Whereas if he could but have held his peace and mastered his tongue for
a little while, till the king, as afterwards he did, had recovered his
good fortune and grandeur, he had been doubtless better rewarded for
his silence than he was for his hospitality. And yet this poor man had
some colorable excuse for letting his tongue at liberty; that is to
say, his hopes, and the kindness he had done the king.
13. But most of your twattlers, without any cause or pretence at all,
destroy themselves; as it happened when certain fellows began to talk
pretty freely in a barber’s shop concerning the tyranny of Dionysius,
that it was as secure and inexpugnable as a rock of adamant: I wonder,
quoth the barber, laughing, that you should talk these things before me
concerning Dionysius, whose throat is almost every day under my razor.
Which scurrilous freedom of the barber being related to the tyrant,
he caused him forthwith to be crucified. And indeed the generality of
barbers are a prating generation of men; in regard the most loquacious
praters usually resort to their shops, and there sit prattling; from
whence the barbers also learn an ill habit of twattling. Pleasant
therefore was the answer of Archelaus to the barber who, after he had
cast the linen toilet about his shoulders, put this question to him,
How shall I trim your majesty; In silence, quoth the king. It was
a barber that first reported the news of the great overthrow which
the Athenians received in Sicily; for being the first that heard the
relation of it in the Piraeus, from a servant of one of those who had
escaped out of the battle, he presently left his shop at sixes and
sevens, and flew into the city as fast as his heels could carry him,
For fear some other should the honor claim
Of being first, when he but second came.[76]
Now you may be sure that the first spreader of this news caused a
great hubbub in the city, insomuch that the people, thronging together
in the market-place, made diligent enquiry for the first divulger.
Presently the barber was brought by head and shoulders to the crowd,
and examined; but he could give no account of his author, only one that
he never saw or knew in his life before had told him the news. Which so
incensed the multitude, that they immediately cried out, To the rack
with the traitor, tie the lying rascal neck and heels together. This
is a mere story of the rogue’s own making. Who heard it? Who gave any
credit to it beside himself? At the same instant the wheel was brought
out, and the poor barber stretched upon it,—not to his ease, you may
be sure. And then it was, and not before, that the news of the defeat
was confirmed by several that had made a hard shift to escape the
slaughter. Upon which the people scattered every one to his own home,
to make their private lamentation for their particular losses, leaving
the unfortunate barber bound fast to the wheel; in which condition he
continued till late in the evening, before he was let loose. Nor would
this reform the impertinent fool; for no sooner was he at liberty but
he would needs be enquiring of the executioner, what news, and what
was reported of the manner of Nicias the general’s being slain. So
inexpugnable and incorrigible a vice is loquacity, gotten by custom and
ill habit, that they cannot leave it off, though they were sure to be
hanged.
14. And yet we find that people have the same antipathy against
divulgers of bad tidings, as they that drink bitter and distasteful
potions have against the cups wherein they drank them. Elegant
therefore is the dispute in Sophocles between the messenger and Creon:
MESSENGER. By what I tell and what you hear,
Do I offend your heart or ear?
CREON. Why so inquisitive to sound
My grief, and search the painful wound?
MESSENGER. My news afflicts thy ears, I find,
But ’tis the fact torments thy mind.[77]
Thus they that bring us bad tidings are as bad as they who are the
authors of our misery; and yet there is no restraining or correcting
the tongue that will run at random.
It happened that the temple of Minerva in Lacedaemon called Chalcioecus
was robbed, and nothing but an earthen pitcher left behind; which
caused a great concourse of people, where every one spent his verdict
about the empty pitcher. Gentlemen, says one, pray give me leave to
tell ye my opinion concerning this pitcher. I am apt to believe, that
these sacrilegious villains, before they ventured upon so dangerous
an attempt, drank each of them a draught of hemlock juice, and then
brought wine along with them in this pitcher; to the end that, if it
were their good hap to escape without being apprehended, they might
soon dissolve and extinguish the strength and vigor of the venom by the
force of the wine unmixed and pure; but if they should be surprised and
taken in the fact, that then they might die without feeling any pain
under the torture of the rack. Having thus said, the people, observing
so much forecast and contrivance in the thing, would not be persuaded
that any man could have such ready thoughts upon a bare conjecture,
but that he must know it to be so. Thereupon, immediately gathering
about him, one asked who he was; another, who knew him; a third, how he
came to be so much a philosopher. And at length, they did so sift and
canvass and fetch him about, that the fellow confessed himself to be
one of those that committed the sacrilege.
