EUTHYPHRO:1 What’s new, Socrates, to make you [2a] leave the Lyceum,2 where you usually spend your time, to spend it here today at the court of the King Archon?3 Surely, you don’t have some sort of lawsuit before the King, as I do.
SOCRATES: Athenians don’t call it a lawsuit, Euthyphro, but an indictment.4
EUTHYPHRO: What? Someone has indicted you, apparently, for I’m not going to accuse you of indicting [b] someone else!
SOCRATES: No, I certainly haven’t.
EUTHYPHRO: But someone else has indicted you?
SOCRATES: Exactly.
EUTHYPHRO: Who is he?
SOCRATES: I hardly know the man myself, Euthyphro. He’s young and unknown, it seems. But I believe his name’s Meletus. He belongs to the Pitthean deme—if you recall a Meletus from that deme, with straight hair, not much of a beard, and a slightly hooked nose?
EUTHYPHRO: No, I don’t recall him, Socrates. But tell me, what indictment has he brought against you? [c]
SOCRATES: What indictment? Not a trivial one, it seems to me. I mean, it’s no small thing for a young man to have come to know such an important matter. You see, according to him, he knows how the young men are being corrupted, and who’s corrupting them. He’s probably a wise man, who’s seen that my own ignorance is corrupting his contemporaries, and is coming to accuse me to their mother the city, so to speak. In fact, he seems to me to be the only one who’s starting up in politics correctly. For it is correct to take care of the young first, to make them the best [d] possible, just as it’s reasonable for a good farmer to take care of the young plants first, and all the others afterward. And so Meletus, too, is presumably first weeding out those of us who corrupt the young shoots, [3a] as he claims. Then, after that, he’ll clearly take care of the older people and bring about the greatest goods, both in number and in quality, for the city. That, at any rate, is the likely outcome of such a start.
EUTHYPHRO: I hope it happens, Socrates, but I’m terribly afraid the opposite may result. You see, by attempting to do an injustice to you, it seems to me he’s simply starting out by wronging the city at its very hearth.5 Tell me, what on earth does he say you’re doing that corrupts the young?
SOCRATES: Strange things, my excellent friend, at any rate on first hearing: he says I’m an inventor [b] of gods. And because I invent new gods, and don’t acknowledge the old ones, he’s indicted me for the latter’s sake, so he says.
EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates. That’s no doubt because you say your daimonic sign comes to you on each occasion. So he has written this indictment against you for making innovations in religious matters and comes before the court to slander you, knowing that such things are easy to misrepresent to the majority of people. Why, they even mock me as if I were crazy, when I speak in the Assembly on religious matters and predict the future for them! And yet not [c] one of my predictions has failed to come true. But all the same, they envy anyone like ourselves. We mustn’t give them a thought, though. Just meet them head on.
SOCRATES: Yes, my dear Euthyphro, but being mocked is presumably nothing to worry about. Athenians, it seems to me, aren’t much concerned if they think someone’s clever, so long as he doesn’t teach his own wisdom. But if they think he’s making other people wise like himself, they get angry, whether out of envy, as you say, or for some other reason. [d]
EUTHYPHRO: As to that, I certainly have no desire to test their attitude toward me.
SOCRATES: Don’t worry. They probably think you rarely put yourself at other people’s disposal, and aren’t willing to teach your own wisdom. But I’m afraid they think my love of people makes me tell whatever little I know unreservedly to any man, not only without charging a fee, but even glad to lose money, so long as someone cares to listen to me. So, as I was just saying, if they were going to mock me, as you say they do you, there’d be nothing unpleasant [e] about their spending time in the law court playing around and laughing. But if they’re going to be serious, the outcome’s unclear, except to you prophets.
EUTHYPHRO: Well, it will probably come to nothing, Socrates, and you’ll fight your case satisfactorily, as I think I’ll fight mine.
SOCRATES: But now, Euthyphro, what is this case of yours? Are you defending or prosecuting?
EUTHYPHRO: Prosecuting.
SOCRATES: Whom?
EUTHYPHRO: Someone I’m again thought to be crazy for prosecuting. [4a]
SOCRATES: What’s that? Is your prosecution a wild goose chase?
EUTHYPHRO: The goose is long past chasing: he’s quite old.
SOCRATES: Who is he?
EUTHYPHRO: My father.
SOCRATES: My good man! Your own father?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, indeed.
SOCRATES: But what’s the charge? What’s the lawsuit about?
EUTHYPHRO: Murder, Socrates.
SOCRATES: In the name of Heracles!6 Well, Euthyphro, I suppose most people don’t know how it can be correct to do this. I mean, I can’t imagine any ordinary person taking that action correctly, but only someone who’s already far advanced in wisdom. [b]
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, by Zeus,7 Socrates, far advanced indeed.
