Twenty-four Dialogues of Plato

But what is holiness, my friend? Is it that which is loved by the gods? What do you say? Has this not been said somewhere? Such as it may be with those things. But be eager. What could the pious ever be? The same pious thing: but you, Socrates, do not have a way to say what the pious ever is. For just as with the things in our arguments, they again are at a loss as to where they stand and what they seem to be. We have not established it in its place: our ancestor Socrates jokingly claims descent from Daedalus because his father was a stonemason/sculptor., O Euthyphro, seems to be the one who made these things you say, these works of Daedalus. And if I were the one saying them and setting them down, perhaps you would mock me, saying that because of my kinship to him, the works in my arguments run away and are unwilling to stay where one puts them. But now—for the hypotheses are yours—some other joke is needed. For they are unwilling to stay for you, as it seems even to you.

But it seems to me, Socrates, that the joke is much the same. It is the things said that need it: for I am not the one who makes them go around this way and not stay put; rather, you seem to me to be the Daedalus. Since, as far as I am concerned, they would have stayed as they were.

I am in danger then, my friend, of being more skilled than that man by so much, in that he only made his own works not stay put, but I, in addition to my own, it seems, do so to the works of others as well. And indeed, this is the most clever part of my "art," that I am wise against my will. For I would have preferred for my arguments to remain and be established immovably, rather than to have the wisdom of Daedalus along with the wealth of Tantalus Tantalus was a wealthy king in myth, but here Socrates likely refers to his proverbial "wealth" of suffering or perhaps his unreachable fruits; he'd trade cleverness for a solid truth.. But enough of this. Since you seem to me to be living too luxuriously Socrates uses "luxury" here to mean Euthyphro is being lazy or over-confident in his wisdom., I myself will help you show how you might teach me about the pious. And do not give up beforehand: see if it does not seem necessary to you that everything pious is just.

It does to me.

Is then everything just also pious? Or is everything pious indeed just, but not everything just is pious, but some of it is pious, and some of it is something else?

I do not follow what is being said, Socrates.

And yet you are younger than I am! You are no less wise than I am young; but as I say, you are living luxuriously due to the wealth of your wisdom. But, my blessed man, exert yourself: for it is not difficult to understand what I am saying. For I am saying the opposite of what the poet wrote, the one who wrote:

• With Zeus, the one who did the work
• and who planted all these things, you are unwilling to speak; for where there is fear,
• there also is shame These verses are traditionally attributed to Stasinus of Cyprus in the lost epic Cypria.: for many people seem to me to fear both diseases and poverty

and many other such things; while fearing them, they do not feel shame...