PLATO’S “EUTHYPHRO” - Indiana University （柏拉图的u201CEUTHYPHROu201D印第安纳大学）.pdf

Indiana University, Early Chinese Thought [B/E/P374] – Fall 2010 (R. Eno) PLATO’S “EUTHYPHRO” I. Socrates and Euthyphro meet at the Porch of King Archon EUTH. What has happened, Socrates, to make you leave your accustomed pastimes in the Lyceum and spend your time here today at the King’s Porch? You can hardly have a suit pending before the King, as I do. SOC. In Athens, Euthyphro, it is not called a suit, but an indictment. EUTH. Really? Someone must have indicted you. For I will not suspect you of indicting someone else. SOC. Certainly not. EUTH. But someone you? SOC. Yes. EUTH. Who is he? SOC. I do not know the man well, Euthyphro. It appears he is young and not prominent. His name, I think, is Meletus. He belongs to the deme of Pitthus, if you recall a Pitthean Meletus with lanky hair and not much beard, but a hooked nose. EUTH. I have not noticed him, Socrates. But what is the charge? SOC. Charge? One that does him credit, I think. It is no small thing for him, young as he is, to be knowledgeable in so great a matter, for he says he knows how the youth are being corrupted and who is corrupting them. No doubt he is wise, and realizing that, in my ignorance, I corrupt his comrades, he comes to the City as to a mother to accuse me. He alone seems to me to have begun his political career correctly, for the right way to begin is to look after the young men of the City first so that they will be as good as possible, just as a good farmer naturally looks after his young plants first and the rest later. So too with Meletus. He will perhaps first weed out those of us who blight the young shoots, as he