Charmides

Use in the book

Charmides is looked at and talked about before he speaks. He comes in behind "the advance guard and the lovers" (154a–b), and Socrates finds him "a marvel of stature and beauty" (154c; see Beauty). Critias is sure he will be willing to converse, "seeing that he is a philosopher and, in other people's opinion as well as his own, quite the poet" (154e–155a).

Critias calls him over on a pretext: his head has been heavy in the mornings, and Socrates is to pretend that he knows "a remedy for the head" (155b). Told that the remedy is a leaf, useless without a charm, the boy says, "Then I'll copy the charm down from you", and Socrates asks, "If you persuade me, … or even if you don't?" He laughs: "If I persuade you, Socrates" (155e–156a2). It is the boy, not Socrates, who chooses persuasion. He is offered the remedy if he will first hand over his soul to the charm (157c; see Charm).

Critias reports that he is thought "far and away the most temperate of anyone nowadays" (157d), and Socrates, saying that if he is temperate enough he needs no charm, asks whether he agrees (158b–c). He blushes (158c; see Age and maturity) and finds neither answer easy: to deny it would be odd and would make liars of Critias and many others, and to affirm it "will probably seem obnoxious"; "So I don't know what answer to give you" (158d).

Asked what temperance is in his opinion, he hangs back, then gives three answers in turn: two of his own, and a third heard from someone else. First, temperance is "a kind of quietness" (159b), refuted at 159c–160d23 (see Quietness). Told to "look within yourself" (160d), he says that temperance "makes a person feel shame and makes him bashful, and that temperance is the same thing as modesty" (160e), and Homer's line on modesty disposes of it (160e–161b2; see Modesty and shame). The narrator has already called him bashful ("his bashfulness was becoming at his age", 158c), and the two answers can be read as describing the well-brought-up boy he is. The third is something he "once heard someone say": "that temperance would be doing one's own business" (161b).

Socrates names Critias as its source, and Critias denies it (161b–c); when Charmides asks what difference it makes whom he heard it from, Socrates agrees that the question is "whether what is said is true or not" (161c). Yet once the formula proves a riddle, the boy who asked what the author mattered turns to the author. He cannot say what it means, and adds, "But perhaps there is nothing to stop even the man who said it from not knowing what he meant"; and, Socrates narrates, "he laughed slyly and looked across at Critias" (162b). The boy, wanting Critias to answer for the definition, keeps prodding him (162c–d; see Anger); Socrates says it is no wonder the boy does not know, "at his age", and Critias takes the argument over (162d–e; see Acceptance and taking over). Charmides is silent until the end.

When the inquiry has failed, Socrates, aggrieved on his account, advises him, if he has temperance, to count Socrates a babbler (175d–176a; see Advice and greeting). Charmides answers, "But by Zeus, Socrates, I don't know whether I have it or whether I don't. For how could I know, when not even you two are able to discover what it is, as you say?" (176a–b2). He asks to be charmed every day until Socrates says it is enough (176b). Critias says he will take it as "proof" of the boy's temperance if he lets Socrates charm him and does not desert him (176b; see Adequacy and deficiency), and Charmides promises to follow Socrates and to obey his guardian (176b–c). It is Socrates who names force, asking, "So you'll use force, … and won't even give me a preliminary hearing?", and Charmides takes it up: "Count on force, … since this man here gives the orders" (176c). Socrates yields (176d).

The end answers the beginning. At 156a the boy would have the charm only by persuading Socrates; at the end, "not altogether persuaded" by Socrates and obedient to his guardian, he will have it by force (176b–c). At 158d he did not know what answer to give; at 176a he does not know whether he has temperance, and says he needs the charm. That change can be read as the one thing the inquiry has taught him.