SOCRATES: Is the man your father killed one of your relatives then? Of course he must be, mustn’t he? You’d hardly be prosecuting him for murder on behalf of a stranger.
EUTHYPHRO: It’s ridiculous, Socrates, for you to think it makes any difference whether the dead man’s a stranger or a relative. It’s ridiculous not to see that the sole consideration should be whether the killer killed justly or not. If he did, let him go, if he didn’t, prosecute—if, that is to say, the killer shares your own hearth and table. For the pollution’s the same if you [c] knowingly associate with such a person and don’t cleanse yourself and him by bringing him to justice.
In point of fact, though, the victim was a day laborer of mine, and when we were farming on Naxos,8 he worked the land there for us. Well, he got drunk, became enraged with one of our household slaves, and cut his throat. So my father tied him hand and foot, threw him in a ditch, and sent a man here to find out from the official interpreter9 what should be done. In the meantime, he ignored and neglected his captive as a murderer, thinking it mattered nothing [d] if he did die. And that’s just what happened: hunger, cold, and being tied up caused his death before the messenger got back from the interpreter.
That’s precisely why my father and my other relatives are angry with me: because I’m prosecuting my father for murder on the murderer’s behalf, when my father didn’t even kill him, so they claim, and when, even if he definitely did kill him, it’s wrong—since the dead man was a murderer—to concern yourself with the victim in that case. You see, it’s impious, they say, for a son to prosecute his father for murder. Little do they know, Socrates, about the gods’ position [e] on the pious and the impious!
SOCRATES: But, in the name of Zeus, Euthyphro, do you think you have such exact knowledge about the positions the gods take, and about the pious and the impious, that in the face of these events, you’ve no fear of acting impiously yourself in bringing your father to trial?
EUTHYPHRO: I’d be no use at all, Socrates, and Euthyphro would be no different from the majority of people, if I didn’t have exact knowledge of all [5a] such things.
SOCRATES: So, my excellent Euthyphro, the best thing, it seems, is for me to become your student, and to challenge Meletus on this very point before his case comes to trial, telling him that even in the past I always considered it of great importance to know about religious matters, and that now, when he says I’ve done wrong through improvising and innovating concerning the gods, I’ve become your student. Shouldn’t I say to him, “Meletus, if you agree that Euthyphro is wise about the gods, you should also regard me as correctly [b] acknowledging them and drop the charge. But if you don’t agree, prosecute this teacher of mine rather than me, for corrupting the old men—myself and his own father, me by his teaching, and his father by admonishment and punishment.” If he isn’t convinced by me, and doesn’t drop the charge or prosecute you instead of me, shouldn’t I say the same things in court as in my challenge to him?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, and if he tried bringing an indictment against me, I think I’d soon find his weak spots, and the question in court would very [c] quickly be about him rather than about me.
SOCRATES: I realize that as well as you do, my dear friend, and that’s why I’m eager to become your student. I know that this Meletus, as well as others no doubt, pretends not to notice you at all, whereas he has seen me so sharply and so easily that he has indicted me for impiety.
Now then, in the name of Zeus, tell me what you were just claiming to know so clearly. What sort of thing would you say the holy and the unholy are, whether in cases of murder or of anything else? Or isn’t the pious itself the same as itself in every action? [d] And conversely, isn’t the impious entirely the opposite of the pious? And whatever’s going to count as impious, isn’t it itself similar to itself—doesn’t it, as regards impiety, possess one single characteristic?
EUTHYPHRO: Absolutely, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Tell me, then, what do you say the pious and the impious are?
EUTHYPHRO: Very well, I say that what’s pious is precisely what I’m doing now: prosecuting those who commit an injustice, such as murder or temple robbery, or those who’ve done some other such wrong, regardless of whether they’re one’s father or one’s mother or anyone else whatever. Not prosecuting [e] them, on the other hand, is what’s impious.
Why, Socrates, look at the powerful evidence I have that the law requires this—evidence I’ve already offered to show other people that such actions are right, that one must not let an impious person go, no matter who he may happen to be. You see, those very people acknowledge Zeus as the best and most just of the gods, and yet they agree that he put his own father in fetters [6a] because he unjustly swallowed down his children, and that he, in his turn, castrated his father because of other similar injustices.10 Yet they’re extremely angry with me, because I’m prosecuting my father for his injustice. And so they contradict themselves in what they say about the gods and about me.
