great sin? Why destroy us? Why separate us?" But Tane pushed and
pushed: Rangi was driven far away into the air. "_They became visible,
who had hitherto been concealed between the hollows of their parents'
breasts_." Only the storm-god differed from his brethren: he arose and
followed his father, Rangi, and abode with him in the open spaces of the
sky.'

This is the Maori story of the severing of the wedded Heaven and Earth.
The cutting of them asunder was the work of Tutenganahau and his
brethren, and the conduct of Tutenganahau is still held up as an example
of filial impiety. {46a} The story is preserved in sacred hymns of very
great antiquity, and many of the myths are common to the other peoples of
the Pacific. {46b}

Now let us turn from New Zealand to Athens, as she was in the days of
Pericles. Socrates is sitting in the porch of the King Archon, when
Euthyphro comes up and enters into conversation with the philosopher.
After some talk, Euthyphro says, 'You will think me mad when I tell you
whom I am prosecuting and pursuing!' 'Why, has the fugitive wings?' asks
Socrates. 'Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life!' 'Who is
he?' 'My father.' 'Good heavens! you don't mean that. What is he
accused of?' 'Murder, Socrates.' Then Euthyphro explains the case,
which quaintly illustrates Greek civilisation. Euthyphro's father had an
agricultural labourer at Naxos. One day this man, in a drunken passion,
killed a slave. Euthyphro's father seized the labourer, bound him, threw
him into a ditch, 'and then sent to Athens to ask a diviner what should
be done with him.' Before the answer of the diviner arrived, the
labourer literally 'died in a ditch' of hunger and cold. For this
offence, Euthyphro was prosecuting his own father. Socrates shows that
he disapproves, and Euthyphro thus defends the piety of his own conduct: