Page - 386 - in The Complete Plato

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