Plato · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
EUTHYPHRO: What's new, Socrates, that's brought you here to spend your time at the King Archon's colonnade instead of at your usual haunts in the Lyceum? Surely you don't have some case before the King yourself, the way I do. SOCRATES: Well, the Athenians don't exactly call it a "case," Euthyphro -- they call it an indictment. EUTHYPHRO: What's that? Someone's brought an indictment against you? I can't believe you'd do that to someone else. SOCRATES: No, I certainly wouldn't. EUTHYPHRO: But someone's done it to you? SOCRATES: Exactly. EUTHYPHRO: Who is it? SOCRATES: I don't even know the man very well myself, Euthyphro -- he seems to be young, and not well known. His name, I believe, is Meletus. He's from the deme Pitthus, if you can picture a Meletus from Pitthus -- straight-haired, not much of a beard, and a bit of a hooked nose. EUTHYPHRO: I can't place him, Socrates. But what exactly is the indictment he's brought against you? SOCRATES: What is it, you ask? Nothing trivial, I'd say -- it's no small thing for someone so young to have grasped a matter of such importance. He claims to know how the young are being corrupted, and who's corrupting them. He must be some kind of wise man, and having noticed my ignorance corrupting people his own age, he's come to accuse me before the city, as if going to his mother. And he seems to me to be the only one of our public men who's starting out correctly -- because the right way to start is by taking care of the young, making sure they turn out as good as possible, just as a good farmer would naturally see to the young plants first, and only afterward to the rest.
SOCRATES: And no doubt Meletus intends first to weed out those of us who are, as he puts it, corrupting the sprouts of the young; and after that, obviously, once he's taken care of the older folks too, he'll become responsible for the greatest number of the greatest benefits to the city -- as one would naturally expect from someone starting out this way. EUTHYPHRO: I'd like to believe that, Socrates, but I'm afraid the opposite might happen -- it looks to me exactly like he's starting his mischief against the city right at its own hearth, by trying to wrong you. Tell me, what does he say you do that corrupts the young? SOCRATES: Strange things, my friend, when you hear them stated plainly. He says I'm a maker of gods -- that I invent new gods and fail to recognize the old ones -- and that's the charge he's brought, on that very account, so he says. EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates -- it's because you say your divine sign comes to you from time to time. So he's brought this indictment on the grounds that you're introducing novelties in religious matters, and he's going to court to slander you, knowing that such things are easy to make people believe. It's the same with me -- whenever I say something in the Assembly about divine matters, foretelling what's going to happen, they laugh at me as if I were mad. And yet nothing I've predicted has failed to come true -- still, they resent all of us who do this sort of thing. But we shouldn't worry about them at all -- we should meet them head on. SOCRATES: My dear Euthyphro, being laughed at is probably no great matter. The Athenians, it seems to me, don't much mind if they think someone is clever, so long as he doesn't go around teaching his cleverness to others. But whoever they think makes other people the same way, that makes them angry -- whether out of resentment, as you say, or for some other reason. EUTHYPHRO: As for how they feel about me on that score, I'm not too eager to find out. SOCRATES: Perhaps that's because you seem to make yourself scarce, and aren't willing to teach your wisdom to others. But I'm afraid that because of my fondness for people, they think I pour out whatever I have to anyone at all -- not only free of charge, but I'd gladly even pay extra if someone were willing to listen to me. So if, as I was just saying, they intend to laugh at me the way you say they'll laugh at you, it wouldn't be unpleasant to pass the time joking and laughing in the courtroom. But if they mean it seriously, then how that turns out is unclear -- except to you seers. EUTHYPHRO: Well, perhaps it will come to nothing, Socrates, and you'll fight your case just as you'd like -- and I think I'll do well with mine too. SOCRATES: And what is your case, Euthyphro? Are you defending or prosecuting? EUTHYPHRO: Prosecuting. SOCRATES: Whom?
