第670页 / 共1391页

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.