“Yes.”
“But we were certainly not to make repayment when the claimant is out of his senses.”
“True,” he said,
“Then Simonides apparently means something else when he says that to what is owing is just.”
“But assuredly he does,” he said, “for he thinks that friends owe to friends to do good and no evil.”
“I understand,” I said, “for what is repaid is not always what is owing; when, for example, a man repays money to one who has deposited it with him, if the repay ment or acceptance is harmful and the repayer and the receiver are friends. Is that what you my Simonides meant?”
“Certainly.”
“Them are we to repay to enemies whatever is owing to them?"
“Certainly we must pay them what is owing, But I imagine that from an enemy to an enemy evil of some sort is owing, because there is evil is appropriate.”
“Simonides then apparently, as poets will, made a riddle on the nature mature of justice. For he thought, as it appears, that to pay every man what is appropriate is just; but he called ta what is owing.”
“Do you not agree?” he said.
“In heaven's name,” I said, “what answer do you think he would have given us if we had asked him : ‘Simonides what that is owing and appropriate does the art called medicine render, and to whom or what?’”
“Clearly that it renders drugs and food and drink to bodies.”
“And what that is owing and appropriate does the art called cookery render, and to whom or what?”
“Seasoning to dishes”
“Well, what then does the art called justice render, and to whom or what?
“If, Socrates,” he said, “we are to be consistent, it renders benefits and injuries to friends and enemies.”
7