And were not they who murdered the poet Ibycus discovered after the
same manner, as they sat in the theatre? For as they were sitting there
under the open sky to behold the public pastimes, they observed a flock
of cranes flying over their heads; upon which they whispered merrily
one to another, Look, yonder are the revengers of Ibycus’s death.
Which words being overheard by some that sat next them,—in regard that
Ibycus had been long missing but could not be found, though diligent
search had been made after him,—they presently gave information of
what they had heard to the magistrates. By whom being examined and
convicted, they suffered condign punishment, though not betrayed by
the cranes, but by the incontinency of their own tongues, and by an
avenging Erinnys hovering over their heads and constraining them to
confess the murder. For as in the body, wounded and diseased members
draw to themselves the vicious humors of the neighboring parts; in
like manner, the unruly tongues of babblers, infested (as it were)
with inflammations where a sort of feverish pulses continually lie
beating, will be always drawing to themselves something of the secret
and private concerns of other men. And therefore the tongue ought to
be environed with reason, as with a rampart perpetually lying before
it, like a mound, to stop the overflowing and slippery exuberance of
impertinent talk; that we may not seem to be more silly than geese,
which, when they take their flight out of Cilicia over the mountain
Taurus, which abounds with eagles, are reported to carry every one
a good big stone in their bills, instead of a bridle or barricado,
to restrain their gaggling. By which means they cross those hideous
forests in the night-time undiscovered.
15. Now then if the question should be asked, Which are the worst and
most pernicious sort of people? I do not believe there is any man
that would omit to name a traitor. By treason it was that Euthycrates
covered the uppermost story of his house with Macedonian timber,
according to the report of Demosthenes; that Philocrates, having
received a good sum of money, spent it upon whores and fish; and that
Euphorbus and Philagrus, who betrayed Eretria, were so well rewarded by
the king with ample possessions. But a prattler is a sort of traitor
that no man needs to hire, for that he offers himself officiously and
of his own accord. Nor does he betray to the enemy either horse or
walls; but whatever he knows of public or private concerns requiring
the greatest secrecy, that he discloses, whether it be in courts of
judicature, in conspiracies, or management of state affairs, ’tis
all one; he expects not so much as the reward of being thanked for
his pains; nay, rather he will return thanks to them that give him
audience. And therefore what was said upon a certain spendthrift that
rashly and without any discretion wasted his own estate by his lavish
prodigality to others,
Thou art not liberal; ’tis a disease
Of vainly giving, which does thee possess;
’Tis all to please thyself, what thou dost give,[78]
may well be retorted upon a common prattler:
Thou art no friend, nor dost to me impart,
For friendship’s sake, the secrets of thy heart;
But as thy tongue has neither bolt nor lock,
’Tis thy disease, that thou delight’st to talk.
16. Nor would I have the reader think that what has hitherto been
said has been discoursed so much to blame as to cure that vicious
and infectious malady of loquaciousness. For though we surmount and
vanquish the vices of the mind by judgment and exercise, yet must the
judgment precede. For no man will accustom himself to avoid and, as
it were, to extirpate out of his soul those vices, unless he first
abominate them. Nor can we ever detest those evil habits of the mind
as we ought to do, but when we rightly judge by reason’s light of the
prejudice they do us, and the ignominy we sustain thereby. For example,
we consider and find that these profuse babblers, desirous of being
beloved, are universally hated; while they study to gratify, they
become troublesome; while they seek to be admired, they are derided. If
they aim at profit, they lose all their labor; in short, they injure
their friends, advantage their enemies, and undo themselves. And
therefore the first remedy and cure for this spreading malady will be
this, to reckon up all the shameful infamies and disasters that attend
it.