SOCRATES: Could this be the reason, Euthyphro, I face indictment, that when people say such things about the gods, I find them somehow hard to accept? That, it seems, is why some people will say I’m a wrongdoer. But now if you, who know so much about such matters, share these views, it seems that the rest of us must assent to them too. I mean, what can we [b] possibly say in reply, when we admit ourselves that we know nothing about them? But tell me, by the god of friendship,11 do you really believe those stories are true?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, and still more amazing things, Socrates, that the majority of people don’t know.
SOCRATES: And do you believe that there really is war among the gods? And terrible hostilities and battles, and other such things of the sort the poets relate, and that the good painters embroider on our sacred objects—I’m thinking particularly of the robe [c] covered with embroideries of such scenes that’s carried up to the Acropolis at the Great Panathenaean festival?12 Are we to say that these are true, Euthyphro?
EUTHYPHRO: Not only those, Socrates, but as I mentioned just now, I will, if you like, tell you lots of other things about religious matters that I’m sure you’ll be amazed to hear.
SOCRATES: I wouldn’t be surprised. But tell me about them some other time, when we’ve the leisure. Now, however, try to answer more clearly the very question I asked before. You see, my friend, you didn’t [d] teach me adequately earlier when I asked what the pious was, but you told me that what you’re now doing is pious, prosecuting your father for murder.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, and what I said was true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Perhaps. But surely, Euthyphro, there are also many other things you call pious.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, indeed.
SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, that what I urged you to do wasn’t to teach me about one or two of the many pieties, but rather about the form itself, by virtue of which all the pieties are pious? You see, you said, I believe, that it was by virtue of one characteristic that the impieties are impious, and the pieties pious. Or don’t you remember? [e]
EUTHYPHRO: I do indeed.
SOCRATES: Then teach me what that characteristic itself is, in order that by concentrating on it and using it as a model, I may call pious any action of yours or anyone else’s that is such as it, and may deny to be pious whatever isn’t such as it.
EUTHYPHRO: If that’s what you want, Socrates, that’s what I’ll tell you.
SOCRATES: That is what I want.
EUTHYPHRO: In that case: what’s loved by the gods is pious, and what’s not loved by the gods is impious. [7a]
SOCRATES: Excellent, Euthyphro! You’ve now given the sort of answer I was looking for. Whether it’s true, however, that I don’t know. But clearly you’ll go on to demonstrate fully that what you say is true.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, indeed.
SOCRATES: Come on, then, let’s examine what it is we’re saying. A god-loved thing or a god-loved person is pious, whereas a god-hated thing or a god-hated person is impious. And the pious isn’t the same as the impious, but its exact opposite. Isn’t that what we’re saying?
EUTHYPHRO: It is indeed.
SOCRATES: And does it seem to be true?
EUTHYPHRO: It does seem so, Socrates. [b]
SOCRATES: And haven’t we also said that the gods quarrel and differ with one another, and that there’s mutual hostility among them?
EUTHYPHRO: Indeed, we did say that.
SOCRATES: But what are the issues, my good friend, on which differences produce hostility and anger? Let’s examine it this way. If you and I differed about which of two groups was more numerous, would our differences on this issue make us hostile and angry toward one another? Or would we turn to calculation and quickly resolve our differences? [c]
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Again, if we differed about which was larger or smaller, we’d turn to measurement and quickly put a stop to our difference.
EUTHYPHRO: That’s right.
SOCRATES: And we’d turn to weighing, I imagine, to settle a dispute about which was heavier or lighter?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then what sorts of issues would make us angry and hostile toward one another if we disagreed about them and were unable to reach a settlement? Perhaps you can’t say just offhand. But examine, while I’m speaking, whether they’re issues about the just and unjust, fine and shameful, good [d] and bad. Whenever we become enemies, aren’t these the issues on which disagreement and an inability to reach a settlement make enemies of us—both you and I and all other human beings?
EUTHYPHRO: That is the difference, Socrates, and those are the things it has to do with.
SOCRATES: And what about the gods, Euthyphro? If indeed they differ, mustn’t it be about those same things?
EUTHYPHRO: Absolutely.
SOCRATES: Then, according to your account, my noble Euthyphro, different sets of gods, too, consider [e] different things to be just, or fine or shameful, or good or bad. For if they didn’t differ about these, they wouldn’t quarrel, would they?
EUTHYPHRO: That’s right.
SOCRATES: Then are the very things that each group of them regards as fine, good, and just also the ones they love, and are the opposites of these the ones they hate?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: But the very same things, so you say, that some gods consider to be just and others unjust are also the ones that lead them to quarrel and war [8a] with one another when they have disputes about them. Isn’t that right?
EUTHYPHRO: It is.
SOCRATES: Then the same things, it seems, are both hated and loved by the gods, and so the same things would be both god-hated and god-loved.
EUTHYPHRO: It seems that way.
