The Death of Socrates. Romano Guardini
a queer old gentleman who can be very importunate; and telling him the definition of piety would not get him any further than that.”
The only alternative, then, is either to leave the man alone or to start again from the beginning; and the elderly questioner in facts begins afresh. To be sure, it is an odd sort of interrogation, and a dangerous undertone is audible in it:
SOCR. Then we must begin again, and inquire what is holiness. I do not mean to give in until I have found out. Do not deem me unworthy; give your whole mind to the question, and this time tell me the truth. For if any one knows it, it is you; and you are a Proteus whom I must not let go until you have told me. It cannot be that you would ever have undertaken to prosecute your aged father for the murder of a labouring man unless you had known exactly what is holiness and unholiness. You would have feared to risk the anger of the gods, in case you should be doing wrong, and you would have been afraid of what men would say. But now I am sure that you think that you know exactly what is holiness and what is not: so tell me, my excellent Euthyphro, and do not conceal from me what you hold it to be.
The discussion is back at the beginning again. The domestic affair which has brought Euthyphro here crops up again; once more his competence in religious matters is emphasized, and Socrates craves instruction on the nature of,piety, so that he, a man under accusation of impiety, may learn wherein he has been at fault. But Euthyphro must have felt sure of one thing: what is aimed at him here is no mere question, but an exposure and a verdict. So he takes to flight:
EUTH. Another time, then, Socrates. I am in a hurry now, and it is time for me to be off.
SOCR. What are you doing, my friend! Will you go away and destroy all my hopes of learning from you what is holy and what is not, and so of escaping Meletus? I meant to explain to him that now Euthyphro has made me wise about divine things, and that I no longer in my ignorance speak rashly about them or introduce novelties in them; and then I was going to promise him to live a better life for the future.
But Euthyphro is not going to let himself in for any more. One can see him hurrying away and Socrates looking after him with a smile.
The conversation has been fruitless. Euthyphro has not opened out. Even the indirect method has not succeeded in getting at him. But one thing has become clear: what he is, and what Socrates is—those two who at the beginning of the dialogue seemed so near to each other. And as Euthyphro is, so will be the majority of the judges before whom Socrates has to defend his case.
1 A pun in the Greek; the word for “to prosecute”, diôkein, means also “to pursue”.
1 Cf. Rep. ii, 377, seq.
1 Eidos (“essential image”) and idea (“original form”) mean the same thing, although with a somewhat different nuance; the necessary content of a thing’s property and meaning, though not by way of abstract definition, but of course pictorial perceptibility. This “image” acquires in the course of Platonic thought an ever more pronounced metaphysical significance. See p. 150 below.
1 Tantalus in Hades was surrounded by cool water and fine fruits; but whenever he tried to drink, the water dried up, and whenever he reached for the fruits, a storm-wind lifted the branches high in the air.
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