EUTHYPHRO: Someone whom, in prosecuting, I again look like a madman for pursuing. SOCRATES: Why is that -- are you chasing someone who can fly? EUTHYPHRO: He's far from flying -- he happens to be a very old man. SOCRATES: Who is this person? EUTHYPHRO: My own father. SOCRATES: Your father, my good man? EUTHYPHRO: Exactly. SOCRATES: What's the charge, and what's the case about? EUTHYPHRO: Murder, Socrates. SOCRATES: Heracles! Surely, Euthyphro, most people have no idea what the right course is here -- I don't imagine it's something just anyone could get right, but only someone already far advanced in wisdom. EUTHYPHRO: Far advanced indeed, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: Is the man who died at your father's hands one of your own relatives? Or clearly he must be -- you wouldn't be prosecuting your father for murder on behalf of some outsider. EUTHYPHRO: It's ridiculous, Socrates, that you think it makes any difference whether the dead man was a stranger or a relative, rather than this being the only thing one needs to watch for -- whether the killer killed justly or not. If justly, one should let it go; if not, one should prosecute, even if the killer shares your hearth and table. The pollution is the same if you knowingly associate with such a person and don't purify yourself and him by pursuing justice. In this case, the dead man was a laborer of mine -- when we were farming on Naxos, he was working there for us as a hired hand. He got drunk, flew into a rage at one of our household slaves, and cut his throat. So my father bound the man's feet and hands, threw him into a ditch, and sent someone here to ask the religious authority what should be done. Meanwhile he neglected the bound man and paid him no attention, since he was a murderer and it didn't matter if he died -- which is exactly what happened. He died of hunger and cold and his bonds before the messenger got back from the authority. Now my father and the rest of the family are furious with me, because on behalf of a murderer I am prosecuting my father for murder -- though he didn't even kill the man, they say, and even if he had killed him outright, since the dead man was a murderer himself, they say I shouldn't concern myself over such a person -- that it's unholy for a son to prosecute his father for murder. They know so little, Socrates, about how the divine stands regarding what is holy and unholy. SOCRATES: And you, Euthyphro, in the name of Zeus -- do you think you understand the divine, and matters of holiness and unholiness, so precisely that, given the facts happened as you say, you're not afraid that in prosecuting your own father you might be doing something unholy yourself?
EUTHYPHRO: I'd be of no use at all, Socrates, and Euthyphro would be no different from the run of men, if I didn't know all such things precisely. SOCRATES: Then perhaps, my astonishing Euthyphro, the best thing for me is to become your student, and before facing Meletus's indictment, to challenge him on this very point, saying: that I always used to think it important to know about divine matters, and now, since he claims I go wrong by improvising and introducing novelties about them, I have become your student -- and I'd say to him, "Meletus, if you admit that Euthyphro is wise in such matters, and holds correct views, then consider me the same and don't take me to court. But if you don't admit that, then bring your suit against that teacher of mine before you bring it against me, on the grounds that he's corrupting his elders -- me, by teaching me, and his own father, by admonishing and punishing him." And if he won't listen to me and doesn't drop the suit, or brings it against you instead of me, shouldn't I say in court exactly what I proposed to him? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates -- if he tried to indict me, I think I'd find out where he's rotten, and we'd end up talking about him in court long before the case ever got around to me. SOCRATES: And indeed, my dear friend, knowing this, I'm eager to become your student -- since I know that this Meletus, like others perhaps, doesn't even seem to notice you, while he's spotted me so sharply and easily that he's charged me with impiety. So now, in the name of Zeus, tell me what you were just now insisting you knew so clearly: what sort of thing do you say the holy is, and the unholy, both regarding murder and everything else? Isn't the holy the same as itself in every action, and the unholy, in turn, the opposite of everything holy, yet the same as itself, having some single form with respect to its unholiness, whatever is going to be unholy? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then tell me: what do you say the holy is, and the unholy?
