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[332b] if this return and the acceptance prove harmful and the returner and the recipient are friends. Isn't that what you say Simonides means?” “Quite so.” “But how about this—should one not render to enemies what is their due?” “By all means,” he said, “what is due1 and owing to them, and there is due and owing from an enemy to an enemy what also is proper for him, some evil.”

“It was a riddling2 definition of justice, then, that Simonides gave after the manner of poets; for while his meaning,

1 In the Greek the particles indicate slight irritation in the speaker.

2 Cf. Lysis 214 D, Charmides 162 A, Theaetetus 152 C, 194 C, Alc. II. 147 B. The poet, like the soothsayer, is “inspired,” but only the thinker can interpret his meaning. Cf. 331 E, Tim. 72 A. Allegory and the allegorical interpretation are always conscious and often ironical in Plato.

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