What the punished undergoes
SocratesLet us consider it like this: paying the penalty and being justly punished for doing injustice—do you call them the same thing?
PolusI do.
SocratesThen can you say that not all just things, at any rate, are fine, in so far as they are just? Think it through and tell me.
PolusNo, it seems to me they are, Socrates.
SocratesNow consider this too: if someone does something, must there also be something that suffers it from the one who does it?
PolusI think so.
SocratesIs what it suffers just what the doer does, and of the same kind as what the doer does? I mean something like this: if someone strikes, must something be struck?
PolusNecessarily.
SocratesAnd if the striker strikes hard or fast, is what is struck struck in that way too?
PolusYes.
SocratesSo what is struck suffers something of whatever kind the striker does to it?
PolusCertainly.
SocratesSo too, if someone burns, must something be burned?
PolusHow could it not?
SocratesAnd if he burns severely or painfully, is what is burned burned just as the burner burns it?
PolusCertainly.
SocratesSo too, if someone cuts something, does the same argument hold? For something is cut.
PolusYes.
SocratesAnd if the cut is large or deep or painful, is what is cut cut with just such a cut as the cutter cuts?
PolusSo it appears.
SocratesThen see, to sum it all up, whether you agree with what I was saying just now, about every case: that whatever the doer does, of that kind is what the sufferer suffers.
PolusWell, I agree.