17. The second remedy is to take into serious consideration the
practice of the opposite virtue, by always hearing, remembering, and
having ready at hand the due praises and encomiums of reservedness
and taciturnity, together with the majesty, sanctimony, and mysterious
profoundness of silence. Let them consider how much more beloved, how
much more admired, how far they are reputed to excel in prudence,
who deliver their minds in few words, roundly and sententiously, and
contract a great deal of sense within a small compass of speech, than
such as fly out into voluminous language, and suffer their tongues to
run before their wit. The former are those whom Plato so much praises,
and likens unto skilful archers, darting forth their sentences thick
and close, as it were crisped and curled one within another. To this
same shrewdness of expression Lycurgus accustomed his fellow-citizens
from their childhood by the exercise of silence, contracting and
thickening their discourse into a compendious delivery. For as the
Celtiberians make steel of iron by burying it in the ground, thereby
to refine it from the gross and earthy part, so the Laconic way of
speech has nothing of bark upon it, but by cutting off all superfluity
of words, it becomes steeled and sharpened to pierce the understanding
of the hearers. So their consciousness of language, so ready to
turn the edge to all manner of questions, became natural by their
extraordinary practice of silence. And therefore it would be very
expedient for persons so much given to talk, always to have before
their eyes the short and pithy sayings of those people, were it only
to let them see the force and gravity which they contain. For example:
The Lacedaemonians to Philip; Dionysius in Corinth. And when Philip
wrote thus to the Spartans: If once I enter into your territories, I
will destroy ye all, never to rise again; they answered him with the
single word, If. To King Demetrius exclaiming in a great rage, What!
have the Spartans sent me but one ambassador? the ambassador nothing
terrified replied, Yes; one to one. Certainly they that spoke short and
concisely were much admired by the ancients. Therefore the Amphictyons
gave order, not that the Iliad or the Odyssey or Pindar’s paeans should
be written upon Pythian Apollo’s temple; but Know thyself; Nothing too
much; Give sureties, and mischief is at hand. So much did they admire
conciseness of speech, comprehending full sense in so much brevity,
made solid as it were by the force of a hammer. Does not the Deity
himself study compendious utterance in the delivery of his oracles? Is
he not therefore called Loxias,[79] because he avoids rather loquacity
than obscurity? Are not they that signify their meaning by certain
signs, without words, in great admiration and highly applauded? Thus
Heraclitus, being desired by his fellow-citizens to give them his
opinion concerning Concord, ascended the public pulpit, and taking
a cup of cold water into his hand, first sprinkled it with a little
flour, then stirring it with a sprig of pennyroyal, drank it off,
and so came down again; intimating thereby, that if men would but be
contented with what was next at hand, without longing after dainties
and superfluities, it would be an easy thing for cities to live in
peace and concord one with another.
Scilurus, king of the Scythians, left fourscore sons behind him; who,
when he found the hour of death approaching, ordered them to bring him
a bundle of small javelins, and then commanded every one singly to
try whether he could break the bundle, as it was, tied up altogether;
which when they told him it was impossible for them to do, he drew out
the javelins one by one, and brake them all himself with ease; thereby
declaring that, so long as they kept together united and in concord,
their force would be invincible, but that by disunion and discord
they would enfeeble each other, and render their dominion of small
continuance.
18. He then, that by often repeating and reflection shall enure
himself to such precedents as these, may in time perhaps be more
delighted with these short and conclusive apophthegms than with the
exorbitances of loose and lavish discourse. For my own part, I must
acknowledge that I am not a little ashamed of myself, when I call to
mind that same domestic servant of whom I am now going to speak, and
consider how great a thing it is to advise before a man speaks, and
then to be able to maintain and stick to what he has resolved upon.
Pupius Piso, the rhetorician, being unwilling to be disturbed with
much talk, gave orders to his servants to answer to such questions
only as he should ask them, and say no more. Then having a design to
give an entertainment to Clodius, at that time magistrate, he ordered
him to be invited, and provided a splendid banquet for him, as in all
probability he could do no less. At the time appointed several other
guests appeared, only they waited for Clodius’s coming, who tarried
much longer than was expected; so that Piso sent his servant several
times to him, to know whether he would be pleased to come to supper
or no. Now when it grew late and Piso despaired of his coming, What!
said he to his servant, did you call him? Yes, replied the servant. Why
then does he not come away? Because he told me he would not come. Why
did you not tell me so before? Because, sir, you never asked me the
question. This was a Roman servant. But an Athenian servant, while he
is digging and delving, will give his master an account of the articles
and capitulations in a treaty of peace. So strangely does custom
prevail in all things, of which let us now discourse.
