Plato’s “Charmides, or Temperance,”translated by Benjamin Jowett is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document File is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an electronic transmission, in any way.
Plato’s “Charmides, or Temperance,”translated by Benjamin Jowett, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.
Cover design: Jim Manis
Copyright © 1999 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university.
“Charmides” – Plato
number of persons, most of whom I knew, but not all. My CHARMIDES,
visit was unexpected, and no sooner did they see me enter-OR TEMPERANCE
ing than they saluted me from afar on all sides; and Chaerephon, who is a kind of madman, started up and ran by
to me, seizing my hand, and saying, How did you escape, Socrates?—(I should explain that an engagement had taken Plato
place at Potidaea not long before we came away, of which the news had only just reached Athens.) Translated by Benjamin Jowett
You see, I replied, that here I am.
There was a report, he said, that the engagement was PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, who is the very severe, and that many of our acquaintance had fallen.
narrator, Charmides, Chaerephon, Critias.
That, I replied, was not far from the truth.
I suppose, he said, that you were present.
SCENE: The Palaestra of Taureas, which is near the Porch I was.