and king of all.
Wherefore we are right in calling him Zena and Dia, which are one name,
although divided, meaning the God through whom all creatures always have
life (di on zen aei pasi tois zosin uparchei). There is an irreverence,
at first sight, in calling him son of Cronos (who is a proverb for
stupidity), and we might rather expect Zeus to be the child of a mighty
intellect. Which is the fact; for this is the meaning of his father's
name: Kronos quasi Koros (Choreo, to sweep), not in the sense of a
youth, but signifying to chatharon chai acheraton tou nou, the pure
and garnished mind (sc. apo tou chorein). He, as we are informed by
tradition, was begotten of Uranus, rightly so called (apo tou oran ta
ano) from looking upwards; which, as philosophers tell us, is the way to
have a pure mind, and the name Uranus is therefore correct. If I could
remember the genealogy of Hesiod, I would have gone on and tried more
conclusions of the same sort on the remoter ancestors of the Gods,--then
I might have seen whether this wisdom, which has come to me all in an
instant, I know not whence, will or will not hold good to the end.

HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly
inspired, and to be uttering oracles.

SOCRATES: Yes, Hermogenes, and I believe that I caught the inspiration
from the great Euthyphro of the Prospaltian deme, who gave me a long
lecture which commenced at dawn: he talked and I listened, and his
wisdom and enchanting ravishment has not only filled my ears but taken
possession of my soul, and to-day I shall let his superhuman power
work and finish the investigation of names--that will be the way; but
to-morrow, if you are so disposed, we will conjure him away, and make
a purgation of him, if we can only find some priest or sophist who is
skilled in purifications of this sort.

HERMOGENES: With all my heart; for am very curious to hear the rest of
the enquiry about names.

SOCRATES: Then let us proceed; and where would you have us begin, now
that we have got a sort of outline of the enquiry? Are there any names
which witness of themselves that they are not given arbitrarily, but
have a natural fitness? The names of heroes and of men in general are
apt to be deceptive because they are often called after ancestors with
whose names, as we were saying, they may have no business; or they are
the expression of a wish like Eutychides (the son of good fortune), or
Sosias (the Saviour),