SOCRATES: So, on your account, Euthyphro, the same things would be both pious and impious.
EUTHYPHRO: Apparently.
SOCRATES: So, you haven’t answered my question, my excellent friend. You see, I wasn’t asking you what the self-same thing is that’s both pious and impious. But a thing that’s god-loved is, it seems, also god-hated. It follows, Euthyphro, that it wouldn’t be at all surprising if what you’re now doing in prosecuting your father [b] was something pleasing to Zeus but displeasing to Cronus and Uranus, or lovable to Hephaestus and displeasing to Hera,13 and similarly for any other gods who may differ from one another on the matter.
EUTHYPHRO: But, Socrates, I think that on this point, at least, none of the gods do differ—that anyone who has unjustly killed another should be punished.
SOCRATES: Is that so? Well, what about men, Euthyphro? Have you never heard them arguing that someone who has killed unjustly or done anything [c] else unjustly should not be punished?
EUTHYPHRO: Why yes, they never stop arguing like that, whether in the law courts or in other places. For people who’ve committed all sorts of injustices will do or say anything to escape punishment.
SOCRATES: But do they agree, Euthyphro, that they’ve committed injustice, and, in spite of agreeing, do they still say that they shouldn’t be punished?
EUTHYPHRO: No, they certainly don’t say that.
SOCRATES: So it isn’t just anything that they’ll do or say. You see, I don’t think they’d dare to say or argue that if they act unjustly, they should not be punished. Instead, I think they deny acting unjustly, [d] don’t they?
EUTHYPHRO: That’s true, they do.
SOCRATES: So they don’t argue that someone who acts unjustly should not be punished, though they do, perhaps, argue about who acted unjustly, what his unjust action consisted of, and when he did it.
EUTHYPHRO: That’s true.
SOCRATES: Then doesn’t the very same thing happen to the gods as well—if indeed they do quarrel about just and unjust actions, as on your account they do, and if one lot says that others have done wrong, and another lot denies it? For surely no one, my excellent friend, whether god or human being, dares to say that one who acts unjustly should not be punished. [e]
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, what you say is true, Socrates, at least the main point.
SOCRATES: I think that men and gods who argue, Euthyphro, if indeed gods really do argue, argue instead about actions. It’s about some action that they differ, some of them saying that it was done justly, others unjustly. Isn’t that so?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Come then, my dear Euthyphro, and teach me, too, that I may become wiser. A man committed [9a] murder while employed as a day laborer and died as a result of being tied up before the master who tied him up found out from the proper authorities what to do about him. What evidence do you have that all the gods consider this man to have been killed unjustly, and that it’s right for a son to prosecute and denounce his father for murder on behalf of such a man? Come, try to give me a clear proof that all gods [b] undoubtedly consider this action to be right. If you can give me adequate proof of that, I’ll never stop praising your wisdom.
EUTHYPHRO: But presumably that’s no small task, Socrates, though I could of course prove it to you very clearly.
SOCRATES: I understand. You think I’m a slower learner than the jury, since it’s clear that you’ll prove to them that those actions of your father’s were unjust and that the gods all hate them.
EUTHYPHRO: I’ll prove it to them very clearly, Socrates, provided they’ll listen to what I say.
SOCRATES: They’ll listen all right, provided you seem to speak well. But a thought occurred to me [c] while you were speaking, and I’m still examining it in my own mind: “Suppose Euthyphro so taught me that I became thoroughly convinced that all the gods do consider a death like that to be unjust. What more would I have learned from Euthyphro about what the pious and the impious are? That action would indeed be god-hated, so it seems. Yet it became evident just now that the pious and the impious aren’t defined by that fact, since it became evident that what’s god-hated is also god-loved. So I’ll let you off on that point, Euthyphro. If you like, let’s suppose that all the gods consider the action unjust, and that they all hate it. Is that, then, the correction we’re now [d] making in the account, that what all the gods hate is impious while what they all love is pious, and that whatever some love and others hate is neither or both? Is that how you’d now like us to define the pious and the impious?
EUTHYPHRO: What’s to prevent it, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Nothing on my part, Euthyphro. But you examine your own view, and whether by assuming it you’ll most easily teach me what you promised.
EUTHYPHRO: All right, I’d say that the pious is what all the gods love, and its opposite, what all the [e] gods hate, is the impious.
SOCRATES: Then aren’t we going to examine that in turn, Euthyphro, to see whether what we said is true? Or are we going to let it alone and accept it from ourselves and from others just as it stands? And if someone merely asserts that something is so, are we going to concede that it’s so? Or are we going to examine what the speaker says?
EUTHYPHRO: We’re going to examine it. However, I for my part think that this time what we said is true.