Places to read

1. 154a–155a2Charmides comes in, watched by lovers, men and boys; Critias calls him a philosopher and, in his own and others' opinion, quite the poet.
2. 155b–156a2Critias' pretext of a cure for the head; Charmides is called over, and will copy the charm if he persuades Socrates.
3. 156b–157c23He accepts the doctors' rule of part and whole, and is offered the remedy if he first hands over his soul to the charm.
4. 157d–158e23Critias reports that he is thought the most temperate of anyone; asked whether he is temperate, he blushes and finds neither answer easy, and Socrates proposes they look into it together.
5. 159a–161b2345His first two answers, quietness and modesty, and their refutation.
6. 161b–162b23His third answer, heard from someone: doing one's own business; whom he heard it from makes no difference; it proves a riddle.
7. 162b–eHe laughs slyly and looks across at Critias, who takes the argument over.
8. 175d–176b2Socrates is aggrieved on his account; Charmides cannot know whether he has temperance, asks to be charmed every day, and Critias makes it the proof of his temperance.
9. 176b–dHe promises to obey his guardian; asked whether he will use force, he bids Socrates count on it, and Socrates yields.

Translation in this edition

The name stays "Charmides"; with φίλε, "dear", it is "my dear Charmides" (157c, 158b), and ὦ φίλε παῖ Γλαύκωνος is "dear son of Glaucon" (158b). In Critias' praise ἔστιν φιλόσοφος is rendered without qualification, "he is a philosopher", while ὡς δοκεῖ ἄλλοις τε καὶ ἑαυτῷ, "in other people's opinion as well as his own", qualifies only "quite the poet" (154e–155a). At 156a both the boy's πείθω and Socrates' πείθῃς are "persuade"; at 157b–c2 no one is to "persuade" Socrates, and, bound by his oath, he "must obey" and "shall obey"; at the end the middle πείθεσθαι is "persuaded" in "I'm not altogether persuaded by you", said to Socrates (176b), and "obey" in "if I didn't obey you, my guardian" (176c). What the Greek does with one verb, the English does with two. Ὡς with a future participle in the genitive, its subject "me" understood ("be sure that I shall"), is rendered as a phrase of its own: ὡς ἀκολουθήσοντος καὶ μὴ ἀπολειψομένου is "Count on it … I'll follow him and not desert him" (176b), and ὡς βιασομένου is "Count on force" (176c). Γελάσας is "He laughed" (156a), and ὑπεγέλα, from ὑπογελᾶν, "to laugh under one's breath", is "he laughed slyly" (162b).

ἀκολουθέω

Attested: ἀκολουθήσοντος (akolouthēsontos; 176b). To follow, to go along with. Charmides' promise to Critias, "Count on it … I'll follow him and not desert him" (176b): the one he will follow is Socrates, named in Critias' condition just before. The noun ἀκόλουθος, "attendant", used of Critias' servant at 155b, and the compound ἐπακολουθῆσαι, "follow", at 171b are not listed. Lemma: ἀκολουθέω.

ἀπολείπω

Attested: ἀπολελοιπός (apoleloipos; 174d), ἀπολείπῃ (apoleipēi; 176b), ἀπολειψομένου (apoleipsomenou; 176b). To leave behind, to desert; of a thing, to be gone. Without the knowledge of good and bad the crafts still do their work, but its being done well and beneficially, Socrates says, "will be gone from us" (174c–d). At 176b Critias makes it the proof of Charmides' temperance that he should let Socrates charm him and not desert him, "great or small", and Charmides promises, "I'll follow him and not desert him". Lemma: ἀπολείπω.

γέλως

Attested: γέλωτα (gelōta; 155b). Laughter. Charmides' arrival "caused a great deal of laughter" (155b–c), as each man sitting there squeezed up and shoved to make room for the boy beside himself, until one at the end was made to stand up and another tipped off sideways (155c). His own laughs, γελάσας as he chooses to copy the charm by persuasion (156a) and ὑπεγέλα as he looks across at Critias (162b), are verbs and are not listed; κατεγέλασεν, "made such a mockery", is said of the inquiry (175d). Lemma: γέλως.

