Note 48 — Chapter XXXI · KRATYLUS.

Gräfenhahn (Gesch. d. classichen Philologie, vol. i. sect. 36, pp. 151-164) points out how common was the hypothesis of fanciful derivation of names or supposed etymologies among the Greek poets, and how it passed from them to the prose writers. He declares that the etymologies in Plato not only in the Kratylus but in other dialogues are “etymologische monstra,” but he professes inability to distinguish which of them are serious (pp. 163-164).

Lobeck remarks that the playing and quibbling with words, widely diffused among the ancient literati generally, was especially likely to belong to those who held the Platonic theory about language:— “Is intelligat necesse est, hoc universum genus ab antiquitatis ingenio non alienum, ei vero, qui imagines rerum in vocabulis sic ut in cerâ expressas putaret, convenientissimum fuisse” (Aglaophamus, p. 870).