Plato's Charmides--Reading Notes and Summary
tr. by Rosamond Kent Sprague

153a-d -- introductory material. Socrates comes back from the battle and tells some of the townspeople about it.
154a-d -- more introductory material. Socrates asks "whether there were any who had become distinguished for wisdom or beauty or both." Charmides is mentioned, and then Charmides enters the scene, afar. He is idolized by everyone for his beauty. But does he also have "a well-formed soul"? Socrates suggests "we undress this [inner] part of him" before they worry about his external beauty. Critias calls Charmides both a philosopher and a poet.

155a-e -- Charmides is brought closer under the pretense that Socrates can cure him of his headache. Socrates is bowled over by Charmides' beauty. Charmides asks Socrates the first question! Socrates says that a certain charm and leaf will cure the headache.

156a-157d -- Socrates regains his composure by convincing Charmides that the whole person, beginning with the soul, should be healed in order to heal the headache. "The soul is the source both of bodily health and bodily disease for the whole man." Since charms affect the soul, a charm is appropriate first medicine for a headache. Socrates speaks of improving Charmides' soul, while Critias takes this as improving only Charmides' wits. (Critias says that Charmides excels in everything.)

157e-158c -- Socrates remembers Charmides' successful heritage. He notes that a "temperate" [magnanimous] person would not need the charm, just the remedy. Does Charmides have sufficient temperance not to need the charm?
158d-e -- Charmides in humility refuses to answer the question. The two agree to investigate the question together.

159a --Socrates convinces Charmides that if Charmides really possesses temperance, then Charmides should be able to describe what it is that he has.
159b -- Charmides' first try: it is "a sort of quietness" or docility.
159c-160d -- Socrates shows that in many arenas--those of the body; in learning, teaching, and memory; in shrewdness--quickness and liveliness are the more admirable virtues, so that overall temperance must not be about mere quietness. [It is partly about knowing when to be quiet and when to be loud!] [Charmides had been speaking as though the temperate man is merely unriotous or not uncontrolled, but Socrates shows that in all manner of social activities, quickness is the virtue (this also applies to memory and thought if quickness does not lose accuracy).] The sense here of temperance is of well-tempered actions and of a well-tempered body reflecting a well-tempered soul.

160e -- Socrates asks Charmides to revise his answer, and Charmides answers that temperance is about modesty. [cf. Charmides' own modesty in 158d--this would seem to be a good candidate]