EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates; and, as I was saying, I can tell you, if you
would like to hear them, many other things about the gods which
would quite amaze you.

SOCRATES: I dare say; and you shall tell me them at some other time when I
have leisure. But just at present I would rather hear from you a more
precise answer, which you have not as yet given, my friend, to the
question, What is 'piety'? When asked, you only replied, Doing as you do,
charging your father with murder.

EUTHYPHRO: And what I said was true, Socrates.

SOCRATES: No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many
other pious acts?

EUTHYPHRO: There are.

SOCRATES: Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples
of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to
be pious. Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the
impious impious, and the pious pious?

EUTHYPHRO: I remember.

SOCRATES: Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a
standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether
yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such
and such an action is pious, such another impious.