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.

HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to be quite like a prophet newly
inspired, and to be uttering oracles.

SOCRATES: 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