ὄχλος

Attested: ὄχλον (ochlon; 154a). A crowd, a throng. Critias sees the young men coming in, "with another crowd following on behind" (154a), ahead of Charmides; "crowd" at 153a and 154c renders other words. Lemma: ὄχλος.

Χαρμίδης

Attested: Χαρμίδης (Charmidēs; 154b, 157d, 158c, 161c, 162c, 176a, 176c), Χαρμίδην (Charmidēn; 154b, 155b, 162c twice), Χαρμίδη (Charmidē; 156b, 156d, 157c, 157d, 158b, 158d, 159b, 160b, 160d, 162b, 162d, 175d, 176b). Charmides son of Glaucon. Critias first names him, "Charmides, our uncle Glaucon's son. My cousin" (154b), and sends for him, "Boy, call Charmides" (155b). The nominative is the narrator's, as in "in comes Charmides" (154b) and "Charmides blushed" (158c), except at 157d, where Critias says he is thought "to surpass those his age"; the vocative is Socrates' address eleven times, and Critias' at 162d and 176b. Lemma: Χαρμίδης.

γέλωτα (gelōta)

Attested: γέλωτα (gelōta; 155b). Laughter. Charmides' arrival "caused a great deal of laughter" (155b–c), as each man sitting there squeezed up and shoved to make room for the boy beside himself, until one at the end was made to stand up and another tipped off sideways (155c). His own laughs, γελάσας as he chooses to copy the charm by persuasion (156a) and ὑπεγέλα as he looks across at Critias (162b), are verbs and are not listed; κατεγέλασεν, "made such a mockery", is said of the inquiry (175d). Lemma: γέλως.

ἐλθὼν (elthōn)

Attested: ἐλθέτω (elthetō; 155b), ἐλθών (elthōn; 155c), ἐλθόντα (elthonta; 155d), ἐλήλυθεν (elēlythen; 173a). To come, to go. Socrates' "Only let him come" (155b); his narration, "He came and sat down between me and Critias" (155c); in the lines of Cydias, a lyric poet otherwise almost unknown, the fawn "coming" into the lion's presence (155d); and Socrates' dream, "whether it has come through horn or through ivory" (173a). Compounds, such as εἰσέρχεται, "in comes" (154b), προσέλθῃ, "comes to them" (156b), and συνελθοῦσαι, in "whose union" (157e), are not listed. Lemma: ἔρχομαι.

πρόδρομοί (prodromoi)

Attested: πρόδρομοι (prodromoi; 154a). Running ahead; as a noun a forerunner, and in war a scout of the advance guard. The young men coming in are "the advance guard and the lovers" of the boy thought most beautiful (154a). Lemma: πρόδρομος.

προσιών (prosiōn)

Attested: προσιών (prosiōn; 154a). To go toward, to approach (from εἶμι, "go"). Critias imagines that Charmides "must be close by himself, on his way in" (154a). Lemma: πρόσειμι.

σπουδῇ (spoudēi)

Attested: σπουδῇ (spoudēi; 155c), σπουδῆς (spoudēs; 175e). Haste, eagerness, effort. Each man sitting there "shoved his neighbor hard", σπουδῇ, to have Charmides sit beside him (155c); and Socrates says, "And I am still more aggrieved on account of the charm I learned from the Thracian, if I took great pains to learn a charm for a thing worth nothing" (175e). Lemma: σπουδή.

