Available translations: English
PLATO Meno 76 A ff. Τὸ δὲ χρῶμα τί λέγεις, ὦ Σώκρατες; —Ὑβριστής γ’ εἶ, ὦ Μένων· ἀνδρὶ πρεσβύτηι πράγματα προστάττεις ἀποκρίνεσθαι, αὐτὸς δὲ οὐκ ἐθέλεις ἀναμνησθεὶς εἰπεῖν, ὅ τί ποτε λέγει Γ. ἀρετὴν εἶναι... C Βούλει οὖν σοι κατὰ Γοργίαν ἀποκρίνωμαι, ἧι ἂν σὺ μάλιστα ἀκολουθήσαις; — Βούλομαι· πῶς γὰρ οὔ; —Οὐκοῦν λέγετε ἀπορροάς τινας τῶν ὄντων κατὰ Ἐμπεδοκλέα; — Σφόδρα γε. —Καὶ πόρους εἰς οὓς καὶ δι’ ὧν αἱ ἀπορροαὶ πορεύονται; —Πάνυ γε. —Καὶ τῶν ἀπορροῶν τὰς μὲν ἁρμόττειν ἐνίοις τῶν πόρων, τὰς δὲ ἐλάττους ἢ μείζους εἶναι; —Ἔστι ταῦτα. — Οὐκοῦν καὶ ὄψιν καλεῖς τι; —Ἔγωγε. —Ἐκ τούτων δὴ ‘σύνες ὅ τοι λέγω‘, ἔφη Πίνδαρος· ἔστιν γὰρ χρόα ἀπορροὴ σχημάτων ὄψει σύμμετρος καὶ αἰσθητός. —Ἄριστά μοι δοκεῖς, ὦ Σώκρατες, ταύτην τὴν ἀπόκρισιν εἰρηκέναι. —Ἴσως γάρ σοι κατὰ συνήθειαν εἴρηται· καὶ ἅμα οἶμαι ἐννοεῖς, ὅτι ἔχοις ἂν ἐξ αὐτῆς εἰπεῖν καὶ φωνήν, ὃ ἔστι καὶ ὀσμὴν καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ τῶν τοιούτων. —Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. —Τραγικὴ γάρ ἐστιν, ὦ Μένων, ἡ ἀπόκρισις.
Men. And now, Socrates, what is colour?
Soc. You are outrageous, Meno, in thus plaguing a poor old man to give you an answer, when you will not take the trouble of remembering what is Gorgias’ definition of virtue.
[…]
Soc. Would you like me to answer you after the manner of Gorgias, which is familiar to you?
Men. I should like nothing better.
Soc. Do not he and you and Empedocles say that there are certain effluences of existence?
Men. Certainly.
Soc. And passages into which and through which the effluences pass?
Men. Exactly.
Soc. And some of the effluences fit into the passages, and some of them are too small or too large?
Men. True.
Soc. And there is such a thing as sight?
Men. Yes.
Soc. And now, as Pindar says, ‘read my meaning:’—colour is an effluence of form, commensurate with sight, and palpable to sense.
Men. That, Socrates, appears to me to be an admirable answer.
Soc. Why, yes, because it happens to be one which you have been in the habit of hearing: and your wit will have discovered, I suspect, that you may explain in the same way the nature of sound and smell, and of many other similar phenomena.
Men. Quite true.
Soc. The answer, Meno, was in the orthodox solemn vein […]
Benjamin Jowett · Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, third edition, vol. II (Oxford University Press, 1892), pp. 34–35How this fragment survives
- Plato
The source author is explicit; the work’s abbreviation has not yet been expanded.
Citation in the selected reading.
These are source citations recorded for this reading or its linked historical source unit. They do not describe the complete manuscript transmission. A supporting record may include a longer passage or a different editorial text.
Original-text edition
Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 4th edition, vol. II (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), reprinting the third edition with addenda, chapter 76 (Gorgias), B 4, pp. 246, 247
Open the historical edition ↗
Notes & source
Jowett’s wording is reproduced without modernization. Print page numbers and reference markers are omitted
The bracketed ellipsis between the two excerpts corresponds to DK’s omission. The final published sentence is cut after “vein” to match the end of the Greek quotation; the final bracketed ellipsis is editorial
Same ancient passage and substantive scope; historical wording/variant differences, if any, are explicitly recorded in notes.
Plato Meno 76a, 76c–e. The manuscript reading σχημάτων, recorded in Diels’s p. 246 apparatus, corresponds to Jowett’s “effluence of form”; Diels’s running text reads σωμάτων and another recorded variant is χρημάτων. This explicit manuscript variant replaces the old unidentified χρημάτων reading; no English wording changes. Modern Pindar fragment citation removed.
Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 4th edition, vol. II (Berlin: Weidmann, 1922), reprinting the third edition with addenda, chapter 76 (Gorgias), B 4, pp. 246, 247 View original source ↗
English: Benjamin Jowett · Plato, The Dialogues of Plato, third edition, vol. II (Oxford University Press, 1892), pp. 34–35. Published translation ↗
Original edition: Historical original edition: public domain under the recorded term review.