"I blame you not, for though your words are bad, Your acts are good:"
but we cannot feel so to the talkative man, for his want of tact in words destroys and undoes all the grace of his actions.
Sec. V. Lysias wrote a defence for some accused person, and gave it him, and he read it several times, and came to Lysias in great dejection and said, "When I first perused this defence, it seemed to me wonderful, but when I read it a second and third time, it seemed altogether dull and ineffective. Then Lysias laughed, and said, "What then? Are you going to read it more than once to the jury?" And yet do but consider the persuasiveness and grace of Lysias' style;[554] for he "I say was a great favourite with the dark-haired Muses."[555] And of the things which have been said of Homer the truest is that he alone of all poets has survived the fastidiousness of mankind, as being ever new and still at his acme as regards giving pleasure, and yet saying and proclaiming about himself, "I hate to spin out a plain tale over and over again,"[556] he avoids and fears that satiety which lies in ambush for every narrative, and takes the hearer from one subject to another, and relieves by novelty the possibility of being surfeited. But the talkative worry one's ears to death with their tautologies, as people scribble the same things over and over again on palimpsests.[557]
Sec. VI. Let us remind them then first of this, that just as in the case of wine, which was intended for pleasure and mirth, those who compel people to drink it neat and in large quantities bring some into a disgusting condition of drunkenness, so with speech, which is the pleasantest social tie amongst mankind, those who make a bad and ill-advised use of it render it unpleasing and unfit for company, paining those whom they think to gratify, and become a laughing-stock to those who they think admire them, and objectionable to those who they think love them. As then he cannot be a favourite of the goddess who with Aphrodite's charmed girdle[558] repels and drives away those who associate with him, so he who with his speech bores and disgusts one is without either taste or refinement.
Sec. VII. Of all other passions and disorders some are dangerous, some hateful, some ridiculous, but in talkativeness all these elements are combined. For praters are jeered at for their commonplaces, and hated when they bring bad news, and run into danger when they reveal secrets. And so Anacharsis, when he was feasted by Solon and lay down to sleep, and was observed with his left hand on his private parts, and his right hand on his mouth, for he thought his tongue needed the stronger restraint, was right in his opinion. For it would be difficult to find as many men who have been ruined by venereal excesses as cities and leading states that have been undone by the utterance of a secret. When Sulla was besieging Athens, and had no time to waste there, "for he had other fish to fry,"[559] as Mithridates was ravaging Asia, and the party of Marius was again in power at Rome, some old men in a barber's shop happened to observe to one another that the Heptachalcon was not well guarded, and that their city ran a great risk of being captured at that point, and some spies who overheard this conversation reported it to Sulla. And he at once marched up his forces, and about midnight entered the city with his army, and all but rased it to the ground, and filled it with slaughter and dead bodies, insomuch that the Ceramicus ran with blood: and he was thus savage against the Athenians for their words rather than their deeds, for they had spoken ill of him and his wife Metella, jumping on to the walls and calling out in a jeering way,
"Sulla is a mulberry bestrewn with barley meal,"
and much similar banter. Thus they drew down upon themselves for words, which, as Plato[560] says, are a very small matter, a very heavy punishment.[561] The prating of one man also prevented Rome from becoming free by the removal of Nero. For it was only the night before the tyrant was to be murdered, and all preparations had been made, when he that was to do the deed going to the theatre, and seeing someone in chains near the doors who was about to be taken before Nero, and was bewailing his sad fortune, went up close to him and whispered, "Pray only, good sir, that to-day may pass by, to-morrow you will owe me many thanks." He guessing the meaning of the riddle, and thinking, I take it, "he is a fool who gives up what is in his hand for a remote contingency,"[562] preferred certain to honourable safety. For he informed Nero of what the man had said, and he was immediately arrested, and torture, and fire, and scourging were applied to him, who denied now in his necessity what before he had divulged without necessity.
Sec. VIII. Zeno the philosopher,[563] that he might not against his will divulge any secrets when put to the torture, bit off his tongue, and spit it at the tyrant. Famous also was the reward which Leaena had for her taciturnity.[564] She was the mistress of Harmodius and Aristogiton, and, although a woman, participated in their hopes of success in the conspiracy against the tyrants: for she had revelled in the glorious cup of love, and had been initiated in their secrets through the god. When then they had failed in their attempt and been put to death, and she was examined and bidden to reveal the names of the other conspirators, she refused to do so, and held out to the end, showing that those famous men in loving such a one as her had done nothing unworthy of them. And the Athenians erected to her memory a bronze lioness without a tongue, and placed it near the entrance to the Acropolis, signifying her dauntless courage by the nobleness of that animal, and by its being without a tongue her silence and fidelity. For no spoken word has done as much good as many unspoken ones. For at some future day we can give utterance if we like to what has been not said, but a word once spoken cannot be recalled, but flies about and runs all round the world. And this is the reason, I take it, why men teach us to speak, but the gods teach us to be silent, silence being enjoined on us in the mysteries and in all religious rites. Thus Homer has described the most eloquent Odysseus, and Telemachus, and Penelope, and the nurse, as all remarkable for their taciturnity. You remember the nurse saying,
"I'll keep it close as heart of oak or steel."[565]
And Odysseus sitting by Penelope,
"Though in his heart he pitied her sad grief, His eyes like horn or steel impassive stood Within their lids, and craft his tears repressed."[566]
So great control had he over all his body, and so much were all his members under the sway and rule of reason, that he commanded his eyes not to weep, his tongue not to speak, and his heart not to tremble or quake.[567]
"So calm and passive did his heart remain,"[568]
reason penetrating even to the irrational instincts, and making spirit and blood obedient and docile to it. Such also were most of his companions, for though they were dashed to the ground and dragged along by the Cyclops, they said not a word about Odysseus, nor did they show the stake of wood that had been put into the fire and prepared to put out Polyphemus' eye, but they would rather have been eaten alive than divulge secrets, such wonderful self-control and fidelity had they.[569] And so it was not amiss of Pittacus, when the king of Egypt sent him a victim, and bade him take from it the best and worst piece of it, to pull out the tongue and send that to the king, as being the instrument of the greatest blessings and withal the greatest mischiefs.
Sec. IX. So Ino in Euripides, speaking plainly about herself, says she knows "how to be silent when she should, and to speak when speech is safe."[570] For those who have enjoyed a truly noble and royal education learn first to be silent and then to speak. So the famous king Antigonus, when his son asked him, "When are we going to shift our quarters?" answered, "Are you afraid that you only will not hear the trumpet?" Was he afraid then to entrust a secret to him, to whom he intended one day to leave his kingdom? Nay rather, it was to teach him to be close and guarded on such matters. Metellus[571] also, the well-known veteran, when questioned somewhat similarly about an expedition, said, "If I thought my coat knew the secret, I would strip it off and throw it into the fire." And Eumenes, when he heard that Craterus was marching against him, told none of his friends, but pretended that it was Neoptolemus; for his soldiers despised Neoptolemus, but they admired the glory and loved the virtue of Craterus; and no one but Eumenes knew the truth, and they engaged and were victorious, and unwittingly killed Craterus, and only recognized his dead body. So great a part did silence play in the battle, concealing the name of the enemy's general: so that Eumenes' friends marvelled more than found fault at his not having told them the truth. And if anyone should receive blame in such a case, it is better to be censured when one has done well by keeping one's counsel, rather than to have to accuse others through having come to grief by trusting them.