[332a]
is due to him
in a sense, is it not?” “Yes.” “But
rendered to him it ought not to be by any manner of means when he demands it
not being his right mind.” “True,” said he.
“It is then something other than this that Simonides must, as it
seems, mean by the saying that it is just to render back what is
due.” “Something else in very deed,” he
replied, “for he believes that friends owe it to friends to do
them some good and no evil.” “I see,” said I;
“you mean that1 he does not
render what is due or owing who returns a deposit of gold
[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 due2 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
riddling3 definition of justice, then, that Simonides gave after the
manner of poets; for while his meaning,
[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,
“suppose4 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.'5 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?”
[332d]
“Seasoning to
meats.” “Good. In the same way tell me the art that
renders what to whom would be denominated justice.” “If
we are to follow the previous examples,6 Socrates, it is that
which renders benefits and harms to friends and enemies.”
“To do good to friends and evil to enemies,7 then, is justice in his meaning?”
“I think so.” “Who then is the most able when
they are ill to benefit friends and harm enemies in respect to disease and
health?” “The physician.”
[332e]
“And who navigators in respect of the perils
of the sea?” “The pilot.” “Well
then, the just man, in what action and for what work is he the most
competent to benefit friends and harm enemies?” “In
making war and as an ally, I should say.” “Very well.
But now if they are not sick, friend Polemarchus, the physician is useless
to them.” “True.” “And so to those
who are not at sea the pilot.” “Yes.”
“Shall we also say this that for those who are not at war the just
man is useless?” “By no means.”
“There is a use then even in peace for justice?”
1 Adam insists that the meaning of μανθάνω ὅτι here and everywhere is “it is because.”
2 In the Greek the particles indicate slight irritation in the speaker.
3 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.
4 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.
5 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?
6 Similarly Protagoras 312 A.
7 Simonides' defintion is reduced to the formula of traditional Greek morality which Plato was the first to transcend not only in the Republic infra, 335 D-336 A, but in the Crito 49 B-C. It is often expressed by Xenophon (Memorabilia ii. 3. 14, ii. 6. 35) and Isocrates (i. 26). But the polemic is not especially aimed at them. Cf. Schmidt, Ethik, ii. 313, 319, 363, Pindar, Pyth. ii. 85, Aeschylus Choeph. 123, Jebb, introduction to Sopocles Ajax, p. xxxix, Thumser, Staats-Altertumer, p. 549, n. 6, Thompson on Meno 71 E.
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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