SOCRATES: Soon, my good friend, we’ll be better able to tell. Consider the following: is the pious loved [10a] by the gods because it’s pious? Or is it pious because it’s loved?
EUTHYPHRO: I don’t know what you mean, Socrates.
SOCRATES: All right, I’ll try to put it more clearly. We speak of a thing’s being carried or carrying, and of its being led or leading, and of being seen or seeing. And you understand that these things are all different from one another and how they differ?
EUTHYPHRO: I think I understand, at any rate.
SOCRATES: Then is there also something that’s loved, and is it different from something that’s loving?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then tell me whether the carried thing is a carried thing because it’s carried or because [b] of something else.
EUTHYPHRO: No, it’s because of that.
SOCRATES: Again, the led thing is so, then, because it’s led and the seen thing because it’s seen?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: So it’s not seen because it’s a seen thing; on the contrary, it’s a seen thing because it’s seen; nor is it because it’s a led thing that it’s led, rather it’s because it’s led that it’s a led thing; nor is something carried because it’s a carried thing, rather it’s a carried thing because it’s carried. So is what I mean completely clear, Euthyphro? I mean this: if [c] something’s changed in some way or affected in some way, it’s not changed because it’s a changed thing; rather, it’s a changed thing because it’s changed. Nor is it affected because it’s an affected thing; rather, it’s an affected thing because it’s affected. Or don’t you agree with that?
EUTHYPHRO: I do.
SOCRATES: Then isn’t a loved thing, too, either a thing changed or a thing affected by something?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: And so the same holds of it as of our earlier examples: it’s not because it’s a loved thing that it’s loved by those who love it; rather it’s because it’s loved that it’s a loved thing?
EUTHYPHRO: Necessarily.
SOCRATES: Now what are we saying about the pious, Euthyphro? On your account, isn’t it loved by [d] all the gods?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: So is that because it’s pious or because of something else?
EUTHYPHRO: No, it’s because it’s pious.
SOCRATES: So it’s loved because it’s pious, not pious because it’s loved?
EUTHYPHRO: Apparently.
SOCRATES: On the other hand, what’s god-loved is loved—that is to say, god-loved—because the gods love it?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the god-loved is not what’s pious, Euthyphro, nor is the pious what’s god-loved, as you claim, but one differs from the other.
EUTHYPHRO: How so, Socrates? [e]
SOCRATES: Because we agreed that the pious is loved because it’s pious, not pious because it’s loved. Didn’t we?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: The god-loved, on the other hand, is so because it is loved by the gods; it’s god-loved by the very fact of being loved. But it’s not because it’s god-loved that it’s being loved.
EUTHYPHRO: That’s true.
SOCRATES: But if the god-loved and the pious were really the same thing, my dear Euthyphro, then, if the pious were loved because it’s pious, what’s god-loved would in turn be loved because it’s god-loved; and if what’s god-loved were god-loved because it was [11a] loved by the gods, the pious would in turn be pious because it was loved by them. But, as it is, you can see that the two are related in the opposite way, as things entirely different from one another. For one of them is lovable because it’s loved, whereas the other is loved because it’s lovable.
And so, Euthyphro, when you’re asked what the pious is, it looks as though you don’t want to reveal its being to me, but rather to tell me one of its affections—that this happens to the pious, that it’s loved by all the gods. What explains it’s being loved, however, you still haven’t said. So please don’t keep [b] it hidden from me, but rather say again from the beginning what it is that explains the pious’ being loved by the gods or having some other affection—for we won’t disagree about which ones it has. Summon up your enthusiasm, then, and tell me what the pious and the impious are.
EUTHYPHRO: But Socrates, I have no way of telling you what I have in mind. For whatever proposals we put forward keep somehow moving around and won’t stay put.
SOCRATES: Your proposals, Euthyphro, seem to be the work of my ancestor, Daedalus! Indeed, if I were to state them and put them forward myself, you [c] might perhaps make a joke of me, and say that it’s because of my kinship with him that my works of art in words run away and won’t stay put.14 But, as it is, the proposals are your own. So you need a different joke, since it’s for you that they won’t stay put, as you can see yourself.
EUTHYPHRO: But it seems to me, Socrates, that pretty much the same joke does apply in the case of our definitions. You see, I’m not the one who makes them move around and not stay put. Rather, you seem to me to be the Daedalus, since as far as I’m concerned they would have stayed put. [d]
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, it looks as though I’ve grown cleverer in my area of expertise than my venerated ancestor, in that he made only his own works not stay put, whereas I do this to my own, it seems, and also to other people’s. And the most subtle thing about my area of expertise is that I’m wise in it without wanting to be. You see, I’d prefer to have accounts stay put and be immovably established for me than to acquire the wealth of Tantalus15 and the wisdom of Daedalus combined. But enough of this. [e] Since you seem to me to be getting sated, I’ll do my best to help you teach me about the pious—and don’t you give up before you do. See whether you don’t think that the pious as a whole must be just.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Then is the just as a whole also pious? Or while the pious as a whole is just, is the just as a whole not pious, but part of it pious and part of it [12a] something else?
