Plutarch's Morals

§ xi. The Roman Senate had been discussing for several days a secret matter, and there was much doubt and suspicion about it. And one of the senator's wives, discreet in other matters but a very woman in curiosity, pressed her husband close, and entreated him to tell her what the secret was; she vowed and swore she would not divulge it, and did not refrain from shedding tears at her not being trusted. And he, nothing loth to convince her of her folly, said, "Your importunity, wife, has prevailed, listen to a dreadful and portentous matter. It has been told us by the priests that a lark has been seen flying in the air with a golden helmet and spear: it is this portent that we are considering and discussing with the augurs, as to whether it be a good or bad omen. But say nothing about it." Having said these words he went into the Forum. But his wife seized on the very first of her maids that entered the room, and smote her breast, and tore her hair, and said, "Alas! for my husband and country! What will become of us?" wishing and teaching her maid to say, "Whatever's up?" So when she inquired she told her all about it, adding that refrain common to all praters, "Tell no one a word about it." The maid however had scarce left her mistress when she told one of her fellow-servants who was doing little or nothing, and she told her lover who happened to call at that moment.

So the news spread to the Forum so quickly that it got the start of its original author, and one of his friends meeting him said, "Have you only just left your house?" "Only just," he replied. "Didn't you hear the news?" said his friend. "What news?" said he. "Why, that a lark has been seen flying in the air with a golden helmet and spear, and the Senate are met to discuss the portent." And he smiled and said to himself, "You are quick, wife, for the tale to get before me to the Forum!" Then meeting some of the Senators he disabused them of their panic. But to punish his wife, he said when he got home, "You have undone me, wife: for the secret has got abroad from my house, so that I must be an exile from my country for your inability to keep a secret." And on her trying to deny it, and saying, "Were there not three hundred Senators that heard of it as well as you? Might not one of them have divulged it?" he replied, "Stuff o' your three hundred! It was at your importunity that I invented the story, to put you to the test!" This fellow tested his wife warily and cunningly, as one pours water, and not wine or oil, into a leaky vessel.

And Fabius,573 the friend of Augustus, hearing the Emperor in his old age mourning over the extinction of his family, how two of his daughter Julia's sons were dead, and how Posthumus Agrippa, the only remaining one, was in exile through false accusation,574 and how he was compelled to put his wife's son575 into the succession to the Empire, though he pitied Agrippa and had half a mind to recall him from banishment, repeated the Emperor's words to his wife, and she to Livia.576 And Livia bitterly upbraided Augustus, if he meant recalling his grandson, for not having done so long ago, instead of bringing her into hatred and hostility with the heir to the Empire. When Fabius came in the morning as usual into the Emperor's presence, and said, "Hail, Cæsar!" the Emperor replied, "Farewell,577 Fabius." And he understanding the meaning of this straightway went home, and sent for his wife, and said, "The Emperor knows that I have not kept his secret, so I shall kill myself." And his wife replied, "You have deserved your fate, since having been married to me so long you did not remember and guard against my incontinence of speech, but suffer me to kill myself first." So saying she took his sword, and slew herself first.

§ xii. That was a good answer therefore that the comic poet Philippides made to king Lysimachus, who greeted him kindly, and said to him,578 "What shall I give you of all my possessions?" "Whatever you like, O king, except your secrets." And talkativeness has another plague attached to it, even curiosity: for praters wish to hear much that they may have much to say, and most of all do they gad about to investigate and pry into secrets and hidden things, providing as it were an antiquated stock of rubbish579 for their twaddle, in fine like children who cannot580 hold ice in their hands, and yet are unwilling to let it go,581 or rather taking secrets to their bosoms and embracing them as if they were so many serpents, that they cannot control, but are sure to be gnawed to death by. They say that garfish and vipers burst in giving life to their young, so secrets by coming out ruin and destroy those who cannot keep them. Seleucus Callinicus having lost his army and all his forces in a battle against the Galati, threw off his diadem, and fled on a swift horse with an escort of three or four of his men a long day's journey by bypaths and out-of-the-way tracks, till faint and famishing for want of food he drew rein at a small farmhouse, where by chance he found the master at home, and asked for some bread and water.