19. For there is no curb or bridle that can tame or restrain a
libertine tongue; only custom must vanquish that disease. First
therefore, when there are many questions propounded in the company
where thou art, accustom thyself to silence till all the rest have
refused to give an answer. For, as Sophocles observes,
Although in racing swiftness is required,
In counselling there’s no such haste desired;
no more do speech and answer aim at the same mark with running. For it
is the business of a racer to get the start of him that contends with
him; but if another man gives a sufficient answer, there needs no more
than to commend and approve what he says, and so gain the reputation
of a candid person. If not, then to tell wherein the other failed and
to supply the defect will neither be unseasonable nor a thing that can
justly merit distaste. But above all things, let us take special heed,
when another is asked a question, that we do not chop in to prevent his
returning an answer. And perhaps it is as little commendable, when a
question is asked of another, to put him by, and undertake the solution
of what is demanded ourselves. For thereby we seem to intimate that
the person to whom the question was put was not able to resolve it,
and that the propounder had not discretion sufficient to know of whom
to ask it. Besides, such a malapert forwardness in answering is not
only indecent, but injurious and affrontive. For he that prevents the
person to whom the question is put in returning his answer, would in
effect insinuate a What need had you to ask of him?—What can he say to
it?—When I am in presence, no man ought to be asked those questions
but myself. And yet many times we put questions to some people, not
for want of an answer, but only to minister occasion of discourse to
provoke them to familiarity, and to have the pleasure of their wit
and conversation, as Socrates was wont to challenge Theaetetus and
Charmides. Therefore to prevent another in returning his answers,
to abstract his ears, and draw off his cogitations from another to
himself, is the same thing as to run and salute a man who designs to be
saluted by somebody else, or to divert his eyes upon ourselves which
were already fixed upon another; considering that if he to whom the
question is put refuse to return an answer, it is but decent for a man
to contain himself, and by an answer accommodate to the will of the
propounder, modestly and respectfully to put in, as if it had been at
the request or in the behalf of the other. For they that are asked a
question, if they fail in their answer, are justly to be pardoned; but
he that voluntarily presumes to answer for another gives distaste, let
his answer be never so rational; but if he mistake, he is derided by
all the company.
20. The second point of exercise, in reference to our own answering of
questions, wherein a man that is given to talk ought to be extremely
careful, is first of all not to be over-hasty in his answers to such as
provoke him to talk on purpose to make themselves merry and to put an
affront upon him. For some there are who, not out of any desire to be
satisfied, but merely to pass away the time, study certain questions,
and then propound them to persons which they know love to multiply
words, on purpose to make themselves sport. Such men therefore ought
to take heed how they run headlong and leap into discourse, as if
they were glad of the occasion, and to consider the behavior of the
propounder and the benefit and usefulness of the question. When we find
that the propounder is really desirous to be informed, it is convenient
then for a man to bethink himself awhile, and make some pause between
the question and the answer; to the end that the proposer, if he
pleases to make any additions to his proposal, may have time to do it,
and himself a convenient space to consider what answer to make, for
fear of running at random and stifling the question before it be fully
propounded, or of giving one answer for another for want of considering
what he ought to say,—which is the effect of an over-hasty zeal to be
talking. True it is, indeed, that the Pythian priestess was wont to
give her oracular answers at the very instant, and sometimes before the
question was propounded. For that the Deity whom she serves
Both understands the mute that cannot speak,
And hears the silent e’er his mind he break.[80]
But it behooves a man that would return a pertinent answer, to stay
till he rightly apprehend the sense and understand the intent of him
that propounds the question, lest he may happen to make good the
proverb,
A rake we called for; they refused a bowl.
