Euthyphro Euthyphro. What strange thing has happened, Socrates, that you have left your accustomed haunts in the Lyceum and are now haunting the portico where the king archon sits? For it cannot be that you have an action before the king, as I have.

Socrates Socrates. Our Athenians, Euthyphro, do not call it an action, but an indictment.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. What? Somebody has, it seems, brought an indictment against you; 2bfor I don’t accuse you of having brought one against anyone else.

Socrates Socrates. Certainly not.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. But someone else against you?

Socrates Socrates. Quite so.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Who is he?

Socrates Socrates. I don’t know the man very well myself, Euthyphro, for he seems to be a young and unknown person. His name, however, is Meletus, I believe. And he is of the deme of Pitthus, if you remember any Pitthian Meletus, with long hair and only a little beard, but with a hooked nose.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. I don’t remember him, Socrates. But 2cwhat sort of an indictment has he brought against you?

Socrates Socrates. What sort? No mean one, it seems to me; for the fact that, young as he is, he has apprehended so important a matter reflects no small credit upon him. For he says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who those are who corrupt them. He must be a wise man; who, seeing my lack of wisdom and that I am corrupting his fellows, comes to the State, as a boy runs to his mother, to accuse me. And he seems to me to be the only one of the public men who begins in the right way; for the right way 2dis to take care of the young men first, to make them as good as possible, just as a good husbandman will naturally take care of the young plants first and afterwards of the rest.

Socrates. And so Meletus, perhaps, is first 3aclearing away us who corrupt the young plants, as he says; then after this, when he has turned his attention to the older men, he will bring countless most precious blessings upon the State,—at least, that is the natural outcome of the beginning he has made.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. I hope it may be so, Socrates; but I fear the opposite may result. For it seems to me that he begins by injuring the State at its very heart, when he undertakes to harm you. Now tell me, what does he say you do that corrupts the young? 3b

Socrates Socrates. Absurd things, my friend, at first hearing. For he says I am a maker of gods; and because I make new gods and do not believe in the old ones, he indicted me for the sake of these old ones, as he says.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. I understand, Socrates; it is because you say the divine monitor keeps coming to you. So he has brought the indictment against you for making innovations in religion, and he is going into court to slander you, knowing that slanders on such subjects are readily accepted by the people. Why, they even laugh at me and say I am crazy 3cwhen I say anything in the assembly about divine things and foretell the future to them. And yet there is not one of the things I have foretold that is not true; but they are jealous of all such men as you and I are. However, we must not be disturbed, but must come to close quarters with them.

Socrates Socrates. My dear Euthyphro, their ridicule is perhaps of no consequence. For the Athenians, I fancy, are not much concerned, if they think a man is clever, provided he does not impart his clever notions to others; but when they think he makes others to be like himself, 3dthey are angry with him, either through jealousy, as you say, or for some other reason.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. I don’t much desire to test their sentiments toward me in this matter.

Socrates Socrates. No, for perhaps they think that you are reserved and unwilling to impart your wisdom. But I fear that because of my love of men they think that I not only pour myself out copiously to anyone and everyone without payment, but that I would even pay something myself, if anyone would listen to me. Now if, as I was saying just now, they were to laugh at me, as you say they do at you, it would not be at all unpleasant 3eto pass the time in the court with jests and laughter; but if they are in earnest, then only soothsayers like you can tell how this will end.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Well, Socrates, perhaps it won’t amount to much, and you will bring your case to a satisfactory ending, as I think I shall mine.

Socrates Socrates. What is your case, Euthyphro? Are you defending or prosecuting?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Prosecuting.

Socrates Socrates. Whom?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Such a man that they think I am insane because I am prosecuting¹ him.

Socrates Socrates. Why? Are you prosecuting one who has wings to fly away with?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. No flying for him at his ripe old age.

Socrates Socrates. Who is he?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. My father.

Socrates Socrates. Your father, my dear man?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Certainly.

Socrates Socrates. But what is the charge, and what is the suit about?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Murder, Socrates.

Socrates Socrates. Heracles! Surely, Euthyphro, most people do not know where the right lies; for I fancy it is not everyone who can rightly do what you are doing, 4bbut only one who is already very far advanced in wisdom.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Very far, indeed, Socrates, by Zeus.

Socrates Socrates. Is the one who was killed by your father a relative? But of course he was; for you would not bring a charge of murder against him on a stranger’s account.

Euthyphro Euthyphro. It is ridiculous, Socrates, that you think it matters whether the man who was killed was a stranger or a relative, and do not see that the only thing to consider is whether the action of the slayer was justified or not, and that if it was justified one ought to let him alone, and if not, one ought to proceed against him, even if he share one’s hearth 4cand eat at one’s table. For the pollution is the same if you associate knowingly with such a man and do not purify yourself and him by proceeding against him. In this case, the man who was killed was a hired workman of mine, and when we were farming at Naxos, he was working there on our land. Now he got drunk, got angry with one of our house slaves, and butchered him. So my father bound him hand and foot, threw him into a ditch, and sent a man here to Athens to ask the religious adviser what he ought 4dto do. In the meantime he paid no attention to the man as he lay there bound, and neglected him, thinking that he was a murderer and it did not matter if he were to die. And that is just what happened to him. For he died of hunger and cold and his bonds before the messenger came back from the adviser. Now my father and the rest of my relatives are angry with me, because for the sake of this murderer I am prosecuting my father for murder. For they say he did not kill him, and if he had killed him never so much, yet since the dead man was a murderer, I ought not to trouble myself about such a fellow, 4ebecause it is unholy for a son to prosecute his father for murder. Which shows how little they know what the divine law is in regard to holiness and unholiness.

Socrates Socrates. But, in the name of Zeus, Euthyphro, do you think your knowledge about divine laws and holiness and unholiness is so exact that, when the facts are as you say, you are not afraid of doing something unholy yourself in prosecuting your father for murder?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. I should be of no use, Socrates, 5aand Euthyphro would be in no way different from other men, if I did not have exact knowledge about all such things.

Socrates Socrates. Then the best thing for me, my admirable Euthyphro, is to become your pupil and, before the suit with Meletus comes on, to challenge him and say that I always thought it very important before to know about divine matters and that now, since he says I am doing wrong by acting carelessly and making innovations in matters of religion, I have become your pupil. And “Meletus,” I should say, 5b“if you acknowledge that Euthyphro is wise in such matters, then believe that I also hold correct opinions, and do not bring me to trial; and if you do not acknowledge that, then bring a suit against him, my teacher, rather than against me, and charge him with corrupting the old, namely, his father and me, which he does by teaching me and by correcting and punishing his father.” And if he does not do as I ask and does not release me from the indictment or bring it against you in my stead, I could say in the court the same things I said in my challenge to him, could I not?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. By Zeus, Socrates, if he should undertake to indict me, 5cI fancy I should find his weak spot, and it would be much more a question about him in court than about me.

Socrates Socrates. And I, my dear friend, perceiving this, wish to become your pupil; for I know that neither this fellow Meletus, nor anyone else, seems to notice you at all, but he has seen through me so sharply and so easily that he has indicted me for impiety. Now in the name of Zeus, tell me what you just now asserted that you knew so well. What do you say is the nature of piety and impiety, both 5din relation to murder and to other things? Is not holiness always the same with itself in every action and, on the other hand, is not unholiness the opposite of all holiness, always the same with itself and whatever is to be unholy possessing some one characteristic quality?

Euthyphro Euthyphro. Certainly, Socrates.

Socrates Socrates. Tell me then, what do you say holiness is, and what unholiness?