1Clearly.

2And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician?

3Certainly.

4And so of all other things;—justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful?

5That is the inference.

6Then justice is not good for much. But let us consider this further point: Is not he who can best strike a blow in a boxing match or in any kind of fighting best able to ward off a blow?

7Certainly.

8And he who is most skilful in preventing or escaping from a disease is best able to create one?

9True.

10And he is the best guard of a camp who is best able to steal a march upon the enemy?

11Certainly.

12Then he who is a good keeper of anything is also a good thief?

13That, I suppose, is to be inferred.

14Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.

15That is implied in the argument.

16Then after all the just man has turned out to be a thief. And this is a lesson which I suspect you must have learnt out of Homer; for he, speaking of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, who is a favourite of his, affirms that

17‘He was excellent above all men in theft and perjury.’

18And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised however ‘for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies,’—that was what you were saying?

19No, certainly not that, though I do not now know what I did say; but I still stand by the latter words.

20Well, there is another question: By friends and enemies do we mean those who are so really, or only in seeming?

21Surely, he said, a man may be expected to love those whom he thinks good, and to hate those whom he thinks evil.

22Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?

23That is true.

24Then to them the good will be enemies and the evil will be their friends? True.

25And in that case they will be right in doing good to the evil and evil to the good?