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 break the law by attempting to escape, when escape was easy.

This Dialogue turns entirely upon etymology, and hence it is extremely difficult to reproduce it in a modern form, as continual reference is made to Greek nouns and names. The humour is so extravagant and sustained, and the derivations, which Socrates gravely propounds, are often so fanciful and far-fetched, that Mr Jowett thinks Plato intended the Cratylus as a satire upon the false and specious philology of the day; but that the meaning of his satire (as is often the case) has "slept in the ear of posterity."

Cratylus, an admirer of Heraclitus, has been arguing about names with Hermogenes—a younger brother of the rich Callias, whom we have met before as the hospitable entertainer of Protagoras—and his brother Sophists. Hermogenes maintains that names are merely conventional signs, which can be given or taken away at pleasure; and that any name which you choose to give anything is correct until you change it: while Cratylus holds that names are real and natural expressions of thought, or else they would be mere inarticulate sounds; and that all truth comes from language. They invite Socrates, who has just joined them, to give his opinion. "Alas!" says Socrates, regretfully, "if I could only have afforded to attend that fifty-drachma course of lectures given by the great Prodicus, who advertised them as a complete education in grammar and language, I could have told you all