EUTHYPHRO: Well then, I say that the holy is exactly what I'm doing now -- prosecuting someone who commits wrongdoing, whether murder or temple robbery or any other such offense, regardless of whether the wrongdoer happens to be one's father or mother or anyone else whatsoever; and failing to prosecute is unholy. Look, Socrates, at how strong a proof I can give you that this is the law -- one I've already given to others, that this is the correct way for things to be done -- namely, that one must not give way to the wrongdoer, whoever he happens to be. People themselves believe that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods, and yet they agree that he bound his own father for unjustly swallowing his sons, and that his father in turn had castrated his own father for similar reasons. Yet they're angry at me for prosecuting my father for wrongdoing, and so they contradict themselves in what they say about the gods and about me. SOCRATES: Could this be, Euthyphro, the very reason I'm facing this indictment -- that when someone says such things about the gods, I have trouble accepting them? That, it seems, is why people will say I do wrong. But now, if you too, who understand these matters so well, agree with these stories, then it seems I must go along with them as well. What else can we say, we who admit we know nothing about such things ourselves? But tell me, in the name of Zeus Philios, do you truly believe these things happened as told? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, and things even more astonishing than these, Socrates, which most people don't know about. SOCRATES: And do you also believe there is actual warfare among the gods against one another, and terrible hatreds and battles and other such things, of the kind the poets tell of, and which good painters have depicted in our temples -- and indeed at the Great Panathenaea, the robe carried up to the Acropolis is full of just such embroidered scenes? Shall we say these things are true, Euthyphro? EUTHYPHRO: Not only these, Socrates, but as I just said, I can tell you many other things about the gods, if you like, which I'm sure will astonish you to hear. SOCRATES: I wouldn't be surprised. But you can tell me those some other time, at leisure. For now, try to give a clearer answer to what I just asked you. You didn't adequately teach me before, my friend, when I asked what the holy actually is -- you only told me that what you're doing now happens to be holy, prosecuting your father for murder. EUTHYPHRO: And I was telling the truth, Socrates. SOCRATES: Perhaps. But you also say, Euthyphro, that many other things are holy. EUTHYPHRO: Well, they are. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, that I wasn't asking you to teach me one or two of the many holy things, but that very form itself by which all holy things are holy? You said, I believe, that there is one single form by which unholy things are unholy, and holy things holy -- or don't you recall? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: Then teach me this very form, whatever it may be, so that I can look to it and use it as a model -- so that whatever action, whether yours or anyone else's, resembles it, I can call holy, and whatever doesn't, I won't. EUTHYPHRO: Well, if that's what you want, Socrates, I'll tell you that too. SOCRATES: That is indeed what I want.
EUTHYPHRO: Well then, what's dear to the gods is pious, and what's not dear to them is impious. SOCRATES: Excellent, Euthyphro -- you've now answered just the way I was hoping you would. Whether it's true, though, I don't yet know -- but no doubt you'll go on to show me that what you say is true. EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Come then, let's look at what we're saying. What's dear to god, and the person who's dear to god, is pious; what's hateful to god, and the person who's hateful to god, is impious. And these aren't the same -- they're exact opposites, the pious and the impious. Isn't that right? EUTHYPHRO: That's right. SOCRATES: And that seems well put? EUTHYPHRO: I think so, Socrates. It's been said. SOCRATES: And hasn't it also been said, Euthyphro, that the gods quarrel and disagree with one another, and that there's enmity among them toward one another? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, that's been said. SOCRATES: And what kind of disagreement, my good man, produces enmity and anger? Let's look at it this way. If you and I disagreed about which of two numbers was greater, would that disagreement make us enemies and angry with each other, or would we go straight to arithmetic and quickly settle a dispute of that kind? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if we disagreed about which of two things was bigger, we'd go to measuring and quickly put an end to the disagreement? EUTHYPHRO: That's so. SOCRATES: And by resorting to weighing, I imagine, we'd settle a question about which of two things was heavier or lighter? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then what sort of disagreement -- one we couldn't reach a verdict on -- would make us enemies and angry at each other? Maybe it doesn't come to you readily, but consider, as I say it, whether it's these: the just and the unjust, the noble and the shameful, the good and the bad. Isn't it disagreements about these things, when we can't reach a satisfactory verdict about them, that make us enemies of one another -- whenever we do become enemies -- you and I and everyone else? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, that is the kind of disagreement, and it's about those things. SOCRATES: And what about the gods, Euthyphro? If they disagree about anything, wouldn't it be over these very things? EUTHYPHRO: That's quite necessary. SOCRATES: Then, noble Euthyphro, by your account, different gods consider different things just, and noble, and shameful, and good, and bad -- since surely they wouldn't quarrel with one another if they didn't disagree about these things. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: You're right. SOCRATES: And whatever each group of them considers noble and good and just, that's what they love, and the opposite of these is what they hate? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But the very same things, as you say, some consider just and others consider unjust -- things about which they dispute and so quarrel and make war on each other. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: It is. SOCRATES: Then the same things, it seems, are both hated and loved by the gods, and the same things would be both hateful to god and dear to god. EUTHYPHRO: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then the same things would be both pious and impious, Euthyphro, by this account. EUTHYPHRO: It looks that way. SOCRATES: So you haven't answered what I asked, my remarkable friend. I wasn't asking what happens to be both pious and impious at once -- yet what's dear to god turns out also to be hateful to god, it seems. So, Euthyphro, when you're punishing your father as you're now doing, it wouldn't be at all surprising if this act is pleasing to Zeus but hateful to Cronus and Ouranos, dear to Hephaestus but hateful to Hera, and if it differs among any other gods too, each disagreeing with another over it, in the same way. EUTHYPHRO: But I think, Socrates, that on this point at least no god disagrees with another -- that whoever kills someone unjustly must pay the penalty. SOCRATES: Really? But have you ever heard any human being, Euthyphro, dispute that the one who kills unjustly, or does any other unjust thing, shouldn't pay the penalty? EUTHYPHRO: No, people never stop disputing that, both elsewhere and in the courts -- for having done a great many unjust things, they do and say everything to escape justice. SOCRATES: But do they actually admit, Euthyphro, that they've acted unjustly, and, admitting it, still say they shouldn't pay the penalty? EUTHYPHRO: No, not that at all. SOCRATES: So they don't do and say everything -- for I don't think they'd dare to say or dispute that if they really have acted unjustly, they shouldn't pay the penalty; instead, I think they deny having acted unjustly at all. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: True. SOCRATES: So they don't dispute that whoever acts unjustly must pay the penalty; rather, what they perhaps dispute is who is acting unjustly, and doing what, and when. EUTHYPHRO: True. SOCRATES: And don't the gods experience this very same thing, if indeed they quarrel about just and unjust things as your account has it -- some claiming the others act unjustly, others denying it? Since surely, my friend, neither god nor man dares to say that the one who acts unjustly shouldn't pay the penalty. EUTHYPHRO: Yes, that's true, Socrates, on the whole. SOCRATES: But I think, Euthyphro, that those who dispute -- whether men or gods, if gods do dispute -- dispute over each particular deed. Disagreeing about some action, one side says it was done justly, the other unjustly. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Come then, dear Euthyphro, teach me too, so I may become wiser -- what proof do you have that all the gods consider it unjust for a man to die the way this one did: a hired laborer who became a murderer, was bound by the master of the man he'd killed, and died from the binding before the one who'd bound him could find out from the religious experts what should be done about him -- and that it's right, on behalf of such a man, for a son to prosecute his own father and charge him with murder? Come, try to show me clearly that on this matter, above all, all the gods surely consider this act right. If you can show me that satisfactorily, I'll never stop praising your wisdom. EUTHYPHRO: Well, that's perhaps no small task, Socrates -- though I could show it to you quite clearly. SOCRATES: I understand -- you think I'm a slower learner than the jurors, since you'll obviously show them that these things are unjust and that all the gods hate such conduct. EUTHYPHRO: Quite clearly, Socrates -- provided they'll actually listen to what I say. SOCRATES: Oh, they'll listen -- as long as you seem to speak well. But here's something that occurred to me while you were speaking, and I'm turning it over in my mind: even if Euthyphro were