Besides, we must subdue this inordinate and insatiate greediness of
having all the talk, that it may not seem as if we had some old flux
of humors impostumated about the tongue, which we were willing to have
lanced and let out by a question. Socrates therefore, though never so
thirsty after violent exercise, never would allow himself the liberty
to drink, till he had drawn one bucket of water and poured it out upon
the ground; to the end he might accustom his sensual appetite to attend
reason’s appointment.
21. Now therefore we come to understand that there are three sorts of
answers to questions, the necessary, the polite, and the superfluous.
For example, if a man should ask whether Socrates is within, the other,
if he were in an ill-humor or not disposed to make many words, would
answer, Not within; or if he intended to be more Laconic, he would
cut off “within,” and reply briefly, No. Thus the Lacedaemonians,
when Philip sent them an epistle, to know whether or not they would
admit him into their city, vouchsafed him no other answer than only
No, fairly written in large letters upon a sheet of paper. Another
that would answer more courteously would say: He is not within; he is
gone among the bankers; and perhaps he would add, Where he expects
some friends. But a superfluous prater, if he chance to have read
Antimachus of Colophon, would reply: He is not within; but is gone
among the bankers, in expectation to meet certain Ionian friends,
who are recommended to him in a letter from Alcibiades, who lives
at Miletus with Tissaphernes, one of the great king of Persia’s
lieutenant-generals, who formerly assisted the Lacedaemonians,
but is now, by the solicitation of Alcibiades, in league with the
Athenians; for Alcibiades, being desirous to return to his own
country, has prevailed with Tissaphernes to change his mind and join
with the Athenians. And thus perhaps you shall have him run on and
repeat the whole eighth book of Thucydides, and overwhelm a man with
his impertinent discourse, till he has taken Miletus, and banished
Alcibiades a second time. Herein therefore ought a man chiefly to
restrain the profuseness of his language, by following the footsteps
of the question, and circumscribing the answer, as it were, within a
circle proportionable to the benefit which the propounder proposes
to make of his question. It is reported of Carneades, that before he
was well known in the world, while he was disputing in the Gymnasium,
the president of the place sent him an admonition to moderate his
voice (for he naturally spoke very deep and loud); in answer to which
he desired the president to send him a gauge for his voice, when the
president not improperly made answer: Let that be the person who
disputes with thee. In like manner, the intent of the propounder ought
to be the rule and measure of the answer.
22. Moreover, as Socrates was wont to say, that those meats were
chiefly to be abstained from which allured men to eat when they were
not a-hungry, and those drinks to be refrained that invited men to
drink when they were not a-dry; so it would behoove a man that is
lavish of his tongue, to be afraid of those discourses and themes
wherein he most delights and makes it his business to be most prolix,
and whenever he perceives them flowing in upon him, to resist them
to the utmost of his power. For example, your martial men are always
talking of sieges and battles, and the great poet often introduces
Nestor boasting of his own achievements and feats of arms. The same
disease is incident to noted pleaders at the bar, and accompanies such
as have unexpectedly risen to be the favorites of great princes. For
such will be always up with their stories,—how they were introduced at
first, how they ascended by degrees, how they got the better in such
a case, what arguments they used in such a case, and lastly how they
were hummed up and applauded in court. For to say truth, gladness and
joy are much more loquacious than the sleeplessness so often feigned
in their comedies, rousing up and still refreshing itself with new
relations; and therefore they are prone to fall into such stories upon
the least occasion given. For not only
Where the body most is pained,
There the patient lays his hand;
but pleasure also has a voice within itself, and leads the tongue about
to be a support to the memory. So lovers spend the greatest part of
their time in songs and sonnets, to refresh their memories with the
representations of their mistresses; concerning which amours of theirs,
when companions are wanting, they frequently discourse with things that
are void of life. Thus,
O dearest bed, whereon we wont to rest;
and again,
O blessed lamp divine,—for surely thee
Bacchis believes some mighty Deity,—
Surely the greatest of the Gods thou art,
If she so wills who does possess my heart.
