you how you might instruct me in
the nature of piety; and I hope that you will not grudge your labour.
Tell me, then--Is not that which is pious necessarily just?

EUTHYPHRO: Yes.

SOCRATES: And is, then, all which is just pious? or, is that which is
pious all just, but that which is just, only in part and not all, pious?

EUTHYPHRO: I do not understand you, Socrates.

SOCRATES: And yet I know that you are as much wiser than I am, as you
are younger. But, as I was saying, revered friend, the abundance of your
wisdom makes you lazy. Please to exert yourself, for there is no
real difficulty in understanding me. What I mean I may explain by an
illustration of what I do not mean. The poet (Stasinus) sings--

'Of Zeus, the author and creator of all these things, You will not tell:
for where there is fear there is also reverence.'

Now I disagree with this poet. Shall I tell you in what respect?

EUTHYPHRO: By all means.

SOCRATES: I should not say that where there is fear there is also
reverence; for I am sure that many persons fear poverty and disease, and
the like evils, but I do not perceive that they reverence the objects of
their fear.

EUTHYPHRO: Very true.

SOCRATES: But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a
feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears
and is afraid of an ill reputation.

EUTHYPHRO: No doubt.

SOCRATES: Then we are wrong in saying that where there is fear there
is also reverence; and we should say, where there is reverence there is
also fear. But there is not always reverence where there is fear; for
fear is a more extended notion, and reverence is a part of fear, just as
the odd is a part of number, and number is a more extended notion than
the odd. I suppose that you follow me now?

EUTHYPHRO: Quite well.

SOCRATES: That was the sort of question which I meant to raise when
I asked whether the just is always the pious, or the pious always the
just; and whether there may not be justice where there is not piety; for
justice is the more extended notion of which piety is only a part. Do
you dissent?

EUTHYPHRO: No, I think that you are quite right.

SOCRATES: Then, if piety is a part of justice, I suppose that we should
enquire what part? If you had pursued the enquiry in the previous cases;
for instance, if you had asked me what is an even number, and what part
of number the even is, I should have had no difficulty in replying,
a number whi