cratylus   

Soc. Many terrible misfortunes are said to have happened to him in his
life- last of all, came the utter ruin of his country; and after his
death he had the stone suspended (talanteia) over his head in the
world below- all this agrees wonderfully well with his name. You might
imagine that some person who wanted to call him Talantatos (the most
weighted down by misfortune), disguised the name by altering it into
Tantalus; and into this form, by some accident of tradition, it has
actually been transmuted. The name of Zeus, who is his alleged father,
has also an excellent meaning, although hard to be understood, because
really like a sentence, which is divided into two parts, for some call
him Zena, and use the one half, and others who use the other half call
him Dia; the two together signify the nature of the God, and the
business of a name, as we were saying, is to express the nature. For
there is none who is more the author of life to us and to all, than
the lord 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.
Her. You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly
inspired, and to be uttering oracles.
Soc. 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.
Her. With all my heart; for am very curious to hear the rest of the
enquiry about names.
Soc. 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), or Theophilus (the beloved of God), and others.
But I think that we had better leave these, for there will be more
chance of finding correctness in the names of immutable essences;-
there ought to have been more care taken about them when they were
named, and perhaps there may have been some more than human power at
work occasionally in giving them names.
Her. I think so, Socrates.
Soc. Ought we not to begin with the consideration of the Gods, and
show that they are" rightly named Gods?
Her. Yes, that will be well.
Soc. My notion would be something of this sort:- I suspect that the
sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven, which are still the Gods of many
barbarians, were the only Gods known to the aboriginal Hellenes.