[1] I translate σωφροσύνη Temperance, though it is very inadequate, but I know no single English word better suited.
Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded palæstra. Emotions of Sokrates.
The two persons with whom Sokrates here carries on the discussion, are Charmides and Kritias; both of whom, as historical persons, were active movers in the oligarchical government of the Thirty, with its numerous enormities. In this dialogue, Charmides appears as a youth just rising into manhood, strikingly beautiful both in face and stature: Kritias his cousin is an accomplished literary man of mature age. The powerful emotion which Sokrates describes himself as experiencing,[2] from the sight and close neighbourhood of the beautiful Charmides, is remarkable, as a manifestation of Hellenic sentiment. The same exaltation of the feelings and imagination, which is now produced only by beautiful women, was then excited chiefly by fine youths. Charmides is described by Kritias as exhibiting dispositions at once philosophical and poetical:[3] illustrating the affinity of these two intellectual veins, as Plato conceived them. He is also described as eminently temperate and modest:[4] from whence the questions of Sokrates take their departure.
[2] Plato, Charm. 154 C. Ficinus, in his Argumentum to this dialogue (p. 767), considers it as mainly allegorical, especially the warm expressions of erotic sentiment contained therein, which he compares to the Song of Solomon. “Etsi omnia in hoc dialogo mirificam habeant allegoriam, amatoria maxime, non aliter quam Cantica Salomonis — mutavi tamen nonnihil — nonnihil etiam prætermisi. Quæ enim consonabant castigatissimis auribus Atticorum, rudioribus fortè auribus minimé consonarent.”
[3] Plato, Charm. 155 A.
[4] Plato, Charm. 157 D. About the diffidence of Charmides in his younger years, see Xen. Mem. iii. 7, 1.
Question, What is Temperance? addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides. Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness.
You are said to be temperate, Charmides (says Sokrates). If so, your temperance will surely manifest itself within you in some way, so as to enable you to form and deliver an opinion, What Temperance is. Tell us in plain language what you conceive it to be. Temperance, replies Charmides (after some hesitation),[5] consists in doing every thing in an orderly and sedate manner, when we walk in the highway, or talk, or perform other matters in the presence of others. It is, in short, a kind of sedateness or slowness.
[5] Plato, Charm. 159 B. τὸ κοσμίως πάντα πράττειν καὶ ἡσυχῇ, ἔν τε ταῖς ὁδοῖς βαδίζειν καὶ διαλέγεσθαι … συλλήβδην ἡσυχιότης τις.
But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary. Temperance cannot be slowness.