to teach me as thoroughly as possible that all the gods consider such a death unjust, what more would I have learned from Euthyphro about what the pious and the impious actually are? For this deed might well be hateful to god -- but we just saw that the pious and the impious aren't defined by that; for what's hateful to god turned out to be dear to god as well. So I'll let you off that point, Euthyphro -- if you like, let all the gods consider it unjust, and let all of them hate it. But is this the correction we're now making in our discussion -- that whatever all the gods hate is impious, and whatever they all love is pious, while whatever some love and some hate is neither, or both? Is that how you want us to define the pious and the impious now? EUTHYPHRO: What's stopping us, Socrates? SOCRATES: Nothing on my side, Euthyphro -- but you consider your own position, whether by assuming this you'll most easily teach me what you promised. EUTHYPHRO: Well, I would say that the pious is what all the gods love, and its opposite, what all the gods hate, is impious. SOCRATES: Then shall we examine this in turn, Euthyphro, to see whether it's well said, or shall we let it be and accept it from ourselves and from others, agreeing that something is so simply because someone says it is? Or should we look into what the speaker means? EUTHYPHRO: We should look into it -- though for my part I think this is well said now.
SOCRATES: We'll soon know better, my good man. Think of it this way: is the pious loved 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: Let me try to put it more clearly. We speak of something being carried and something carrying, something being led and something leading, something being seen and something seeing -- and you understand that all such pairs are different from each other, and how they're different? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I think I understand. SOCRATES: And isn't there also something being loved, and, different from that, the thing loving it? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then tell me: is the thing being carried a thing-being-carried because it's carried, or for some other reason? EUTHYPHRO: No, it's for that reason. SOCRATES: And the thing being led, because it's led, and the thing being seen, because it's seen? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it's not because something is a thing-being-seen that it's seen, but rather the reverse -- because it's seen, it's a thing-being-seen; and not because it's a thing-being-led that it's led, but because it's led, it's a thing-being-led; nor because it's a thing-being-carried does it get carried, but because it's carried, it's a thing-being-carried. Is it clear what I mean, Euthyphro? I mean this: if something comes to be or undergoes something, it's not that it comes to be because it's a thing-coming-to-be, but rather it's a thing-coming-to-be because it comes to be; nor does it undergo something because it's a thing-undergoing, but it's a thing-undergoing because it undergoes. Don't you agree? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: And isn't the thing being loved either something coming to be or something undergoing something at another's hands? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then this case is just like the earlier ones -- it's not because it's a thing-being-loved that it's loved by those who love it, but because it's loved, it's a thing-being-loved. EUTHYPHRO: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So what are we to say about the pious, Euthyphro? Isn't it loved by all the gods, as your account has it? EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Is it loved for this reason -- because it's pious -- or for some other reason? EUTHYPHRO: No, for that reason. SOCRATES: So it's loved because it's pious, not pious because it's loved? EUTHYPHRO: So it seems. SOCRATES: But then what's dear to god, because it's loved by the gods, is by that very fact a thing-being-loved and dear to god. EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then what's dear to god isn't the same as the pious, Euthyphro, nor is the pious the same as what's dear to god, as you claim -- they're two different things. EUTHYPHRO: How do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: Because we've agreed that the pious is loved because it's pious, not that it's pious because it's loved. Isn't that right? EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Whereas what's dear to god is dear to god by the very fact of being loved by the gods, through this loving itself -- not that it's loved because it's dear to god. EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: But look, my dear Euthyphro—if what is loved by the gods and what is holy were the same thing, then if the holy were loved because it is holy, what is loved by the gods would also be loved because it is loved by the gods. And if what is loved by the gods were loved by the gods because it is loved by them, then the holy too would be holy because it is loved. But as it stands you can see the two are opposite—they are entirely different from each other. One of them, being