Sec. XII. Next let us accustom ourselves when we pass a strange house not to look inside at the door, or curiously inspect the interior, as if we were going to pilfer something, remembering always that saying of Xenocrates, that it is all one whether one puts one's feet or eyes in another person's house. For such prying is neither honourable, nor comely, nor even agreeable.
"Stranger, thou'lt see within untoward sights."
For such is generally the condition inside houses, utensils kicking about, maids lolling about, no work going on, nothing to please the eye; and moreover such side glances, and stray shots as it were, distort the soul, and are unhandsome, and the practice is a pernicious one. When Diogenes saw Dioxippus, a victor at Olympia, driving up in his chariot and unable to take his eyes off a handsome woman who was watching the procession, but still turning round and casting sheep's eyes at her, he said, "See you yon athlete straining his neck to look at a girl?" And similarly you may see curious people twisting and straining their necks at every spectacle alike, from the habit and practice of turning their eyes in all directions. And I think the senses ought not to rove about, like an ill-trained maid, when sent on an errand by the soul, but to do their business, and then return quickly with the answer, and afterwards to keep within the bounds of reason, and obey her behests. But it is like those lines of Sophocles,
"Then did the AEnianian's horses bolt, Unmanageable quite;"[628]
for so the senses not having, as we said, right training and practice, often run away, and drag reason along with them, and plunge her into unlawful excesses. And so, though that story about Democritus is false, that he purposely destroyed his eyesight by the reflection from burning-glasses (as people sometimes shut up windows that look into the street), that they might not disturb him by frequently calling off his attention to external things, but allow him to confine himself to purely intellectual matters, yet it is very true in every case that those who use the mind most are least acted upon by the senses. And so the philosophers erected their places for study as far as possible from towns, and called Night the time propitious to thought,[629] thinking quiet and withdrawal from worldly distractions a great help towards meditating upon and solving the problems of life.
Sec. XIII. Moreover, when men are abusing and reviling one another in the market-place, it is not very difficult or tiresome not to go near them; or if a tumultuous concourse of people crowd together, to remain seated; or to get up and go away, if you are not master of yourself. For you will gain no advantage by mixing yourself up with curious people: but you will derive the greatest benefit from putting a force upon your inclinations, and bridling your curiosity, and accustoming it to obey reason. Afterwards it will be well to extend the practice still further, and not to go to the theatre when some fine piece is performing, and if your friends invite you to see some dancer or actor to decline, and, if there is some shouting in the stadium and hippodrome, not even to turn your head to look what is up. For as Socrates advised people to abstain from food that made them eat when they were not hungry, and from drinks that made them drink when they were not thirsty, so ought we also to shun and flee from those objects of interest, whether to eye or ear, that master us and attract us when we stand in no need of them. Thus Cyrus would not look at Panthea, but when Araspes told him that her beauty was well worth inspection, he replied, "For that very reason must I the more abstain from seeing her, for if at your persuasion I were to pay her a visit, perhaps she would persuade me to visit her again when I could ill spare the time, so that I might neglect important business to sit with her and gaze on her charms."[630] Similarly Alexander would not see the wife of Darius, who was reputed to be very beautiful, but visited her mother who was old, and would not venture to look upon the young and handsome queen. We on the contrary peep into women's litters, and hang about their windows, and think we do no harm, though we thus make our curiosity a loop-hole[631] for all manner of vice.
Sec. XIV. Moreover, as it is of great help to fair dealing sometimes not to seize some honest gain, that you may accustom yourself as far as possible to flee from unjust gains, and as it makes greatly for virtue to abstain sometimes from your own wife, that you may not ever be tempted by another woman, so, applying the habit to curiosity, try not to see and hear at times all that goes on in your own house even, and if anyone wishes to tell you anything about it give him the go-by, and decline to hear him. For it was nothing but his curiosity that involved Oedipus in his extreme calamities: for it was to try and find out his extraction that he left Corinth and met Laius, and killed him, and got his kingdom, and married his own mother, and when he then seemed at the acme of felicity, he must needs make further inquiries about himself; and though his wife tried to prevent him, he none the less compelled the old man that had been an eye-witness of the deed to tell him all the circumstances of it, and though he long suspected how the story would end, yet when the old man cried out,
"Alas! the dreadful tale I must then tell,"
so inflamed was he with curiosity and trembling with impatience, that he replied,
"I too must hear, for hear it now I will."[632]
So bitter-sweet and uncontrollable is the itch of curiosity, like a sore, shedding its blood when lanced. But he that is free from this disease, and calm by nature, being ignorant of many unpleasant things, may say,
"Holy oblivion of all human ills, What wisdom dost thou bring!"[633]
Sec. XV. We ought therefore also to accustom ourselves, when we receive a letter, not to be in a tremendous hurry about breaking the seal, as most people are, even tearing it open with their teeth if their hands are slow; nor to rise from our seat and run up to meet him, if a messenger comes; and if a friend says, "I have some news to tell you," we ought to say, "I had rather you had something useful or advantageous to tell me." When I was on one occasion lecturing at Rome, one of my audience was the well-known Rusticus, whom the Emperor Domitian afterwards had put to death through envy of his glory, and a soldier came in in the middle and brought him a letter from the Emperor, and silence ensuing, and I stopping that he might have time to read his letter, he would not, and did not open it till I had finished my lecture, and the audience had dispersed; so that everybody marvelled at his self-control. But whenever anyone who has power feeds his curiosity till it is strong and vehement, he can no longer easily control it, when it hurries him on to illicit acts, from force of habit; and such people open their friends' letters, thrust themselves in at private meetings, become spectators of rites they ought not to witness, enter holy grounds they ought not to, and pry into the lives and conversations of kings.
Sec. XVI. Indeed tyrants themselves, who must know all things, are made unpopular by no class more than by their spies[634] and talebearers. Darius in his youth, when he mistrusted his own powers, and suspected and feared everybody, was the first who employed spies; and the Dionysiuses introduced them at Syracuse: but in a revolution they were the first that the Syracusans took and tortured to death. Indeed informers are of the same tribe and family as curious people. However informers only investigate wicked acts or plots, but curious people pry into and publish abroad the involuntary misfortunes of their neighbours. And it is said that impious people first got their name from curiosity, for it seems there was a mighty famine at Athens, and those people that had wheat not producing it, but grinding it stealthily by night in their houses, some of their neighbours went about and noticed the noise of the mills grinding, and so they got their name.[635] This also is the origin of the well-known Greek word for informer, (Sycophant, _quasi_ Fig-informer), for when the people were forbidden to export figs, those who informed against those who did were called Fig-informers. It is well worth the while of curious people to give their attention to this, that they may be ashamed of having any similarity or connection in habit with a class of people so universally hated and disliked as informers.
[608] Jeremy Taylor has largely borrowed from this Treatise in his "Holy Living," chap. ii. Sec. v. Of Modesty.
[609] Chaeronea in Boeotia.
[610] Lines from some comic poet, no doubt.
[611] "Oeconomicus," cap. viii.
[612] The mother of Oedipus, better known as "Jocasta."
[613] Homer, "Odyssey," xi. 278. Epicaste hung herself.
[614] "[Greek: oikisko] corrigit Valekenarius ad Herodot. p. 557."--_Wyttenbach._