_Salomon_, Solomon; the reference is to Prov. xxi. 23; cf. Ps. xxxiv. 13.
317. Sayings similar to those quoted below are common; but Dr. E. Köppel
has shewn (in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, ed. L. Herrig,
vol. lxxxvi, p. 44) that Chaucer had particularly in mind a treatise by
Albertano of Brescia, entitled De arte loquendi et tacendi. He refers us to
a new edition by Thor Sundby, in a work entitled Brunetto Latinos levnet og
skrifter, Kopenhagen, 1869.
We may further compare a passage in Le Roman de la Rose, 7069, which
professes to follow Ptolemy's Almagest. And we find similar pieces of
advice in Middle English, with such titles as 'How the Good Wife taught her
Daughter,' and 'How the Wise man taught his Son'; but these are probably
later than the time of Chaucer.
325. The corresponding passage in Albertano's treatise is the following, p.
xcviii:--'Paucos vel neminem tacendo, multos loquendo circumventos vidimus,
quod pulchre voluit, qui ait: Nil tacuisse nocet, nocet esse saepe
locutum.' This hexameter is quoted from Dionysius Cato, Distich. lib. i.
dist. 12, slightly altered. Cato has: 'Nam nulli tacuisse nocet, nocet esse
locutum.' Cf. the common proverb--'a fool's bolt is soon shot,' which
appears in the Proverbs of Alfred, l. 421. As to Cato, see note to G. 688.
329. The corresponding passage in Albertano is:--'Causa igitur finalis tui
dicti sit aut pro Dei servitio aut pro humano commodo, aut pro utroque'; p.
cx. [443]
332. In Albertano's treatise, p. xcvi, we find:--'Catho dixit: Virtutem
primam esse puta compescere linguam.' From Dion. Cato, Distich. lib. i.
dist. 3. Chaucer quotes it again in Troilus, iii. 294. Cf. Le Rom. de la
Rose, 7073-4.
335. Cf. Albertano, p. cxv:--'In quantitate insuper modum requiras non
multa dicendo; nam in multiloquio non deest peccatum.' This refers to Prov.
x. 19:--'In multiloquio non deerit peccatum.'