loved, is the sort of thing that gets loved; the other, being the sort of thing that gets loved, is for that reason loved. It looks, Euthyphro, as though when I asked you what the holy actually is, you weren't willing to show me its essence, but only told me something that happens to it—that the holy has this property of being loved by all the gods. What it is in itself, you still haven't said. So if you don't mind, don't hold back—tell me again from the beginning what the holy really is, whether it's loved by the gods or undergoes whatever else it undergoes—we won't argue about that—but tell me eagerly: what is the holy, and what is the unholy? EUTHYPHRO: But Socrates, I really don't know how to tell you what I have in mind. Whatever we put forward keeps somehow wandering off on us and refuses to stay put where we set it down. SOCRATES: What you're saying sounds like the work of our ancestor Daedalus, Euthyphro. And if I were the one saying these things and setting them down, you might make fun of me, saying that because I'm related to him, my arguments run away too and won't stay where they're put. But as it is, these are your premises, so some other joke is needed—they won't stay put for you, as you yourself admit. EUTHYPHRO: Well, it seems to me, Socrates, that pretty much the same joke applies to what's being said. I'm not the one making them wander around and refuse to stay in place—you seem to me to be the Daedalus here, since as far as I'm concerned they would have stayed put just as they were. SOCRATES: Then it seems, my friend, I've become even more skilled at that craft than that man was, in this respect: he could only make his own works refuse to stay still, whereas I, it seems, do that to other people's as well as my own. And in fact this is the cleverest part of my skill—that I'm wise without meaning to be. I'd much rather have my arguments stay put and stand fixed than possess both the wisdom of Daedalus and the wealth of Tantalus. But enough of that. Since you seem to be indulging yourself, I'll join you eagerly in trying to help you teach me about the holy. And don't give up beforehand—look, doesn't it seem necessary to you that everything holy is just? EUTHYPHRO: It does to me.
SOCRATES: Then is everything just also holy? Or is everything holy just, while not everything just is holy, but part of it is holy and part is something else? EUTHYPHRO: I'm not following what you're saying, Socrates. SOCRATES: And yet you're younger than me by no less than you're wiser—but as I say, you're growing lazy from the wealth of your wisdom. Come, my good man, exert yourself—what I'm saying isn't hard to grasp. I mean the opposite of what the poet said who wrote: 'Zeus, who made all this and brought it to pass, him he is unwilling to blame; for where there is fear, there too is shame.' I disagree with that poet. Shall I tell you how? EUTHYPHRO: Please do. SOCRATES: It doesn't seem right to me that where there is fear, there is also shame. Plenty of people, I think, fear disease and poverty and many other such things, and yet feel no shame at all about the things they fear. Don't you agree? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: But where there is shame, there is also fear. Is there anyone who feels shame and embarrassment about some act who does not also feel afraid and fearful of a reputation for wickedness? EUTHYPHRO: He certainly does feel fear. SOCRATES: Then it's not right to say that where there is fear, there is also shame—rather, where there is shame, there is also fear, but not everywhere that there is fear is there shame, since fear covers more ground than shame does. Shame is a part of fear, just as odd is a part of number, so that it isn't true that wherever there is number there is also odd, but wherever there is odd, there is also number. You follow me now, I take it? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: That's the sort of thing I was asking about back there too—is it that wherever there is just, there is also holy? Or wherever there is holy, there is also just, but not everywhere that there is just is there holy—since the holy is a part of the just? Shall we put it that way, or does it look different to you? EUTHYPHRO: No, that way. You seem to me to be right. SOCRATES: Then look at what comes next. If the holy is a part of the just, we need, it seems, to find out what part of the just the holy is. Now if you had asked me one of the things I mentioned just now—what part of number the even is, and what number that happens to be—I would have said: whichever number is not scalene but isosceles. Or doesn't that seem right to you? EUTHYPHRO: It does to me. SOCRATES: Try, then, to teach me in that same way what part of the just is holy, so that we can tell Meletus to stop wronging us and indicting us for impiety, since we've now learned thoroughly from you what things are pious and holy and what are not. EUTHYPHRO: Well then, this is what seems to me to be the case, Socrates: the part of the just that is pious and holy is the part concerned with attending to the gods, while the remaining part of the just is concerned with attending to human beings.
