[332c]
it seems, was that justice is rendering to each what befits him, the name
that he gave to this was the due.'” “What else do you
suppose?” said he. “In heaven's name!” said I,
“suppose1 someone had questioned him thus: 'Tell me,
Simonides, the art that renders what that is due and befitting to what is
called the art of medicine.'2 What do you
take it would have been his answer?”
“Obviously,” he said, “the art that renders to
bodies drugs, foods, and drinks.” “And the art that
renders to what things what that is due and befitting is called the culinary
art?”
1 Socrates often presents an argument in this polite form. Cf. 337 A-B, 341 E, Gorgias 451 B, Hippias Major 287 B ff., Thompson on Meno 72 B.
2 Socrates tests ambitious general definitions by the analogy of the arts and their more specific functions. Cf. Gorgias 451 A, Protagoras 311 B, 318 B. The idiomatic double question must be retained in the translation. The English reader, if puzzled, may compare Calverly's Pickwick examination: “Who thinks that in which pocket of what garment and where he has left what entreating him to return to whom and how many what and all how big?
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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