Euth. I do.
Soc. Now, therefore, do you not perceive that you say the holy is that which is beloved by the gods ? But is this any thing else than that which is dear to divinity ?
Euth. It is nothing else.
Soc. Either therefore we did not then conclude well, or, if we did, our present position is not right.
Euth. It seems so.
Soc. From the beginning, therefore, we must again consider what the holy is. For I shall not willingly, before I have learnt this, run timidly away. Do not then despite me, but paying all possible attention, tell me the truth in the most eminent degree. For you know it, if any man does ; and you will not be dismissed like Proteus till you have told me. For if you had not clearly known what the holy, and also the unholy is, you never would have attempted, for the sake of a man who is a hireling, to accuse your father of murder, when he is now advanced in years ; but you would have dreaded (lest you should not act rightly in this affair) the danger of incurring the anger of the gods, and the reproach of men. But now I well know that you clearly suspect [1], that you have a knowledge of what the holy and its contrary are. Tell me, therefore, most excellent Euthyphro, and do not conceal from me what you think it to be ?
Euth. It must be at some other opportunity then, Socrates : for now I am in haste, and it is time for me to leave you.
Soc. What do you do, my friend ? By your departure you will throw me from the great hope I had entertained of learning from you what things are holy, and what are not so, and of liberating myself from the accusation of Melitus, by showing him that I was become wise through Euthyphro in divine concerns ; that I shall no longer speak rashly, nor introduce any novelties respecting them through ignorance; and also that I shall act better during the remainder of my life.
- ↑ Plato here very properly uses the word οιει, you suspect, because Euthyphro not being freed from two-fold ignorance, or, in other words, being ignorant that he was ignorant, had nothing more than a suspicion of the nature of holiness.
