ma
’ itself suggests—until the penalty is paid; for, on this view, not even a single letter of the word needs to be changed.

H
ERMOGENES
: I think we’ve adequately examined these names, Socrates. [d] But could we investigate the names of the other gods along the lines of your earlier discussion of ‘Zeus’, to see with what kind of correctness they have been given?

S
OCRATES
: By Zeus, we certainly can, Hermogenes. The first and finest line of investigation, which as intelligent people we must acknowledge, is this, that we admit that we know nothing about the gods themselves or about the names they call themselves—although it is clear that they call themselves by true ones. The second best line on the correctness of names is to say, as is customary in our prayers, that we hope the gods are pleased by the names we give them, since we know no others. I think this is an excellent custom. So, if it’s all right with you, let’s begin our investigation
[401]
by first announcing to the gods that we will not be investigating
them
—since we do not regard ourselves as worthy to conduct such an investigation—but rather human beings, and the beliefs they had in giving the gods their names. After all, there’s no offense in doing that.

H
ERMOGENES
: What you say seems reasonable to me, Socrates, so let’s proceed as you suggest.

S
OCRATES
: Shall we begin, as is customary, with Hestia?
²²
[b]

H
ERMOGENES
: All right.

S
OCRATES
: What do you think the person who gave Hestia her name had in mind by naming her that?

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s no easy question to answer, in my opinion.

S
OCRATES
: At any rate, Hermogenes, the first name-givers weren’t ordinary people, but lofty thinkers and subtle reasoners.

H
ERMOGENES
: What of it?

S
OCRATES
: Well, it’s obvious to me that it was people of this sort who gave things names, for even if one investigates names foreign to Attic Greek, it is equally easy to discover what they mean. In the case of what [c] we in Attic call ‘
ousia
’ (‘being’), for example, some call it ‘
essia
’ and others ‘
ō
sia
’. First, then, it is reasonable, according to the second of these names, to call the being or essence (
ousia
) of things ‘Hestia’. Besides, we ourselves say that what partakes of being ‘is’ (‘
estin
’), so being is also correctly called ‘Hestia’ for this reason. We even seem to have called being ‘
essia
’ in ancient times. And, if one has sacrifices in mind, one will realize that the namegivers themselves understood matters in this way, for anyone who called [d] the being or essence of all things ‘
essia
’ would naturally sacrifice to Hestia before all the other gods. On the other hand, those who use the name ‘
ō
sia
’ seem to agree pretty much with Heraclitus’ doctrine that the things that are are all flowing and that nothing stands fast—for the cause and originator of them is then the pusher (
ō
thoun
), and so is well named ‘
ō
sia
’. But that’s [e] enough for us to say about this, since we know nothing. After Hestia, it is right to investigate Rhea and Cronus, though we’ve already discussed the latter’s name. Now, maybe what I’m about to tell you is nonsense.

H
ERMOGENES
: Why do you say that, Socrates?

S
OCRATES
: Because I’ve got a whole swarm of wisdom in my mind!

H
ERMOGENES
: What sort of wisdom?

S
OCRATES
: It sounds completely absurd, yet it seems to me to have something
[402]
very plausible about it.

H
ERMOGENES
: How so?

S
OCRATES
: I seem to see Heraclitus spouting some ancient bits of wisdom that Homer also tells us—wisdom as old as the days of Cronus and Rhea.

H
ERMOGENES
: What are you referring to?

S
OCRATES
: Heraclitus says somewhere that “everything gives way and nothing stands fast,” and, likening the things that are to the flowing (
rho
ē
) of a river, he says that “you cannot step into the same river twice.”
²³

H
ERMOGENES
: So he does.

S
OCRATES
: Well, then, don’t you think that whoever gave the names ‘Rhea’ and ‘Cronus’ to the ancestors of the other gods understood things [b] in the same way as Heraclitus? Or do you think he gave them both the names of streams (
rheumata
) merely by chance?
²⁴
Similarly, Homer speaks of

Ocean, origin of the gods, and their mother Tethys;
²⁵

I think Hesiod says much the same. Orpheus, too, says somewhere that

Fair-flowing Ocean was the first to marry,
[c]
And he wedded his sister, the daughter of his mother.
²⁶

See how they agree with each other, and how they all lean towards the doctrines of Heraclitus.

H
ERMOGENES
: I think there’s something in what you say, Socrates, but I don’t understand what the name ‘Tethys’ means.

S
OCRATES
: But it practically tells you itself that it is the slightly disguised name of a spring! After all, what is strained (
diatt
ō
menon
) and filtered [d] (
ē
thoumenon
) is like a spring, and the name ‘Tethys’ is a compound of these two names.

H
ERMOGENES
: That’s elegant, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Indeed, it is. But what comes next? We’ve already talked about Zeus.

H
ERMOGENES
: Yes, we have.

S
OCRATES
: So let’s discuss his brothers, Posidon and Pluto (whether we call him ‘Pluto’ or by his other name).

H
ERMOGENES
: Certainly.

S
OCRATES
: It seems to me that whoever first gave Posidon his name, gave it to him because he saw that the force of the waves stopped him from walking and prevented him from going any further, just like a shackle [e] around his feet (
desmos t
ō
n pod
ō
n
). So he called this god, who is the ruler of the sea’s power, ‘Posidon’, because his ‘feet were shackled’ (‘
posidesmon
’)—the ‘
e
’ was probably added for the sake of euphony. But perhaps this isn’t what it says. Perhaps, instead of the ‘
s
’ the name was originally pronounced with a double ‘
l
’, because many things are known (
poll’ eid
ō
s
) to the god. Or maybe he was called ‘The Shaker’ (
‘ho sei
ō
n
’), because he
[403]
shook (
seiein
) the earth, and the ‘
p
’ and ‘
d
’ were added on. As for Pluto, he was given that name because it accords with his being the source of wealth (
ploutos
), since wealth comes up from below the ground. It seems to me that most people call him by the name ‘Pluto’, because they are afraid of what they can’t see (
aeides
), and they assume that his other name, ‘Hades’, associates him with that.

H
ERMOGENES
: And what do you think yourself, Socrates? [b]

S
OCRATES
: I think people have lots of mistaken opinions about the power of this god and are unduly afraid of him. They are afraid because once we are dead we remain in his realm forever. They are terrified because the soul goes there stripped of the body. But I think that all these things, together with the name and office of the god, point in the same direction.

H
ERMOGENES
: How so?

S
OCRATES
: I’ll tell you how it looks to me. But first answer me this: Of [c] the shackles that bind a living being and keep him in a place, which is stronger, force or desire?

H
ERMOGENES
: Desire is far stronger, Socrates.

S
OCRATES
: Don’t you think then that many people would escape from Hades, if he didn’t bind those who come to him with the strongest of shackles?