s in letters and syllables.

HERMOGENES: I cannot answer you, Socrates; but I find a difficulty in
changing my opinion all in a moment, and I think that I should be more
readily persuaded, if you would show me what this is which you term the
natural fitness of names.

SOCRATES: My good Hermogenes, I have none to show. Was I not telling you
just now (but you have forgotten), that I knew nothing, and proposing to
share the enquiry with you? But now that you and I have talked over the
matter, a step has been gained; for we have discovered that names have
by nature a truth, and that not every man knows how to give a thing a
name.

HERMOGENES: Very good.

SOCRATES: And what is the nature of this truth or correctness of names?
That, if you care to know, is the next question.

HERMOGENES: Certainly, I care to know.

SOCRATES: Then reflect.

HERMOGENES: How shall I reflect?

SOCRATES: The true way is to have the assistance of those who know,
and you must pay them well both in money and in thanks; these are the
Sophists, of whom your brother, Callias, has--rather dearly--bought the
reputation of wisdom. But you have not yet come into your inheritance,
and therefore you had better go to him, and beg and entreat him to tell
you what he has learnt from Protagoras about the fitness of names.

HERMOGENES: But how inconsistent should I be, if, whilst repudiating
Protagoras and his truth ('Truth' was the title of the book of
Protagoras; compare Theaet.), I were to attach any value to what he and
his book affirm!

SOCRATES: Then if you despise him, you must learn of Homer and the
poets.

HERMOGENES: And where does Homer say anything about names, and what does
he say?

SOCRATES: He often speaks of them; notably and nobly in the places where
he distinguishes the different names which Gods and men give to the same
things. Does he not in these passages make a remarkable statement about
the correctness of names? For the Gods must clearly be supposed to call
things by their right and natural names; do you not think so?

HERMOGENES: Why, of course they call them rightly, if they call them at
all. But to what are you referring?

SOCRATES: Do you not know what he says about the river in Troy who had a
single combat with Hephaestus?

'Whom,' as he says, 'the Gods call Xanthus, and men call Scamander.'

HERMOGENES: I remember.

SOCRATES: Well, and about this river--to know that he ought to be called
Xanthus and not Scamander