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Euthyphro
By Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Persons of the Dialogue
SOCRATES
EUTHYPHRO
Scene
The Porch of the King Archon.
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Euthyphro. Why have you left the Lyceum, Socrates? and what are you
doing in the Porch of the King Archon? Surely you cannot be concerned
in a suit before the King, like myself?
Socrates. Not in a suit, Euthyphro; impeachment is the word which
the Athenians use.
Euth. What! I suppose that some one has been prosecuting you, for
I cannot believe that you are the prosecutor of another.
Soc. Certainly not.
Euth. Then some one else has been prosecuting you?
Soc. Yes.
Euth. And who is he?
Soc. A young man who is little known, Euthyphro; and I hardly know
him: his name is Meletus, and he is of the deme of Pitthis. Perhaps
you may remember his appearance; he has a beak, and long straight
hair, and a beard which is ill grown.
Euth. No, I do not remember him, Socrates. But what is the charge
which he brings against you?
Soc. What is the charge? Well, a very serious charge, which shows
a good deal of character in the young man, and for which he is certainly
not to be despised. He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and
who are their corruptors. I fancy that he must be a wise man, and
seeing that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and
is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends. And of this
our mother the state is to be the judge. Of all our political men
he is the only one who seems to me to begin in the right way, with
the cultivation of virtue in youth; like a good husbandman, he makes
the young shoots his first care, and clears away us who are the destroyers
of them. This is only the first step; he will afterwards attend to
the elder branches; and if he goes on as he has begun, he will be
a very great public benefactor.
Euth. I hope that he may; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the opposite
will turn out to be the truth. My opinion is that in attacking you
he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state. But in
what way does he say that you corrupt the young?
Soc. He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first hearing
excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and that
I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the
ground of his indictment.
Euth. I understand, Socrates; he means to attack you about the familiar
sign which occasionally, as you say, comes to you. He thinks that
you are a neologian, and he is going to have you up before the court
for this. He knows that such a charge is readily received by the world,
as I myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about
divine things, and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and
think me a madman. Yet every word that I say is true. But they are
jealous of us all; and we must be brave and go at them.
Soc. Their laughter, friend Euthyphro, is not a matter of much consequence.
For a man may be thought wise; but the Athenians, I suspect, do not
much trouble themselves about him until he begins to impart his wisdom
to others, and then for some reason or other, perhaps, as you say,
from jealousy, they are angry.
Euth. I am never likely to try their temper in this way.
Soc. I dare say not, for you are reserved in your behaviour, and seldom
impart your wisdom. But I have a benevolent habit of pouring out myself
to everybody, and would even pay for a listener, and I am afraid that
the Athenians may think me too talkative. Now if, as I was saying,
they would only laugh at me, as you say that they laugh at you, the
time might pass gaily enough in the court; but perhaps they may be
in earnest, and then what the end will be you soothsayers only can
predict.
Euth. I dare say that the affair will end in nothing, Socrates, and
that you will win your cause; and I think that I shall win my own.
Soc. And what is your suit, Euthyphro? are you the pursuer or the
defendant?
Euth. I am the pursuer.
Soc. Of whom?
Euth. You will think me mad when I tell you.
Soc. Why, has the fugitive wings?
Euth. Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life.
Soc. Who is he?
Euth. My father.
Soc. Your father! my good man?
Euth. Yes.
Soc. And of what is he accused?
Euth. Of murder, Socrates.
Soc. By the powers, Euthyphro! how little does the common herd know
of the nature of right and truth. A man must be an extraordinary man,
and have made great strides in wisdom, before he could have seen his
way to bring such an action.
Euth. Indeed, Socrates, he must.
Soc. I suppose that the man whom your father murdered was one of your
relatives-clearly he was; for if he had been a stranger you would
never have thought of prosecuting him.
Euth. I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between
one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the
pollution is the same in either case, if you knowingly associate with
the murderer when you ought to clear yourself and him by proceeding
against him. The real question is whether the murdered man has been
justly slain. If justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone;
but if unjustly, then even if the murderer lives under the same roof
with you and eats at the same table, proceed against him. Now the
man who is dead was a poor dependent of mine who worked for us as
a field labourer on our farm in Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken
passion he got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants and
slew him. My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch,
and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with
him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and took no care about him,
for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that no great harm
would be done even if he did die. Now this was just what happened.
For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon him, that
before the messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead. And my
father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer
and prosecuting my father. They say that he did not kill him, and
that if he did, dead man was but a murderer, and I ought not to take
any notice, for that a son is impious who prosecutes a father. Which
shows, Socrates, how little they know what the gods think about piety
and impiety.
Soc. Good heavens, Euthyphro! and is your knowledge of religion and
of things pious and impious so very exact, that, supposing the circumstances
to be as you state them, you are not afraid lest you too may be doing
an impious thing in bringing an action against your father?
Euth. The best of Euthyphro, and that which distinguishes him, Socrates,
from other men, is his exact knowledge of all such matters. What should
I be good for without it?
