Sophist – Plato
STRANGER: A sentence must and cannot help STRANGER: ‘Theaetetus sits’—not a very long having a subject.
sentence.
THEAETETUS: True.
THEAETETUS: Not very.
STRANGER: And must be of a certain quality.
STRANGER: Of whom does the sentence speak, and who is the subject? that is what you have to THEAETETUS: Certainly.
tell.
STRANGER: And now let us mind what we are THEAETETUS: Of me; I am the subject.
about.
STRANGER: Or this sentence, again—
THEAETETUS: We must do so.
THEAETETUS: What sentence?
STRANGER: I will repeat a sentence to you in which a thing and an action are combined, by STRANGER: ‘Theaetetus, with whom I am now the help of a noun and a verb; and you shall tell speaking, is flying.’
me of whom the sentence speaks.
THEAETETUS: That also is a sentence which will THEAETETUS: I will, to the best of my power.
be admitted by every one to speak of me, and to apply to me.