Charmides

Name: Charmides
Author: Plato

Greek and English, with introduction, glossary, and notes.

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CharmidesCharmides · 156c–157b

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Facing Pages · Branch 11 of 44

Charmides · 156c–157b

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Ancient Greek

p. 12

Πάντων μάλιστα, ἔφη.

156dΚἀγὼ ἀκούσας αὐτοῦ ἐπαινέσαντος ἀνεθάρρησά τε, καί μοι κατὰ σμικρὸν πάλιν ἡ θρασύτης συνηγείρετο, καὶ ἀνεζωπυρούμην. καὶ εἶπον· Τοιοῦτον τοίνυν ἐστίν, ὦ Χαρμίδη, καὶ τὸ ταύτης τῆς ἐπῳδῆς. ἔμαθον δ’ αὐτὴν ἐγὼ ἐκεῖ ἐπὶ στρατιᾶς παρά τινος τῶν Θρᾳκῶν τῶν Ζαλμόξιδος ἰατρῶν, οἳ λέγονται καὶ ἀπαθανατίζειν. ἔλεγεν δὲ ὁ Θρᾲξ οὗτος ὅτι ταῦτα μὲν [ἰατροὶ] οἱ Ἕλληνες, ἃ νυνδὴ ἐγὼ ἔλεγον, καλῶς λέγοιεν· ἀλλὰ Ζάλμοξις, ἔφη, λέγει ὁ ἡμέτερος βασιλεύς, θεὸς ὤν, 156e ὅτι ὥσπερ ὀφθαλμοὺς ἄνευ κεφαλῆς οὐ δεῖ ἐπιχειρεῖν ἰᾶσθαι οὐδὲ κεφαλὴν ἄνευ σώματος, οὕτως οὐδὲ σῶμα ἄνευ ψυχῆς, ἀλλὰ τοῦτο καὶ αἴτιον εἴη τοῦ διαφεύγειν τοὺς παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἰατροὺς τὰ πολλὰ νοσήματα, ὅτι τοῦ ὅλου ἀμελοῖεν οὗ δέοι τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ποιεῖσθαι, οὗ μὴ καλῶς ἔχοντος ἀδύνατον εἴη τὸ μέρος εὖ ἔχειν. πάντα γὰρ ἔφη ἐκ τῆς ψυχῆς ὡρμῆσθαι καὶ τὰ κακὰ καὶ τὰ ἀγαθὰ τῷ σώματι καὶ παντὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ἐπιρρεῖν ὥσπερ ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς ἐπὶ 157a τὰ ὄμματα· δεῖν οὖν ἐκεῖνο καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μάλιστα θεραπεύειν, εἰ μέλλει καὶ τὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ τὰ τοῦ ἄλλου σώματος καλῶς ἔχειν. θεραπεύεσθαι δὲ τὴν ψυχὴν ἔφη, ὦ μακάριε, ἐπῳδαῖς τισιν, τὰς δ’ ἐπῳδὰς ταύτας τοὺς λόγους εἶναι τοὺς καλούς· ἐκ δὲ τῶν τοιούτων λόγων ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς σωφροσύνην ἐγγίγνεσθαι, ἧς ἐγγενομένης καὶ παρούσης ῥᾴδιον ἤδη εἶναι τὴν ὑγίειαν καὶ τῇ κεφαλῇ καὶ τῷ ἄλλῳ 157b σώματι πορίζειν. διδάσκων οὖν με τό τε φάρμακον καὶ τὰς ἐπῳδάς, “Ὅπως,” ἔφη, “τῷ φαρμάκῳ τούτῳ μηδείς σε πείσει τὴν αὑτοῦ κεφαλὴν θεραπεύειν, ὃς ἂν μὴ τὴν ψυχὴν

Charmides

p. 13

“Absolutely,” he said.

156dWhen I heard his approval I took heart again; little by little my boldness began to gather itself together, and I was rekindled.¹ And I said, “Well, Charmides, that is exactly how it is with this charm. I learned it out there on campaign from one of the Thracian doctors of Zalmoxis,² who are said even to make one immortal. This Thracian said that the Greeks were right to say what I was telling you just now. But Zalmoxis, he said, our king, who is a god, says 156e that just as one must not try to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so one must not try to cure the body without the soul either; and that this is the very reason why most diseases elude the Greek doctors: they neglect the whole, which is what they ought to be caring for,³ and when the whole is not in good condition the part cannot possibly be well. For everything, he said, bad and good alike, for the body and for the whole human being, starts from the soul and flows from there, as it flows from the head 157a into the eyes. So it is the soul that must be treated first and foremost, if the head and the rest of the body are to be in good condition. And the soul, my dear fellow, he said, is treated with certain charms, and these charms are beautiful words.⁴ From words like these, temperance comes to be in souls;⁵ and once it has come to be and is present, it is easy then to provide health for the head and for the rest of the 157b body too. So, when he was teaching me the remedy and the charms, he said, ’Mind that nobody persuades you to treat his head with this remedy unless he first

1.Anezōpyroumēn, “I was blown back into flame”, picks up “I was on fire” at 155d: the fire of desire has become the fire of confidence.

2.Zalmoxis was the god of the Getae, a Thracian people of the lower Danube. Herodotus (4.93–96) calls the Getae “the ones who make themselves immortal” (athanatizontes), because they believed that at death they went to Zalmoxis; the Greeks of the Hellespont and the Black Sea told him that Zalmoxis had once been a slave of Pythagoras, a story Herodotus doubts. Plato’s verb, apathanatizein, is a compound of Herodotus’ word.

3.“Neglect” (amelein) is the variant recorded in T and read by Stobaeus, and it chimes with “caring for”; B and T have “they do not know the whole”. “The whole” in this form is Burnet’s own emendation (apparatus, e4).

4.Logoi kaloi: logoi are words, speeches and arguments, and kaloi is the word for the beautiful youth. The charm, it seems, is conversation of the right kind, perhaps the very conversation about to begin.

5.Sōphrosynē, which this edition renders throughout as “temperance”. The word is formed from “sound” and “mind”, and in Plato’s Athens it covered sound-mindedness, self-control, moderation, modesty, decorum and discretion: the virtue of the well-brought-up youth who blushes, keeps quiet and knows his place, and the virtue of the grown man who knows his limits. The dialogue tries several of these senses in turn; one English word is kept throughout so that the reader can watch each definition trying it on.

About This Reading Edition

Socrates, Charmides, and Critias examine temperance, self-knowledge, and the knowledge of knowledge. The complete dialogue appears in Ancient Greek and English, aligned by the supplied edition’s facing pages and Stephanus references.

Discussion Questions

Historical Text and Translation

Greek: Plato, Charmides, in J. Burnet, ed., Platonis Opera, volume III (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), transcribed by the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. The supplied edition omits words marked for deletion, retains supplied words, lightly normalizes punctuation and paragraphing, and removes a stray digital numeral at 163c. The digital Greek transcription and its modifications are provided under CC BY-SA 4.0, with attribution to the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared this independently worded English translation in house. It aims for clear, measured English while preserving Plato’s conversational rhythm, philosophical distinctions, and the unfolding give-and-take of Socratic inquiry.

About This Reading Edition

Historical Text and Translation

About Diotimos Editions

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