Soc. Rare friend! I think that I cannot do better than be your disciple.
Then before the trial with Meletus comes on I shall challenge him,
and say that I have always had a great interest in religious questions,
and now, as he charges me with rash imaginations and innovations in
religion, I have become your disciple. You, Meletus, as I shall say
to him, acknowledge Euthyphro to be a great theologian, and sound
in his opinions; and if you approve of him you ought to approve of
me, and not have me into court; but if you disapprove, you should
begin by indicting him who is my teacher, and who will be the ruin,
not of the young, but of the old; that is to say, of myself whom he
instructs, and of his old father whom he admonishes and chastises.
And if Meletus refuses to listen to me, but will go on, and will not
shift the indictment from me to you, I cannot do better than repeat
this challenge in the court.
Euth. Yes, indeed, Socrates; and if he attempts to indict me I am
mistaken if I do not find a flaw in him; the court shall have a great
deal more to say to him than to me.
Soc. And I, my dear friend, knowing this, am desirous of becoming
your disciple. For I observe that no one appears to notice you- not
even this Meletus; but his sharp eyes have found me out at once, and
he has indicted me for impiety. And therefore, I adjure you to tell
me the nature of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so
well, and of murder, and of other offences against the gods. What
are they? Is not piety in every action always the same? and impiety,
again- is it not always the opposite of piety, and also the same with
itself, having, as impiety, one notion which includes whatever is
impious?
Euth. To be sure, Socrates.
Soc. And what is piety, and what is impiety?
Euth. Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any
one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime-whether
he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be-that makes no difference;
and not to prosecute them is impiety. And please to consider, Socrates,
what a notable proof I will give you of the truth of my words, a proof
which I have already given to others:-of the principle, I mean, that
the impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished. For do
not men regard Zeus as the best and most righteous of the gods?-and
yet they admit that he bound his father (Cronos) because he wickedly
devoured his sons, and that he too had punished his own father (Uranus)
for a similar reason, in a nameless manner. And yet when I proceed
against my father, they are angry with me. So inconsistent are they
in their way of talking when the gods are concerned, and when I am
concerned.
Soc. May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am charged with
impiety-that I cannot away with these stories about the gods? and
therefore I suppose that people think me wrong. But, as you who are
well informed about them approve of them, I cannot do better than
assent to your superior wisdom. What else can I say, confessing as
I do, that I know nothing about them? Tell me, for the love of Zeus,
whether you really believe that they are true.
Euth. Yes, Socrates; and things more wonderful still, of which the
world is in ignorance.
Soc. And do you really believe that the gods, fought with one another,
and had dire quarrels, battles, and the like, as the poets say, and
as you may see represented in the works of great artists? The temples
are full of them; and notably the robe of Athene, which is carried
up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaea, is embroidered with
them. Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?
Euth. Yes, Socrates; and, as I was saying, I can tell you, if you
would like to hear them, many other things about the gods which would
quite amaze you.
Soc. I dare say; and you shall tell me them at some other time when
I have leisure. But just at present I would rather hear from you a
more precise answer, which you have not as yet given, my friend, to
the question, What is "piety"? When asked, you only replied, Doing
as you do, charging your father with murder.
Euth. And what I said was true, Socrates.
Soc. No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many
other pious acts?
Euth. There are.
Soc. Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples
of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things
to be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made
the impious impious, and the pious pious?
Euth. I remember.
Soc. Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have
a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions,
whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to
say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.
Euth. I will tell you, if you like.
Soc. I should very much like.
Euth. Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety
is that which is not dear to them.
Soc. Very good, Euthyphro; you have now given me the sort of answer
which I wanted. But whether what you say is true or not I cannot as
yet tell, although I make no doubt that you will prove the truth of
your words.
Euth. Of course.
Soc. Come, then, and let us examine what we are saying. That thing
or person which is dear to the gods is pious, and that thing or person
which is hateful to the gods is impious, these two being the extreme
opposites of one another. Was not that said?
Euth. It was.
Soc. And well said?
Euth. Yes, Socrates, I thought so; it was certainly said.
Soc. And further, Euthyphro, the gods were admitted to have enmities
and hatreds and differences?
Euth. Yes, that was also said.
Soc. And what sort of difference creates enmity and anger? Suppose
for example that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number;
do differences of this sort make us enemies and set us at variance
with one another? Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end
to them by a sum?
Euth. True.
Soc. Or suppose that we differ about magnitudes, do we not quickly
end the differences by measuring?
Euth. Very true.
Soc. And we end a controversy about heavy and light by resorting to
a weighing machine?
Euth. To be sure.
Soc. But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided,
and which therefore make us angry and set us at enmity with one another?
I dare say the answer does not occur to you at the moment, and therefore
I will suggest that these enmities arise when the matters of difference
are the just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable.
Are not these the points about which men differ, and about which when
we are unable satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I
and all of us quarrel, when we do quarrel?
Euth. Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we
quarrel is such as you describe.

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