SOCRATES: And what you say seems fine to me, Euthyphro, but I still need one small thing—I don't yet understand what you mean by this 'attending to.' You surely don't mean that our attending to the gods is like the other kinds of attending to things—for we do say, don't we, that not everyone knows how to attend to horses, but only the horseman does. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: For horsemanship is presumably the attending to horses. EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Nor does everyone know how to attend to dogs, but only the huntsman. EUTHYPHRO: Just so. SOCRATES: For huntsmanship is presumably the attending to dogs. EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: And cattle-herding is the attending to cattle. EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And holiness and piety is the attending to the gods, Euthyphro—is that what you mean? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: Now doesn't all attending accomplish the same thing? I mean something like this: it aims at some good and benefit for the thing being attended to, just as you see that horses attended to by horsemanship are benefited and become better. Or don't you think so? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: And dogs, presumably, by huntsmanship, and cattle by cattle-herding, and all the rest the same way—or do you think attending aims at harming the thing attended to? EUTHYPHRO: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: But at benefiting it? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then is holiness too, being an attending to the gods, a benefit to the gods, and does it make the gods better? And would you agree to this—that whenever you do something holy, you're making one of the gods better? EUTHYPHRO: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: Nor do I think you mean that, Euthyphro—far from it—but that's exactly why I asked what sort of attending to the gods you meant, since I didn't think you meant that kind. EUTHYPHRO: And rightly so, Socrates—that isn't what I mean. SOCRATES: Very well—then what sort of attending to the gods would holiness be? EUTHYPHRO: The sort, Socrates, that slaves give their masters. SOCRATES: I understand—it would be a kind of service to the gods, it seems. EUTHYPHRO: Exactly. SOCRATES: Now could you tell me—service to doctors is service aimed at producing what result? Isn't it health, do you think? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: What about service to shipbuilders? What result is it service aimed at producing? EUTHYPHRO: Clearly, Socrates, a ship. SOCRATES: And service to builders is aimed at a house, presumably? EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Then tell me, my excellent friend—service to the gods would be service aimed at producing what result? For clearly you know, since you claim to know the affairs of the gods better than any man. EUTHYPHRO: And I speak the truth, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then tell me, by Zeus, what is that altogether beautiful work which the gods produce, using us as their servants?
