You mean that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury
of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment
of a debt,--that is what you would imagine him to say?
Yes.
And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them?
To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them, and an enemy,
as I take it, owes to an enemy that which is due or proper to him--
that is to say, evil.
Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have
spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say
that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him,
and this he termed a debt.
That must have been his meaning, he said.
By heaven! I replied; and if we asked him what due or proper thing
is given by medicine, and to whom, what answer do you think that he
would make to us?
He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink
to human bodies.
And what due or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what?
Seasoning to food.
And what is that which justice gives, and to whom?
If, Socrates, we are to be guided at all
by the analogy of the preceding instances,
then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies.
That is his meaning then?
I think so.
And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his
enemies in time of sickness?
The physician.
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