Plato, Charmides, section 154b

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[154b] our uncle Glaucon, and my cousin.

I do know, to be sure, I said; for he was not to be despised even then, when he was still a child, and now, I suppose, he will be quite a youth by this time.

You will know this moment, he said, both how much and to what purpose he has grown. And just as he spoke these words, Charmides entered.

Now I, my good friend, am no measurer: I am a mere “white line”¹ in measuring beautiful people, for almost everyone who has just grown up appears beautiful to me. Nay and this time, moreover, the young man appeared to me

1 A white or chalked line was proverbially useless for marking off measurements on white stone or marble.

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 8 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1955.

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