if possible, show me a little more clearly that virtue can be taught. Will
you be so good?

That I will, Socrates, and gladly. But what would you like? Shall I, as
an elder, speak to you as younger men in an apologue or myth, or shall I
argue out the question?

To this several of the company answered that he should choose for himself.

Well, then, he said, I think that the myth will be more interesting.

Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures. But when
the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them
out of earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements in the interior
of the earth; and when they were about to bring them into the light of day,
they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute to
them severally their proper qualities. Epimetheus said to Prometheus:
'Let me distribute, and do you inspect.' This was agreed, and Epimetheus
made the distribution. There were some to whom he gave strength without
swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness; some he armed, and
others he left unarmed; and devised for the latter some other means of
preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and
others small, whose nature was to fly in the air or burrow in the ground;
this was to be their way of escape. Thus did he compensate them with the
view of preventing any race from becoming extinct. And when he had
provided against their destruction by one another, he contrived also a
means of protecting them against the seasons of heaven; clothing them with
close hair and thick skins sufficient to defend them against the winter
cold and able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have a natural
bed of their own when they wanted to rest; also he furnished them with