barians, often borrowed from them.

HERMOGENES: What is the inference?

SOCRATES: Why, you know that any one who seeks to demonstrate the
fitness of these names according to the Hellenic language, and not
according to the language from which the words are derived, is rather
likely to be at fault.

HERMOGENES: Yes, certainly.

SOCRATES: Well then, consider whether this pur is not foreign; for the
word is not easily brought into relation with the Hellenic tongue, and
the Phrygians may be observed to have the same word slightly changed,
just as they have udor (water) and kunes (dogs), and many other words.

HERMOGENES: That is true.

SOCRATES: Any violent interpretations of the words should be avoided;
for something to say about them may easily be found. And thus I get rid
of pur and udor. Aer (air), Hermogenes, may be explained as the element
which raises (airei) things from the earth, or as ever flowing (aei
rei), or because the flux of the air is wind, and the poets call the
winds 'air-blasts,' (aetai); he who uses the term may mean, so to speak,
air-flux (aetorroun), in the sense of wind-flux (pneumatorroun); and
because this moving wind may be expressed by either term he employs
the word air (aer = aetes rheo). Aither (aether) I should interpret as
aeitheer; this may be correctly said, because this element is always
running in a flux about the air (aei thei peri tou aera reon). The
meaning of the word ge (earth) comes out better when in the form of
gaia, for the earth may be truly called 'mother' (gaia, genneteira), as
in the language of Homer (Od.) gegaasi means gegennesthai.

HERMOGENES: Good.

SOCRATES: What shall we take next?

HERMOGENES: There are orai (the seasons), and the two names of the year,
eniautos and etos.

SOCRATES: The orai should be spelt in the old Attic way, if you desire
to know the probable truth about them; they are rightly called the orai
because they divide (orizousin) the summers and winters and winds and
the fruits of the earth. The words eniautos and etos appear to be the
same,--'that which brings to light the plants and growths of the
earth in their turn, and passes them in review within itself (en eauto
exetazei)': this is broken up into two words, eniautos from en eauto,
and etos from etazei, just as the original name of Zeus was divided
into Zena and Dia; and the whole proposition means that his power of
reviewing from within is one, but has two names, two words etos and
e