And he supplied him liberally and courteously not only with what he asked for but with whatever else was on the farm, and recognized the king, and being very joyful at this opportunity of ministering to the king's necessities, he could not contain himself, nor dissemble like the king who wished to be incognito, but he accompanied him to the road, and on parting from him, said, "Farewell, king Seleucus." And he stretching out his right hand, and drawing the man to him as if he was going to kiss him, gave a sign to one of his escort to draw his sword and cut the man's head off;

Whereas if he had been silent then, and kept his counsel for a time, as the king afterwards became prosperous and great, he would have received, I take it, greater favour for his silence than for his hospitality. And yet he had I admit some excuse for his want of reticence, namely hope and joy.

§ xiii. But most talkative people have no excuse for ruining themselves. As for example in a barber's shop one day there was some conversation about the tyranny of Dionysius, that it was as hard as adamant and invincible, and the barber laughed and said, "Fancy your saying this to me, who have my razor at his throat most days!" And Dionysius hearing this had him crucified. Barbers indeed are generally a talkative race, for people fond of prating flock to them and sit in their shops, so that they pick up the habit from their customers. It was a witty answer therefore of king Archelaus,583 when a talkative barber put the towel round his neck, and asked him, "How shall I shave you, O king?" "Silently," said the monarch. It was a barber that first spread the news of the great reverse of the Athenians in Sicily, having heard of it at the Piræus from a slave that had escaped from the island. He at once left his shop, and ran into the city at full speed, "that no one else should reap the fame, and he come in the second,"584 of carrying the news into the town. And an uproar arising, as was only to be expected, the people assembled in the ecclesia, and began to investigate the origin of the rumour. So the barber was dragged up and questioned, but knew not the person's name who had told him, so was obliged to refer its origin to an anonymous and unknown person. Then anger filled the theatre, and the multitude cried out, "Torture the cursed fellow, put him to the rack: he has fabricated and concocted this news: who else heard it? who credits it?"

The wheel was brought, the poor fellow stretched on it. Meantime those came up who had brought the news, who had escaped from the carnage in Sicily. Then all the multitude dispersed to weep over their private sorrows, and abandoned the poor barber, who remained fastened to the wheel. And when released late in the evening he actually asked the executioner, if they had heard how Nicias the General was slain. So invincible and incorrigible a vice does habit make talkativeness to be.

§ xiv. And yet, as those that drink bitter and strong-smelling physic are disgusted even with the cups they drink it out of, so those that bring evil tidings are disliked and hated by their hearers. Wittily therefore has Sophocles described the conversation between Creon and the guard.

However those that tell the tale grieve us as well as those that did the deed: and yet there is no means of checking or controlling the running tongue. At Lacedæmon the temple of Athene Chalciœcus586 was broken into, and an empty flagon was observed lying on the ground inside, and a great concourse of people came up and discussed the matter. And one of the company said, "If you will allow me, I will tell you what I think about this flagon. I cannot help being of opinion that these sacrilegious wretches drank hemlock, and brought wine with them, before commencing their nefarious and dangerous work: that so, if they should fail to be detected, they might depart in safety, drinking the wine neat as an antidote to the hemlock: whereas should they be caught in the act, before they were put to the torture they would die of the poison easily and painlessly." When he had uttered these words, the idea seemed so ingenious and farfetched that it looked as if it could not emanate from fancy, but only from knowledge of the real facts. So the crowd surrounded this man, and asked him one after the other, "Who are you? Who knows you? How come you to know all this?" And at last he was convicted in this way, and confessed that he was one of those that had committed the sacrilege. And were not the murderers of Ibycus similarly captured? They were sitting in the theatre, and some cranes flew over their heads, and they laughed and whispered to one another, "Behold the avengers of Ibycus."

