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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: fall very far short of the original. The breath of conversation, the
subtle adjustment of question and answer, the lively play of fancy, the
power of drawing characters, are wanting in them. But the Platonic
dialogue is a drama as well as a dialogue, of which Socrates is the central
figure, and there are lesser performers as well:--the insolence of
Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus, the patronizing style of
Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus and Hippias, are all part of
the entertainment. To reproduce this living image the same sort of effort
is required as in translating poetry. The language, too, is of a finer
quality; the mere prose English is slow in lending itself to the form of
question and answer, and so the ease of conversation is lost, and at the
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