the Gods, I am afraid of them; but if you suggest other
words, you will see how the horses of Euthyphro prance. 'Only one more
God; tell me about my godfather Hermes.' He is ermeneus, the messenger
or cheater or thief or bargainer; or o eirein momenos, that is, eiremes
or ermes--the speaker or contriver of speeches. 'Well said Cratylus,
then, that I am no son of Hermes.' Pan, as the son of Hermes, is speech
or the brother of speech, and is called Pan because speech indicates
everything--o pan menuon. He has two forms, a true and a false; and is
in the upper part smooth, and in the lower part shaggy. He is the goat
of Tragedy, in which there are plenty of falsehoods.

'Will you go on to the elements--sun, moon, stars, earth, aether, air,
fire, water, seasons, years?' Very good: and which shall I take first?
Let us begin with elios, or the sun. The Doric form elios helps us to
see that he is so called because at his rising he gathers (alizei) men
together, or because he rolls about (eilei) the earth, or because he
variegates (aiolei = poikillei) the earth. Selene is an anticipation
of Anaxagoras, being a contraction of selaenoneoaeia, the light (selas)
which is ever old and new, and which, as Anaxagoras says, is borrowed
from the sun; the name was harmonized into selanaia, a form which is
still in use. 'That is a true dithyrambic name.' Meis is so called apo
tou meiousthai, from suffering diminution, and astron is from astrape
(lightning), which is an improvement of anastrope, that which turns the
eyes inside out. 'How do you explain pur n udor?' I suspect that pur,
which, like udor n kuon, is found in Phrygian, is a foreign word; for
the Hellenes have borrowed much from the barbarians, and I always resort
to this theory of a foreign origin when I am at a loss. Aer may be
explained, oti airei ta apo tes ges; or, oti aei rei; or, oti pneuma ex
autou ginetai (compare the poetic word aetai). So aither quasi aeitheer
oti aei thei peri ton aera: ge, gaia quasi genneteira (compare the
Homeric form gegaasi); ora (with an omega), or, according to the old
Attic form ora (with an omicron), is derived apo tou orizein, because
it divides the year; eniautos and etos are the same thought--o en eauto
etazon, cut into two parts, en eauto and etazon, like di on ze into Dios
and Zenos.

'You make surprising progress.' True; I am run away with, and am not
even yet at my utmost speed. 'I should like very much to hear your
account of the vir