SOCRATES: But do they admit their guilt, Euthyphro, and yet say that they
ought not to be punished?
EUTHYPHRO: No; they do not.
SOCRATES: Then there are some things which they do not venture to say and
do: for they do not venture to argue that the guilty are to be unpunished,
but they deny their guilt, do they not?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then they do not argue that the evil-doer should not be
punished, but they argue about the fact of who the evil-doer is, and what
he did and when?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And the gods are in the same case, if as you assert they quarrel
about just and unjust, and some of them say while others deny that
injustice is done among them. For surely neither God nor man will ever
venture to say that the doer of injustice is not to be punished?
EUTHYPHRO: That is true, Socrates, in the main.
SOCRATES: But they join issue about the particulars--gods and men alike;
and, if they dispute at all, they dispute about some act which is called in
question, and which by some is affirmed to be just, by others to be unjust.
Is not that true?
EUTHYPHRO: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Well then, my dear friend Euthyphro, do tell me, for my better
instruction and information, what proof have you that in the opinion of all
the gods a servant who is guilty of murder, and is put in chains by the
master of the dead man, and dies because he is put in chains before he who
bound him can learn from the interpreters of the gods what he ought to do
with him, dies unjustly; and that on behalf of such an one a son ought to
proceed against his father and accuse him of murder.
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