The saying becomes clearer if we take the liberty of inserting three colons, to give a sharper articulation to its word structure. We shall also write the saying in four separate lines:
"χρὴ : τὸ λέγειν τε νοεῖν τ’ : ἐὸν : ἔμμεναι."
Following the usual translation, fitted more closely now to the Greek text, the saying then runs :
"Needful : the saying also thinking too : being : to be."
This arrangement does not make the content of the saying any clearer. Nor is there any need for greater clarity at this time. Every man endowed with understanding understands what is being said here. What we may not understand is only this, that such a saying should occur at all in the works of a thinker. And right away catch ourselves in the act of slipping past this thing we cannot understand.
How would it be if we took this occasion to be astonished that seemingly so obvious a saying is pronounced with such emphasis in a thinker's works? would it be if we were
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