Elsewhere in Plato

Charmides appears by name in four other works that come down under Plato's name. In the Protagoras he is one of those walking beside the sophist Protagoras of Abdera in the porch of Callias son of Hipponicus, the rich host of the sophists, with Callias himself and Callias' half-brother Paralus, son of Pericles (315a). In the Symposium Alcibiades, the Athenian general and Socrates' companion, ends his speech by warning the host, the tragic poet Agathon, that Socrates deceives the young as a lover and then makes himself the beloved instead, and has done so not only to Alcibiades but to Charmides son of Glaucon, to Euthydemus son of Diocles, another young Athenian, and to very many others (222b). The Charmides can be read as the start of such a reversal: at the sight inside the boy's cloak Socrates feels he has been "caught by just such a creature" as the lion in the lines of the poet Cydias (155d–e), and at the end the boy promises to follow him (176b). In the Theages, whose authorship has been doubted, Socrates tells how Charmides son of Glaucon, who has turned out beautiful, once consulted him when he meant to train for the sprint at the Nemean games, in the northeastern Peloponnese. As Charmides began to speak, the divine sign came to Socrates, the sign that turns him back from what he is about to do, and he told Charmides not to train; Charmides answered that even if the sign meant he would not win, the exercise would do him good, and trained; it is worth asking him, Socrates says, what came of it (128d–129a). In the Axiochus, a short dialogue on death already counted spurious in antiquity,¹ Socrates sees the young Clinias son of Axiochus running toward the spring Callirrhoe with two companions: Damon the musician, his teacher in music, and Charmides son of Glaucon, who from their companionship was at once his lover and his beloved (364a). The Seventh Letter, whose authenticity is disputed, does not name Charmides, but recalls the revolution in which he held office: in 404 BC fifty-one men took power, eleven in the city and ten in the Piraeus, the port of Athens, and thirty over all with full powers; some of them, the writer says, were his own relatives and acquaintances, and at once invited him to join them (324c–d).

Other ancient sources

Xenophon, the Athenian writer and companion of Socrates, says that Socrates was well disposed toward Glaucon son of Ariston, Plato's brother, for the sake of Charmides son of Glaucon and of Plato;² Diogenes Laertius, the biographer of the philosophers (probably third century AD), names Charmides and Perictione, Plato's mother, as Glaucon's children in a line he traces back to Dropides, Solon's brother.³ Xenophon also gives Charmides a conversation of his own. Socrates, seeing that Charmides was a man of note, more capable than those then in politics, yet shrank from coming before the people, urges him to take part. Charmides answers that talking in private is not the same as contending before a crowd, and that modesty and fear are inborn in men and come over them far more in crowds than in private company. Socrates asks whether it is the fullers, cobblers, carpenters, smiths and farmers who make up the Assembly that he is ashamed before, and ends, "My good friend, do not be ignorant of yourself".⁴ The modesty Charmides pleads is αἰδώς (aidōs), the word of his second answer in the dialogue (160e), and Socrates' last words can be read beside Critias' claim that "Know thyself" and "Be temperate" are the same (164e–165a; see Knowing oneself). In Xenophon's Symposium, at a banquet given by Callias, Charmides is proud of his poverty: rich, he feared housebreakers, courted informers and paid whatever the city ordered; now that his property is gone, he sleeps soundly, the rich give up their seats to him, and he is "like a tyrant", he says, where before he was plainly a slave, and no one minds any longer that he keeps company with Socrates.⁵ A later anecdote in Diogenes Laertius has him offer Socrates slaves, so that Socrates might live on the income from them, and Socrates refuse.⁶

After Athens' defeat by Sparta, the Thirty, the oligarchy that ruled the city in 404–403 BC, chose for themselves, as the Constitution of the Athenians ascribed to Aristotle reports, ten rulers of the Piraeus, eleven keepers of the prison and three hundred attendants armed with whips, and held the city in their own power.⁷ Critias, his guardian in the dialogue, was one of the Thirty, and Charmides one of the ten. In 403 the democratic exiles under their leader Thrasybulus, about a thousand men, came by night into the Piraeus and gathered on Munychia, the hill above the harbour; the Thirty marched against them with the Spartan garrison, the cavalry and the hoplites, and were beaten. Xenophon names the dead: "of the Thirty, Critias and Hippomachus, and of the ten rulers in the Piraeus, Charmides son of Glaucon, and of the others about seventy".⁸ The dialogue's last lines, in which Charmides promises force because his guardian gives the orders (176c), are heard by many readers in that light, the edition's note at 176c observes, as the dialogue's darkest irony.