EUTHYPHRO: I don’t follow what you’re saying, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet you’re as much younger as wiser than I. But as I say, your wealth of wisdom has weakened you. Well, pull yourself together, my dear fellow. What I’m saying isn’t hard to understand. You see, what I’m saying is just the opposite of what the poet said, who wrote:
With Zeus the maker, who caused all these
things to come about,
You will not quarrel, since where there’s
dread there’s shame too.16 [b]
I disagree with this poet. Shall I tell you where?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: It doesn’t seem to me that “where there’s dread there’s shame too.” For many people seem to me to dread disease and poverty and many other things of that sort, but though they dread them, they feel no shame at what they dread. Or don’t you agree?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: But where there’s shame, there is also dread. For if anyone feels shame at a certain action—if he’s ashamed of it—doesn’t he fear, doesn’t he dread, a reputation for wickedness at the same time? [c]
EUTHYPHRO: He certainly does dread it.
SOCRATES: Then it isn’t right to say that “where there’s dread, there’s shame too.” But where there’s shame there’s also dread, even though shame isn’t found everywhere there’s dread. You see, dread is broader than shame, I think. For shame is a part of fear, just as odd is of number. Hence where there’s a number, there isn’t something odd too, but where there’s something odd there is also a number. Do you follow me now at least?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Well, that’s the sort of thing I was asking just now: whenever there’s something just, is there also something pious? Or is something just whenever it’s pious, but not pious whenever it’s just, [d] because the pious is part of the just? Is that what we’re to say, or do you disagree?
EUTHYPHRO: No, let’s say that, since it seems to me you’re right.
SOCRATES: Then consider the next point. If the pious is a part of what’s just, we must, it seems, find out what part of the just the pious is. Now if you asked me about one of the things we just mentioned, for example, which part of number is the even—that is to say, what sort of number it is—I’d say that it’s any number not indivisible by two, but divisible by it. Or don’t you agree?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Then you try to teach me in the same fashion what part of the just is pious. Then we can [e] tell Meletus not to treat us unjustly any longer or indict us for impiety, since I’ve now been sufficiently instructed by you about what things are holy or pious and what aren’t.
EUTHYPHRO: Well then, it seems to me, Socrates, that the part of the just that’s holy or pious is the one concerned with tending to the gods, while the remaining part of the just is concerned with tending to human beings.
SOCRATES: You seem to me to have put that very well, Euthyphro. But I’m still lacking one small piece of information. You see, I don’t yet understand this [13a] tending you’re talking about. You surely don’t mean that in just the way that there’s tending to other things, there’s tending to the gods too. We do speak this way, don’t we? We say, for example, that not everyone knows how to tend to horses, but only horse trainers. Isn’t that right?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Because horse training is expertise in tending to horses?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Nor does everyone know how to tend to dogs, but only dog trainers.
EUTHYPHRO: That’s right.
SOCRATES: Because dog training is expertise in tending to dogs.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes. [b]
SOCRATES: And cattle breeding is expertise in tending to cattle.
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Well, but piety or holiness is tending to the gods, Euthyphro? That’s what you’re saying?
EUTHYPHRO: It is.
SOCRATES: But doesn’t all tending accomplish the same end? I mean something like some good or benefit for what’s being tended to—as you see that horses tended to by horse trainers are benefited and made better. Or don’t you agree that they are?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: And so dogs, of course, are benefited by dog training and cattle by cattle breeding, and similarly for all the others. Or do you think that [c] tending aims to harm what’s being tended?
EUTHYPHRO: No, by Zeus, I don’t.
SOCRATES: Rather, it aims to benefit it?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then if piety is tending to the gods, does it benefit the gods and make the gods better? Would you concede that whenever you do something pious, you’re making some god better?
EUTHYPHRO: No, by Zeus, I wouldn’t.
SOCRATES: No, I didn’t think that that was what you meant, Euthyphro—far from it. But it is why I asked what you did mean by tending to the gods, because I didn’t think you meant that sort of tending. [d]
EUTHYPHRO: And you were right, Socrates, since that’s not the sort I meant.
SOCRATES: All right. But then what sort of tending to the gods would the pious be?
EUTHYPHRO: The very sort of tending, Socrates, that slaves provide to their masters.
