Page:The trial and death of Socrates (1895).pdf/106

10 proof, which I have already given to others, that doing right means not suffering the sacrilegious man, whosoever he may be. Men hold Zeus to be the best and the justest of the gods; and and they admit that Zeus bound his own father, Cronos, for devouring his children wickedly; and that Cronos in his turn castrated his father for similar reasons. And yet these same men are angry with me because I proceed against my father for doing wrong. So, you see, they say one thing in the case of the gods and quite another in mine.

Socr. Is not that why I am being prosecuted, Euthyphron? I mean, because I am displeased when I hear people say such things about the gods? I expect that I shall be called a sinner, because I doubt those stories. Now if you, who understand all these matters so well, agree in holding all those tales true, then I suppose that I must needs give way. What could I say when I admit myself that I know nothing about them? But tell me, in the name of friendship, do you really believe that these things have actually happened.

Euth. Yes, and stranger ones too, Socrates, which the multitude do not know of.

Socr. Then you really believe that there is war among the gods, and bitter hatreds, and battles, such as the poets tell of, and which the great painters have depicted in our temples, especially in the pictures which cover the robe that is carried up to the Acropolis at