Thesauros Literature Philosophy Κρατύλος

Κρατύλος

Κρατύλος Plato
392 Socrates. Let us, then, consider the reason for this. Does he not himself indicate the reason most admirably? For he says— He alone defended their city and long walls.Hom. Il. 22.507But the verb is in the second person, addressed by Hecuba to Hector after his death. Therefore, as it seems, it is right to call the son of the defender Astyanax (Lord of the city), ruler of that which his father, as Homer says, defended.
392 Hermogenes. That is clear to me.
392 Socrates. Indeed? I do not yet understand about it myself, Hermogenes. Do you?
392 Hermogenes. No, by Zeus, I do not.
393 Socrates. But, my good friend, did not Homer himself also give Hector his name?
393 Hermogenes. Why do you ask that?
393 Socrates. Because that name seems to me similar to Astyanax, and both names seem to be Greek. For lord (ἄναξ) and holder (ἕκτωρ) mean nearly the same thing, indicating that they are names of a king; for surely a man is holder of that of which he is lord; for it is clear that he rules it and possesses it and holds it. Or does it seem to you that there is nothing in what I am saying, and am I wrong in imagining that I have found a clue to Homer’s opinion about the correctness of names?
393 Hermogenes. No, by Zeus, you are not wrong, in my opinion; I think perhaps you have found a clue.
393 Socrates. It is right, I think, to call a lion’s offspring a lion and a horse’s offspring a horse. I am not speaking of prodigies, such as the birth of some other kind of creature from a horse, but of the natural offspring of each species after its kind. If a horse, contrary to nature, should bring forth a calf, the natural offspring of a cow, it should be called a calf, not a colt, nor if any offspring that is not human should be born from a human being, should that other offspring be called a human being; and the same applies to trees and all the rest. Do you not agree?
393 Hermogenes. Yes.

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