  In this passage, Plato introduces two predication relations, Being and Partaking. Understanding how Being and Partaking function to ‘tie’ together the various subjects and properties mentioned in his metaphysical discussions is crucial to reconstructing his metaphysics and epistemology. At first blush, it seems that there are two kinds of subjects of which properties are predicated, namely Forms and material particulars. (I exempt souls from this list). Similarly, at first blush it seems that there are Forms for every property involved in the changes afflicting material  particulars.[3]  For instance, since particulars, e.g. Helen of Troy, change from being not-beautiful to being beautiful, there is the Form Beauty Itself. In this passage, Plato asserts that particulars like Helen, because she is not the Form but rather is a material particular, is related to, or ‘tied to’ Beauty in virtue of what he calls ‘partaking.’ Beauty Itself, on the other hand, not being something ‘other than Beauty’, does not partake of Beauty—it simply is beautiful. Generalizing from what is said here about Beauty Itself, it seems that Forms inherit from the Socratic Properties their self-predicational status: Beauty is beautiful; Justice is just; Equality is equal. Partaking in Beauty makes Helen beautiful because Beauty Itself is beautiful. Call this way in which a Form is related to the property it is ‘Being’. Understanding Being, the way in which Beauty is beautiful, that is, determining what it is for a Form to self-predicate, is central to understanding Plato's Theory of Forms and his middle period metaphysics.