hich corresponds to it.

SOCRATES: And if a man were to call him Hermogenes, would he not be
even speaking falsely? For there may be a doubt whether you can call him
Hermogenes, if he is not.

CRATYLUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Are you maintaining that falsehood is impossible? For if this
is your meaning I should answer, that there have been plenty of liars in
all ages.

CRATYLUS: Why, Socrates, how can a man say that which is not?--say
something and yet say nothing? For is not falsehood saying the thing
which is not?

SOCRATES: Your argument, friend, is too subtle for a man of my age.
But I should like to know whether you are one of those philosophers who
think that falsehood may be spoken but not said?

CRATYLUS: Neither spoken nor said.

SOCRATES: Nor uttered nor addressed? For example: If a person, saluting
you in a foreign country, were to take your hand and say: 'Hail,
Athenian stranger, Hermogenes, son of Smicrion'--these words, whether
spoken, said, uttered, or addressed, would have no application to you
but only to our friend Hermogenes, or perhaps to nobody at all?

CRATYLUS: In my opinion, Socrates, the speaker would only be talking
nonsense.

SOCRATES: Well, but that will be quite enough for me, if you will tell
me whether the nonsense would be true or false, or partly true and
partly false:--which is all that I want to know.

CRATYLUS: I should say that he would be putting himself in motion to no
purpose; and that his words would be an unmeaning sound like the noise
of hammering at a brazen pot.

SOCRATES: But let us see, Cratylus, whether we cannot find a
meeting-point, for you would admit that the name is not the same with
the thing named?

CRATYLUS: I should.

SOCRATES: And would you further acknowledge that the name is an
imitation of the thing?

CRATYLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And you would say that pictures are also imitations of things,
but in another way?

CRATYLUS: Yes.

SOCRATES: I believe you may be right, but I do not rightly understand
you. Please to say, then, whether both sorts of imitation (I mean both
pictures or words) are not equally attributable and applicable to the
things of which they are the imitation.

CRATYLUS: They are.

SOCRATES: First look at the matter thus: you may attribute the likeness
of the man to the man, and of the woman to the woman; and so on?

CRATYLUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And conversely you may attribute the likeness of the man to