434
Socrates
Socrates. You are right. Then if the name is like the thing, the letters of which the primary names are to be formed must be by their very nature like the things, must they not? Let me explain. Could a painting, to revert to our previous comparison, ever be made like any real thing, if there were no pigments out of which the painting is composed, which were by their nature like the objects which the painter’s art imitates? Is not that impossible?
Cratylus
Cratylus. Yes, it is impossible.
Socrates
Socrates. In the same way, names can never be like anything unless those elements of which the names are composed exist in the first place and possess some kind of likeness to the things which the names imitate; and the elements of which they are composed are the letters, are they not?
Cratylus
Cratylus. Yes.
5
Socrates
Socrates. Then I must now ask you to consider with me the subject which Hermogenes and I discussed a while ago. Do you think I am right in saying that rho is expressive of speed, motion, and hardness, or not?
Cratylus
Cratylus. You are right.
Socrates
Socrates. And lambda is like smoothness, softness, and the other qualities we mentioned?
Socrates
Socrates. You know, of course, that we call the same thing σκληρότης (hardness) which the Eretrians call σκληρότηρ?
10
Cratylus
Cratylus. Certainly.
Socrates
Socrates. Have rho and sigma both a likeness to the same thing, and does the final rho mean to them just what the sigma means to us, or is there to one of us no meaning?
Cratylus
Cratylus. They mean the same to both.
