Charmides

produce finer and better offspring than the two you are sprung from. For your family on your father’s side, the house of Critias son of Dropides,¹ has come down to us celebrated by Anacreon and by Solon and by many other poets for its outstanding beauty 158a and virtue and everything else that goes by the name of happiness; and your mother’s side, again, is no different. For it is said that no man on the continent was ever thought handsomer or bigger than your uncle Pyrilampes, whenever he went as ambassador to the Great King or to anyone else on the continent;² and that whole house is in no way inferior to the other. Born of such people, you are likely to be first in everything. As for what can be seen of your 158b looks, dear son of Glaucon, you seem to me to fall short of none of your forebears in any respect.³ And if, as Critias here says, you are also well enough endowed for temperance and the rest, then blessed is the child, my dear Charmides,” I said, “your mother bore.⁴ But here is how things stand. If temperance is already present in you, as Critias here says, and you are temperate enough, then you would have no further need of charms, whether of Zalmoxis or of Abaris the Hyperborean;⁵ the remedy for the head itself should be given you 158c straightaway. But if you seem still to be lacking in these things, the charm must be sung before the remedy is given. So tell me yourself: do you agree with Critias here, and say that you already have a sufficient share of temperance, or that you are lacking in it?”

Charmides blushed. For one thing, he looked even more beautiful