Note 47 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.

See what Aristotle says about Πάντη in the first chapter of the treatise De Cœlo; also about αὐτόματον from αὐτὸ μάτην, Physic. ii. 5, p. 197, b. 30.

Stallbaum, after having complimented Plato for his talent in caricaturing the etymologies of others, expresses his surprise to find Aristotle reproducing some of these very caricatures as serious, see Stallbaum’s note on Kratyl. p. 411 E.

Respecting the etymologies proposed by learned and able Romans in and before the Ciceronian and Augustan age, Ælius Stilo, Varro, Labeo, Nigidius, &c., see Aulus Gellius, xiii. 10; Quintilian, Inst. Or. i. 5; Varro, de Linguâ Latinâ.

Even to Quintilian, the etymologies of Varro appeared preposterous; and he observes, in reference to those proposed by Ælius Stilo and by others afterwards, “Cui non post Varronem sit venia?” (i. 6, 37). This critical remark, alike good tempered and reasonable, might be applied with still greater pertinence to the Kratylus of Plato. In regard to etymology, more might have been expected from Varro than from Plato; for in the days of Plato, etymological guesses were almost a novelty; while during the three centuries which elapsed between him and Varro, many such conjectures had been hazarded by various scholars, and more or less of improvement might be hoped from the conflict of opposite opinions and thinkers.

M. Gaston Boissier (in his interesting Étude sur la vie et les Ouvrages de M. Terentius Varron, p. 152, Paris, 1861) observes respecting Varro, what is still more applicable to Plato:— “Gardons nous bien d’ailleurs de demander à Varron ce qu’exige la science moderne: pour n’être pas trop sévères, remettons-le dans son époque et jugeons-le avec l’esprit de son temps. Il ne semble pas qu’alors on réclamât, de ceux qui recherchaient les étymologies, beaucoup d’exactitude et de sévérité. On se piquait moins d’arriver à l’origine réelle du mot, que de le décomposer d’une manière ingénieuse et qui en gravât le sens dans la mémoire. Les jurisconsultes eux-mêmes, malgré la gravité de leur profession et l’importance pratique de leurs recherches, ne suivaient pas une autre méthode. Trebatius trouvait dans sacellum les deux mots sacra cella: et Labéon faisait venir soror de seorsum, parce que la jeune fille se sépare de le maison paternelle pours suivre son époux: tout comme Nigidius trouvoit dans frater ferè alter — c’est à dire, un autre soi-même,” &c.

Lobeck has similar remarks in his Aglaophamus (pp. 867-869):— “Sané ita J. Capellus veteres juris consultos excusat, mutuum interpretantes quod ex meo tuum fiat, testamentum autem testationem mentis, non quod eam verborum originem esse putarent, sed ut significationem eorum altius in legentium animis defigerent. Similiterque ecclesiastici quidam auctores, quum nomen Pascha a græco verbo πάσχειν repetunt, non per ignorantiam lapsi, sed allusionis quandam gratiam aucupati videntur.”