|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: real question is whether the murdered man has been justly slain. If
justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone; but if unjustly, then
even if the murderer lives under the same roof with you and eats at the
same table, proceed against him. Now the man who is dead was a poor
dependant of mine who worked for us as a field labourer on our farm in
Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a quarrel with
one of our domestic servants and slew him. My father bound him hand and
foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a
diviner what he should do with him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and
took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that
no great harm would be done even if he did die. Now this was just what
|