Use in the book

Charmides son of Glaucon is introduced as someone the listeners know, “who has grown up beautiful”. The edition identifies him as the young man of the Charmides and Plato’s uncle. Socrates offers him as a witness to the sign’s effect on a friend’s projected action. The story begins with consultation: Charmides is about to train for a stadion race at Nemea, and the voice occurs as he starts explaining his intention. Socrates tries to stop him and expressly says not to train.

Charmides treats the warning as a prediction that he will not win. He answers that exercise will nevertheless benefit him. This is a plausible distinction between competitive success and bodily advantage, but it is his interpretation of the warning, not a meaning Socrates has supplied. The anecdote therefore turns partly on the danger of narrowing an unexplained sign to the risk one is already prepared to accept. Its immediate point is not that victory is the only legitimate end of training.

The narrative ends by inviting the listeners to ask Charmides what happened as a result. It does not specify his injury, loss, humiliation or any other outcome. The invitation implies that his experience supports Socrates’ warning, but a lexicon should not fill the silence with an invented disaster. Nor does the passage establish that athletic training in general is dangerous or that an aspiring athlete must surrender every ordinary judgement about its benefits.

The later Euathlus is also a stadion-runner, but no connection between the athletes’ stories is stated. Athletic vocabulary recurs in distinct biographies and should not merge their roles.

Places to read

1. 128d–eΧαρμίδην … τὸν Γλαύκωνος — the familiar witness is identified by name and father
2. 128d–eτὸν καλὸν γενόμενον — his beauty is part of the identification
3. 128eἀσκήσειν στάδιον εἰς Νεμέαν — training is directed towards the Nemean stadion race
4. 128eμὴ ἄσκει — Socrates’ instruction is against training itself
5. 128eοὐ νικήσω; γυμνασάμενός … ὠφεληθήσομαι — Charmides distinguishes winning from benefit through exercise
6. 129aἀπὸ ταύτης τῆς ἀσκήσεως — the actual consequence is left for Charmides to report

Translation in this edition

Notes 30–312 identify Charmides and explain the stadion and the Nemean games. The translation prints “has grown up beautiful”, following the text’s genomenon; the apparatus records Cobet’s proposed legomenon. Neither reading supplies the unstated result of his training.

Charmides — Χαρμίδης

Charmides. Son of Glaucon, the familiar young man whose athletic training against a warning is offered as a case for inquiry. Attested: Χαρμίδην (128d). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Exercise — γυμνάζεσθαι (gymnazesthai)

γυμνάζεσθαι (gymnazesthai)

Exercise. To take bodily exercise; Charmides expects its benefit even if he does not win the race. Attested: γυμνασάμενός (128e). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Glaucon — Γλαύκων

Glaucon. Charmides’ father, named in a patronymic; he is not an actor in the training anecdote. Attested: Γλαύκωνος (128e). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Nemea — Νεμέα

Nemea. The site of the games for whose stadion race Charmides proposes to train. Attested: Νεμέαν (128e). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Stadion race — στάδιον

Stadion race. A sprint of one stadium length; the athletic event for which Charmides’ training is intended. Attested: στάδιον (128e). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Train; practise — ἀσκεῖν

Train; practise. To prepare through exercise; the future infinitive identifies the training Charmides plans before the warning. Attested: ἀσκήσειν (128e). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Training — ἄσκησις

Training. The course of preparation from which Charmides’ unspecified consequences resulted. Attested: ἀσκήσεως (129a). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

Win — νικᾶν

Win. To be victorious; Charmides supposes the sign predicts failure to win, but Socrates has not supplied that interpretation. Attested: νικήσω (128e). Charmides, Nemea, and athletic training.

It is worth asking him (contextual phrase)

128e: ἄξιον οὖν πυθέσθαι αὐτοῦ. Socrates directs the listeners to ask Charmides about what followed his disregarded warning. The statement invokes an accessible witness but does not narrate the particular injury or loss. Filling that silence with an imagined defeat or bodily accident would exceed the source. See Charmides and training and Witnesses.