ed. For I certainly did not ask you
to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem
that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them. And therefore,
Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing
what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what
is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Here, and there may be
other gods who have similar differences of opinion.

EUTHYPHRO: But I believe, Socrates, that all the gods would be agreed as
to the propriety of punishing a murderer: there would be no difference
of opinion about that.

SOCRATES: Well, but speaking of men, Euthyphro, did you ever hear any
one arguing that a murderer or any sort of evil-doer ought to be let
off?

EUTHYPHRO: I should rather say that these are the questions which they
are always arguing, especially in courts of law: they commit all sorts
of crimes, and there is nothing which they will not do or say in their
own defence.

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