EUTHYPHRO: Many beautiful things, Socrates. SOCRATES: So do generals, my friend—yet you could easily state the main point of their work, that they produce victory in war. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: And farmers too, I think, produce many beautiful things—yet the main point of their production is the food that comes from the earth. EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, of the many beautiful things the gods produce, what is the main point of their work? EUTHYPHRO: I told you a little while ago, Socrates, that it's a considerable task to learn precisely how all these things stand. But I'll put it simply for you like this: if someone knows how to say and do what is pleasing to the gods in prayer and sacrifice, that is what is holy, and such things preserve both private households and the common affairs of cities. But the opposite of what is pleasing is impious, and that in turn overturns and destroys everything. SOCRATES: You could have told me the main point of what I was asking much more briefly, Euthyphro, if you'd wanted to—but clearly you're not eager to teach me. In fact just now, when you were right at the edge of it, you turned away—if you'd answered, I would already have learned enough about holiness from you. But as it is, the lover must follow the beloved wherever he leads, so tell me again: what do you say the holy is, and holiness? Isn't it some kind of knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray? EUTHYPHRO: I do say that. SOCRATES: And isn't sacrificing giving gifts to the gods, and praying asking things of them? EUTHYPHRO: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then on this account, holiness would be a knowledge of asking from the gods and giving to them. EUTHYPHRO: You've grasped exactly what I meant, Socrates. SOCRATES: That's because I'm eager for your wisdom, my friend, and I pay close attention to it, so that nothing you say will fall to the ground unheeded. But tell me, what is this service to the gods? You say it consists in asking things from them and giving things to them? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't asking correctly mean asking them for the things we actually need from them? EUTHYPHRO: What else would it be? SOCRATES: And giving correctly, in turn, would mean giving back to them whatever they happen to need from us? For it wouldn't be very skillful to bring someone gifts he has no need of at all. EUTHYPHRO: True, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then holiness, Euthyphro, would be a kind of trading skill between gods and men. EUTHYPHRO: Trading, if you'd rather call it that.
SOCRATES: But it's no more pleasant to me, if it doesn't happen to be true. Tell me, what benefit do the gods actually get from the gifts they receive from us? What they give us is obvious to everyone — we have no good thing that they didn't give. But what do they get out of what they receive from us? Or do we come out so far ahead of them in this trade that we get all the good things from them and they get nothing at all from us? EUTHYPHRO: But Socrates, do you really think the gods benefit from what they receive from us? SOCRATES: Well, whatever could these gifts to the gods from us be, Euthyphro? EUTHYPHRO: What else do you suppose, besides honor and privilege — and, as I said just now, gratitude? SOCRATES: So the pious is what's pleasing, Euthyphro, but not beneficial or dear to the gods? EUTHYPHRO: I should think it's the most dear thing of all. SOCRATES: Then this, it seems, is once again what the pious is — what's dear to the gods. EUTHYPHRO: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Will you be surprised, then, saying these things, if your arguments turn out not to stand still but to walk around, and you blame me as the Daedalus who makes them walk, when you yourself are far more skilled than Daedalus, since you're the one making them go in a circle? Don't you notice that our argument has circled around and come back to the same place? Surely you remember that earlier the pious and the god-loved appeared to us not the same thing but different from each other — or don't you remember? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: So don't you realize now that you're saying the pious is what's dear to the gods? And isn't that the same as god-loved? Or isn't it? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly it is. SOCRATES: So either we weren't agreeing correctly just now, or if we were right then, we're setting things up wrong now. EUTHYPHRO: It seems so. SOCRATES: Then we must start again from the beginning and examine what the pious is, since I, for my part, won't willingly back down before I learn. Please don't look down on me — turn your mind to it in every way you can, and tell me the truth now, if ever. For you know it, if any man does, and you mustn't be let go, like Proteus, until you speak. If you hadn't known clearly what the pious and the impious are, there's no way you would ever have undertaken to prosecute your own elderly father for murder on behalf of a hired hand — you'd have been afraid of the gods, afraid of risking that you might not be doing it rightly, and ashamed before men. But as it is, I know well that you think you know clearly what's pious and what isn't. So tell me, excellent Euthyphro, and don't hide what you take it to be. EUTHYPHRO: Some other time, then, Socrates. Right now I'm in a hurry to get somewhere, and it's time for me to go.
SOCRATES: What a thing to do, my friend! You're leaving and knocking down the great hope I had — that I would learn from you what's pious and what isn't, and be rid of Meletus's indictment, by showing him that I've now become wise in matters of religion thanks to Euthyphro, and that I'm no longer improvising out of ignorance or making up novelties about these things, and that from now on I'll live the rest of my life better.