Charmides

he came in; and many other lovers were following among the crowd behind. With us grown men that was less surprising. But I watched the boys too, and not one of them was looking anywhere else, not even the littlest: they were all gazing at him as if he were a statue.¹ And 154d Chaerephon called over to me, “Well, Socrates, what do you think of the young man? Hasn’t he a lovely face?”

“Extraordinarily,” I said.

“And yet if he were willing to strip,” he said, “you’d think he had no face at all, his figure is so perfectly beautiful.”

The others all said the same as Chaerephon, and I said, “Heracles! What an invincible man you are describing, if he has just one little thing more.”

“What?” said Critias.

154e“If where his soul is concerned,” I said, “he is in fact well made. And he ought to be, Critias, coming from your family.”

“Oh, he’s thoroughly beautiful and good,” he said, “in that respect too.”²

“Then why don’t we strip that very part of him,” I said, “and take a look at it before we look at his figure? At his age he must surely be willing to have a conversation.”³

“Very much so,” said Critias, “seeing that he is a philosopher 155a and, in other people’s opinion as well as his own, quite the poet.”

“That fine gift, my dear Critias,” I said, “has been in your family a long way back, from your kinship with Solon.⁴ But why don’t you call the youngster over and show him off to me? Even if he were younger still, there would be nothing improper in his talking with us in front of you, his guardian and his cousin.”