SOCRATES: I understand. Then it would seem to be some sort of service to the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: It is indeed.
SOCRATES: Now could you tell me about service to doctors? What result does that service—insofar as it is service—aim to produce? Don’t you think it aims at health?
EUTHYPHRO: I do.
SOCRATES: What about service to shipbuilders? What result does the service aim to produce? [e]
EUTHYPHRO: Clearly, Socrates, its aim is a ship.
SOCRATES: And in the case of service to builders, I suppose, the aim is a house?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then tell me, my good friend, at what result does service to the gods aim? Clearly, you know, since you say you’ve a finer knowledge of religious matters than any other human being.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, and what I say is true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then tell me, in the name of Zeus, what is that supremely fine result that the gods produce by using our services?
EUTHYPHRO: They produce many fine ones, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So too do generals, my friend. Nonetheless, you could easily tell me the main one, which [14a] is to produce victory in war, is it not?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And farmers, too, I think, produce many fine results. Nonetheless, the main one is to produce food from the earth.
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: What, then, about the many fine results that the gods produce? Which is the main one they produce?
EUTHYPHRO: I told you a moment ago, Socrates, that it’s a pretty difficult task to learn the exact truth about all these matters. But to put it simply: if a [b] person knows how to do and say the things that are pleasing to the gods in prayer and sacrifice—those are the ones that are pious. And actions like them preserve both the private welfare of households and the common welfare of the city, whereas those that are the opposite of pleasing are unholy, and they, of course, overturn and destroy everything.
SOCRATES: If you’d wanted to, Euthyphro, you could have put the main point I asked about much more briefly. But you’re not eager to teach me—that’s clear. You see, when you were just now on the point [c] of answering you turned away. If you had given the answer, I’d already have been adequately instructed by you about piety. But as it is, the questioner must follow the one being questioned wherever he leads. Once again, then, what are you saying that the pious, or piety, is? Didn’t you say that it was some sort of knowledge of sacrificing and praying?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I did.
SOCRATES: And sacrificing is giving to the gods, and praying is asking from them?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, indeed, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So, on that account, piety would be knowing how to ask from the gods and how to give to them. [d]
EUTHYPHRO: You’ve grasped my meaning perfectly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, that’s because I really desire your wisdom and apply my mind to it, so that what you say won’t fall on barren ground. But tell me, what is this service to the gods? You say it’s asking for things from them and giving things to them?
EUTHYPHRO: I do.
SOCRATES: Well then, wouldn’t asking in the right way consist of asking for the things we need from them?
EUTHYPHRO: What else could it be?
SOCRATES: And, conversely, giving in the right way would consist of giving them, in turn, the things [e] they need from us? For surely giving someone what he didn’t at all need isn’t something that an expert in the art of giving would do.
EUTHYPHRO: That’s true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then piety, Euthyphro, would be a sort of expertise in mutual trading between gods and men.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, trading, if that’s what you prefer to call it.
SOCRATES: I don’t prefer anything, if it isn’t true. But tell me, what benefit do the gods get from the gifts they receive from us? I mean, what they give is clear to everyone, since we possess nothing good that they don’t give us. But how are they benefited by [15a] what they receive from us? Or do we get so much the better of them in the trade that we receive all our good things from them while they receive nothing from us?
EUTHYPHRO: But Socrates, do you really think gods are benefited by what they receive from us?
SOCRATES: If not, Euthyphro, what could those gifts of ours to gods possibly be?
EUTHYPHRO: What else do you think but honor and reverence and—as I said just now—what’s pleasing to them.
SOCRATES: So is the pious pleasing to the gods, Euthyphro, but not beneficial to them or loved by [b] them?
EUTHYPHRO: No, I think that it’s in fact the most loved of all.
SOCRATES: So, once again, it seems, the pious is what’s loved by the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: Absolutely.
SOCRATES: Well, if you say that, can you wonder that your accounts seem not to stay put but to move around? And will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them move, when you yourself are far more expert than Daedalus in the art of making them move in a circle? Or don’t you see that our account has circled back again to the same place? For surely you remember that earlier we discovered the pious and the god-loved [c] are not the same, but different from one another. Or don’t you remember that?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Then don’t you realize that you’re now saying the pious is what the gods love? And that’s the same, isn’t it, as what’s god-loved? Or is that not so?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course, it is.
SOCRATES: Then either we weren’t right to agree before, or, if we were right, our present suggestion is wrong.
EUTHYPHRO: So it seems.
