any
answer given in terms which were as yet unexplained or unadmitted?

MENO: Yes, Socrates; and we were quite right in doing so.

SOCRATES: But then, my friend, do not suppose that we can explain to any
one the nature of virtue as a whole through some unexplained portion of
virtue, or anything at all in that fashion; we should only have to ask
over again the old question, What is virtue? Am I not right?

MENO: I believe that you are.

SOCRATES: Then begin again, and answer me, What, according to you and
your friend Gorgias, is the definition of virtue?

MENO: O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were
always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are
casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and
enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And if I may venture to make a jest
upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over
others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who
come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For
my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer
you; and though I have been delivered of an infinite variety of speeches
about virtue before now, and to many persons--and very good ones they
were, as I thought--at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is. And
I think that you are very wise in not voyaging and going away from home,
for if you did in other places as you do in Athens, you would be cast
into prison as a magician.

SOCRATES: You are a rogue, Meno, and had all but caught me.

MENO: What do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I can tell why you made a simile about me.

MENO: Why?

SOCRATES: In order that I might make another simile about you. For I
know that all pretty young gentlemen like to have pretty similes made
about them--as well they may--but I shall not return the compliment. As
to my being a torpedo, if the torpedo is torpid as well as the cause of
torpidity in others, then indeed I am a torpedo, but not otherwise;
for I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly
perplexed myself. And now I know not what virtue is, and you seem to be
in the same case, although you did once perhaps know before you touched
me. However, I have no objection to join with you in the enquiry.

MENO: And how will you enquire, Socrates, into that which you do not
know? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry? And if you find
wha