And indeed it may well be said, that a loose-tongued fellow is no more,
in respect of his discourse, than a white line struck with chalk upon
white marble. For in regard there are several subjects of discourse,
and many men are more subject to some than to others, it behooves every
one to be on his guard especially against these, and to suppress them
in such a manner that the delight which they take therein may not decoy
them into their beloved prolixity and profuseness of words. The same
inclination to overshoot themselves in prattling appears in such as are
prone to that kind of discourses wherein they suppose themselves to
excel others, either in habit or experience. For such a one, being as
well a lover of himself as ambitious of glory,
The chiefest part of all the day doth spend,
Himself to pass and others to transcend.[81]
For example, he that reads much endeavors to excel in history; the
grammarian, in the artificial couching of words; the traveller is full
of his geography. But all these surplusages are to be avoided with
great caution, lest men, intoxicated therewith, grow fond of their old
infirmities, and return to their former freaks, like beasts that cannot
be driven from their haunts. Cyrus therefore, yet a young stripling,
was most worthy of admiration, who would never challenge his equals
and playfellows to any exercise wherein he excelled, but to such only
wherein he knew himself to be inferior; unwilling that they should fret
for the loss of the prize which he was sure to win, and loath to lose
what he could himself gain from the others’ better skill.
On the other side, the profuse talker is of such a disposition that,
if any discourse happen from which he might be able to learn something
and inform his ignorance, that he refuses and rejects, nor can you hire
him even to hold his tongue; but after his rolling and restless fancy
has mustered up some few obsolete and all-to-be-tattered rhapsodies
to supply his vanity, out he flings them, as if he were master of all
the knowledge in the world. Just like one amongst us who, having read
two or three of Ephorus’s books, tired all men’s ears, and spoiled
and brake up all the feasts and societies wherever he came, with his
continual relations of the battle of Leuctra and the consequences of
it; by which means he got himself a nickname, and every one called him
Epaminondas.
23. But this is one of the least inconveniences of this infirmity;
and indeed we ought to make it one step towards the cure, to turn
this violent vein of twattling upon such subjects as those. For such
a loquacity is less a nuisance when it superabounds in what belongs
to humane literature. It would be well also that the sort of people
who are addicted to this vice should accustom themselves to write upon
some subject or other, and to dispute of certain questions apart. For
Antipater the Stoic, as we may probably conjecture, either not being
able or else unwilling to come into dispute with Carneades, vehemently
inveighing against the Stoics, declined to meet him fairly in the
schools, yet would be always writing answers against him; and because
he filled whole volumes full of contradictory arguments, and still
opposed him with assertions that only made a noise, he was called
Calamoboas, as one that made a great clamor with his pen to no purpose.
So it is very probable that such fighting with their own shadows,
and exclaiming one against another apart by themselves, driving and
restraining them from the multitude, would render them gradually more
tolerable and sociable in civil company; as curs, after they have
once discharged their fury upon sticks and stones, become less fierce
towards men. It would be always of great importance to them to converse
with their superiors and elders; for that the awful reverence and
respect which they bear to their dignity and gravity may accustom them
in time to silence.
And it would be evermore expedient to intermix and involve with these
exercises this manner of ratiocination with ourselves, before we speak,
and at the very moment that the words are ready to break out of our
mouths: What is this which I would say, that presses so hard to be
gone? For what reason would this tongue of mine so fain be talking?
What good shall I get by speaking? What mischief shall I incur by
holding my peace? For we are not to ease and discharge ourselves of
our words, as if they were a heavy burthen that overloaded us; for
speech remains as well when uttered as before; but men either speak
in behalf of themselves when some necessity compels them, or for the
benefit of those that hear them, or else to recreate one another with
the delights of converse, on purpose to mitigate and render more
savory, as with salt, the toils of our daily employments. But if there
be nothing profitable in speaking, nothing necessary to them that hear
what is said, nothing of satisfaction or delight, what need is there it
should be spoken? For words may be in vain and to no purpose, as well
as deeds. But after and above all that has been said, we ought always
to bear in remembrance, and always to have at our tongue’s end, that
saying of Simonides, that he had often repented him of talking, but
never of keeping silent. Then as for exercise, we must believe it to be
a matter of great importance, as being that which overcomes and masters
all things; considering what watchful care and even toil and labor men
will undergo to get rid of an old cough or hiccough. But silence and
taciturnity not only never cause a dry throat, as Hippocrates observes,
but are altogether free from pain and sorrow.