SOCRATES: So we must examine again from the beginning what the pious is, since I won’t willingly give up until I learn this. Don’t scorn me, but apply your mind to the matter in as many ways and as fully [d] as you can, and then tell me the truth—for you must know it, if indeed any human being does, and, like Proteus,17 you mustn’t be let go until you tell it. For if you didn’t know with full clarity what the pious and the impious are, you’d never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a day laborer. On the contrary, you wouldn’t have risked acting wrongly because you’d have been afraid before the gods and ashamed before men. As things stand, however, I well know that you think you have fully clear knowledge of what’s pious and what isn’t. So tell me what you think it is, my excellent Euthyphro, and don’t conceal it.
EUTHYPHRO: Some other time, Socrates. You see, I’m in a hurry to get somewhere, and it’s time for me to be off.
SOCRATES: What a way to treat me, my friend! Going off like that and dashing the high hopes I had that I’d learn from you what things are pious and what aren’t. Then
I’d escape Meletus’ indictment by showing him that Euthyphro had now made me wise in religious matters, and ignorance would no longer cause me to improvise and innovate about them.
What’s more, I’d live a better way for the rest of my life.
From The Trials of Socrates, translated and edited by C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2002). Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.
1. [Euthyphro was a mantis, or prophet (3b9–c5, 3e3), a self-proclaimed authority on Greek religion (4e4–5a2), who takes very literally the stories embodied in its myths (5e3–6b6).—C.D.C.R.]
2. [The Lyceum was one of three great gymnasia outside the city walls of Athens (the others were the Cynosarges and the Academy).]
3. [The nine archons, chosen annually, were the chief public officials in Athens: one was civilian head of state, one was head of the army (polemarchos), and six had judicial roles (thesmothetai). The King Archon dealt with important religious matters (such as the indictment against Socrates for impiety) and also with homicide (the subject of Euthyphro’s indictment). His court or porch (stoa) was in the marketplace (agora).]
4. [A lawsuit (dikē) was either private (dikē idia) or public (dikē dēmosia). A public suit was one thought to affect the community as a whole, and so any free adult male citizen could prosecute it. An indictment (graphē) was a specific sort of public suit.]
5. [The reference is to the communal hearth in the Prytaneum (Apology 36d7 note), which was the symbolic center of Athens.]
6. [Heracles (Hercules) was a hero of legendary strength. His famous labors—twelve extraordinarily difficult tasks—are alluded to at Apology 22a6–8.]
7. [The greatest of the Greek gods (5d6–6a1) and king of the Greek pantheon. It was common, and not blasphemous, to swear by him, and by the other gods.]
8. [A large island southeast of Athens.]
9. [The exēgētai (“interpreters”) were three men chosen—perhaps by the Delphic Oracle (Apology 21a4 note)—with advising people on difficult legal cases involving bloodshed and other such religious matters.]
10. [Cronus mutilated his father, Uranus (Sky), by cutting off his genitals when he was copulating with Gaea (Earth). He ate the children he had with his sister Rhea. Aided by her, however, their son Zeus escaped, overthrew Cronus, and fettered him. See Hesiod, Theogony 137–210, 456–508.]
11. [Namely, Zeus.]
12. [The Acropolis, set on the steep rocky hill that dominates Athens, was the central fortress and principal sanctuary of the goddess Athena. It was the site of the Parthenon, as well as of other temples. The Great Panathenaean festival took place every four years and was a more elaborate version of the yearly festival that marked Athena’s birthday. At it, her statue in the Parthenon received a new robe embroidered with scenes from the mythical battle of the gods and the giants.]
13. [Hephaestus, the god of fire and of blacksmithing, was armor maker to the gods. His mother, Hera, the wife and sister of Zeus (4b3 note), threw him off Olympus because he was lame and deformed. This pleased her, not him. In revenge, he made her a throne that held her captive when she sat on it. This pleased him, not her. Similarly, Cronus cannot have been pleased at being fettered by Zeus (see 6a3 note).]
14. [Daedalus was a legendary sculptor of great skill. His statues were so lifelike that they moved around by themselves just like living things. Socrates’ father, Sophroniscus, is alleged to have been a sculptor or stone carver (Diogenes Laertius II.18), and some of the statues on the Acropolis may have been attributed to Socrates himself (Pausanias I.22).]
15. [Tantalus, son of Zeus, was a legendary king proverbial for his wealth, who enjoyed the privilege of dining with the gods. He killed and cooked his son, Pelops, and mixed pieces of his flesh in with their food to see if they could detect it. He was punished in Hades by being “tantalized”—any food or water he reached for always eluded his grasp.]
16. [Author unknown.]
17. [Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, was a god who could change himself into any shape he wished. In this way, he avoided being captured, until his daughter, Eidothea, revealed the secret: keep tight hold of him, no matter what he changes into. See Homer, Odyssey IV.351–569.]