Seite - 386 - in The Complete Plato
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SOCRATES: And are the men or the women of a city, taken as a class, the
wiser?
HERMOGENES: I should say, the men.
SOCRATES: And Homer, as you know, says that the Trojan men called
him Astyanax (king of the city); but if the men called him Astyanax, the other
name of Scamandrius could only have been given to him by the women.
HERMOGENES: That may be inferred.
SOCRATES: And must not Homer have imagined the Trojans to be wiser
than their wives?
HERMOGENES: To be sure.
SOCRATES: Then he must have thought Astyanax to be a more correct
name for the boy than Scamandrius?
HERMOGENES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And what is the reason of this? Let us consider:—does he not
himself suggest a very good reason, when he says,
‘For he alone defended their city and long walls’?
This appears to be a good reason for calling the son of the saviour king of
the city which his father was saving, as Homer observes.
HERMOGENES: I see.
SOCRATES: Why, Hermogenes, I do not as yet see myself; and do you?
HERMOGENES: No, indeed; not I.
SOCRATES: But tell me, friend, did not Homer himself also give Hector
his name?
HERMOGENES: What of that?
SOCRATES: The name appears to me to be very nearly the same as the
name of Astyanax—both are Hellenic; and a king (anax) and a holder (ektor)
have nearly the same meaning, and are both descriptive of a king; for a man is
clearly the holder of that of which he is king; he rules, and owns, and holds it.
But, perhaps, you may think that I am talking nonsense; and indeed I believe
that I myself did not know what I meant when I imagined that I had found
some indication of the opinion of Homer about the correctness of names.
HERMOGENES: I assure you that I think otherwise, and I believe you to
be on the right track.
SOCRATES: There is reason, I think, in calling the lion’s whelp a lion, and
386
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International