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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 9 of 44
Charmides · 155a–155e
Ancient Greek
p. 8Ἀλλὰ καλῶς, ἔφη, λέγεις, καὶ καλοῦμεν αὐτόν. Καὶ 155b ἅμα πρὸς τὸν ἀκόλουθον, Παῖ, ἔφη, κάλει Χαρμίδην, εἰπὼν ὅτι βούλομαι αὐτὸν ἰατρῷ συστῆσαι περὶ τῆς ἀσθενείας ἧς πρῴην πρός με ἔλεγεν ὅτι ἀσθενοῖ. Πρὸς οὖν ἐμὲ ὁ Κριτίας, Ἔναγχός τοι ἔφη βαρύνεσθαί τι τὴν κεφαλὴν ἕωθεν ἀνιστάμενος· ἀλλὰ τί σε κωλύει προσποιήσασθαι πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐπίστασθαί τι κεφαλῆς φάρμακον;
Οὐδέν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ· μόνον ἐλθέτω.
Ἀλλ’ ἥξει, ἔφη.
Ὃ οὖν καὶ ἐγένετο. ἧκε γάρ, καὶ ἐποίησε γέλωτα 155c πολύν· ἕκαστος γὰρ ἡμῶν τῶν καθημένων συγχωρῶν τὸν πλησίον ἐώθει σπουδῇ, ἵνα παρ’ αὑτῷ καθέζοιτο, ἕως τῶν ἐπ’ ἐσχάτῳ καθημένων τὸν μὲν ἀνεστήσαμεν, τὸν δὲ πλάγιον κατεβάλομεν. ὁ δ’ ἐλθὼν μεταξὺ ἐμοῦ τε καὶ τοῦ Κριτίου ἐκαθέζετο. ἐνταῦθα μέντοι, ὦ φίλε, ἐγὼ ἤδη ἠπόρουν, καί μου ἡ πρόσθεν θρασύτης ἐξεκέκοπτο, ἣν εἶχον ἐγὼ ὡς πάνυ ῥᾳδίως αὐτῷ διαλεξόμενος· ἐπειδὴ δέ, φράσαντος τοῦ Κριτίου ὅτι ἐγὼ εἴην ὁ τὸ φάρμακον ἐπιστάμενος, ἐνέβλεψέν τέ μοι 155d τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἀμήχανόν τι οἷον καὶ ἀνήγετο ὡς ἐρωτήσων, καὶ οἱ ἐν τῇ παλαίστρᾳ ἅπαντες περιέρρεον ἡμᾶς κύκλῳ κομιδῇ, τότε δή, ὦ γεννάδα, εἶδόν τε τὰ ἐντὸς τοῦ ἱματίου καὶ ἐφλεγόμην καὶ οὐκέτ’ ἐν ἐμαυτοῦ ἦν καὶ ἐνόμισα σοφώτατον εἶναι τὸν Κυδίαν τὰ ἐρωτικά, ὃς εἶπεν ἐπὶ καλοῦ λέγων παιδός, ἄλλῳ ὑποτιθέμενος, εὐλαβεῖσθαι μὴ κατέναντα λέοντος νεβρὸν ἐλθόντα μοῖραν αἱρεῖσθαι 155e κρεῶν· αὐτὸς γάρ μοι ἐδόκουν ὑπὸ τοῦ τοιούτου θρέμματος ἑαλωκέναι. ὅμως δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐρωτήσαντος εἰ ἐπισταίμην τὸ τῆς κεφαλῆς φάρμακον, μόγις πως ἀπεκρινάμην ὅτι ἐπισταίμην.
Charmides
p. 9“You’re right,” he said. “We’ll call him.” And 155b at once he said to his attendant, “Boy, call Charmides. Tell him I want to introduce him to a doctor about the complaint he was telling me about the other day.” Then Critias said to me, “You know, only lately he was saying that his head feels rather heavy when he gets up in the morning. What’s to stop you pretending to him that you know a remedy for the head?”1
“Nothing,” I said. “Only let him come.”
“Oh, he’ll come,” he said.
And so it turned out. He came, and caused a great 155c deal of laughter. Every one of us who were sitting there squeezed up and shoved his neighbor hard to make room for Charmides to sit beside him, until, of those sitting at the end, we made one stand up and tipped the other off sideways. He came and sat down between me and Critias. And then, my friend, I really was at a loss: the boldness I’d had before, sure as I was that I would talk to him with the greatest of ease, had been knocked clean out of me. And when Critias told him that I was the one who knew the remedy, and he gave me 155d a look with those eyes of his, a look beyond words, and was just getting under way with a question, and everyone in the wrestling-school came swirling round us in a ring — then, my noble friend, I saw inside his cloak, and I was on fire, and was no longer in my own possession.2 And I thought Cydias the wisest of men in the ways of love, who, speaking of a beautiful boy and advising someone else, told him to beware
of coming, a fawn, into the lion’s presence, to be caught as a portion of 155e meat;
for I felt I had been caught by just such a creature myself.3 Still, when he asked me whether I knew the remedy for the head, I did somehow manage to answer that I did.
Socrates
Reading Charmides · Charmides · 155a–155e
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.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.
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.
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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.
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