now the word maiesthai (to seek)?

HERMOGENES: Yes;--meaning the same as zetein (to enquire).

SOCRATES: The word onoma seems to be a compressed sentence, signifying
on ou zetema (being for which there is a search); as is still more
obvious in onomaston (notable), which states in so many words that real
existence is that for which there is a seeking (on ou masma); aletheia
is also an agglomeration of theia ale (divine wandering), implying
the divine motion of existence; pseudos (falsehood) is the opposite of
motion; here is another ill name given by the legislator to stagnation
and forced inaction, which he compares to sleep (eudein); but the
original meaning of the word is disguised by the addition of psi; on
and ousia are ion with an iota broken off; this agrees with the true
principle, for being (on) is also moving (ion), and the same may be said
of not being, which is likewise called not going (oukion or ouki on =
ouk ion).

HERMOGENES: You have hammered away at them manfully; but suppose that
some one were to say to you, what is the word ion, and what are reon and
doun?--show me their fitness.

SOCRATES: You mean to say, how should I answer him?

HERMOGENES: Yes.

SOCRATES: One way of giving the appearance of an answer has been already
suggested.

HERMOGENES: What way?

SOCRATES: To say that names which we do not understand are of foreign
origin; and this is very likely the right answer, and something of this
kind may be true of them; but also the original forms of words may have
been lost in the lapse of ages; names have been so twisted in all
manner of ways, that I should not be surprised if the old language
when compared with that now in use would appear to us to be a barbarous
tongue.

HERMOGENES: Very likely.

SOCRATES: Yes, very likely. But still the enquiry demands our earnest
attention and we must not flinch. For we should remember, that if a
person go on analysing names into words, and enquiring also into
the elements out of which the words are formed, and keeps on always
repeating this process, he who has to answer him must at last give up
the enquiry in despair.

HERMOGENES: Very true.

SOCRATES: And at what point ought he to lose heart and give up the
enquiry? Must he not stop when he comes to the names which are the
elements of all other names and sentences; for these cannot be supposed
to be made up of other names? The word agathon (good), for example, is,
as we were saying, a compoun