And this being overheard by some who sat near, as Ibycus had now been some time missing and inquired after, they laid hold of this remark, and reported it to the magistrates. And so they were convicted and dragged off to punishment, being brought to justice not by the cranes but by their own inability to hold their tongues, being compelled by some Fury or Vengeance as it were to divulge the murder.587 For as in the body there is an attraction to sore and suffering parts from neighbouring parts, so the tongue of talkative persons, ever suffering from inflammation and a throbbing pulse, attracts and draws to it secret and hidden things. And so the tongue ought to be fenced in, and have reason ever before it, as a bulwark, to prevent its tripping: that we may not seem to be more silly than geese, of whom it is said that, when they fly from Cilicia over Mt. Taurus which swarms with eagles, they carry in their mouths a large stone, which they employ as a gag or bridle for their scream, and so they cross over by night unobserved.

§ xv. Now if anyone were to ask who is the worst and most abandoned man, no one would pass over the traitor, or mention anyone else. It was as the reward of treason that Euthycrates roofed his house with Macedonian wood, as Demosthenes tells us; and that Philocrates got a large sum of money, and spent it on women and fish; and it was for betraying Eretria that Euphorbus and Philagrus got an estate from king Philip. But the talkative man is an unhired and officious traitor, not of horses588 or walls, but of secrets which he divulges in the law courts, in factions, in party-strife, no one thanking him for his pains; but should anyone listen to him he thinks he is the obliged party. So that what was said to a man who rashly and indiscriminately squandered away all his means and bestowed them on others,

§ xvi. But all this must not be looked upon merely as an indictment against talkativeness, but an attempt to cure it: for we overcome the passions by judgement and practice, but judgement is the first step. For no one is wont to shun, and eradicate from his soul, what he does not dislike. And we dislike the passions only when we discern by reason the harm and shame that results to us by indulging them. As we see every day in the case of talkative people: if they wish to be loved, they are hated; if they desire to please, they bore; when they think they are admired, they are really laughed at; they spend, and get no gain from so doing; they injure their friends, benefit their enemies, and ruin themselves. So that the first cure and remedy of this disorder will be to reckon up the shame and trouble that results from it.

§ xvii. In the next place we must consider the opposite virtue to talkativeness, always listening to and having on our lips the encomiums passed upon reserve, and remembering the decorum sanctity and mysterious power of silence, and ever bearing in mind that terse and brief speakers, who put the maximum of matter into the minimum of words, are more admired and esteemed and thought wiser590 than unbridled windbags. And so Plato591 praises, and compares to clever javelin-men, such as speak tersely, compressedly, and concisely. And Lycurgus by using his citizens from boyhood to silence taught them to perfection their brevity and terseness. For as the Celtiberians make steel of iron only after digging down deep in the soil, and carefully separating the iron ore, so Laconian oratory has no rind,592 but by the removal of all superfluous matter goes home straight to the point like steel. For its sententiousness,593 and pointed suppleness in repartee, comes from the habit of silence. And we ought to quote such pointed sayings especially to talkative people, such neatness and vigour have they, as, for example, what the Lacedæmonians said to Philip, "[Remember] Dionysius at Corinth."594 And again, when Philip wrote to them, "If I invade Laconia, I will drive you all out of house and home," they only wrote back, "If." And when king Demetrius was indignant and cried out, "The Lacedæmonians have only sent me one ambassador," the ambassador was not frightened but said, "Yes, one to one man." Certainly among the ancients men of few words were admired.

So the Amphictyones did not write extracts from the Iliad or Odyssey, or the Pæans of Pindar, in the temple of Pythian Apollo at Delphi, but "Know thyself," "Not too much of anything,"595 and "Be a surety, trouble is near;"596 so much did they admire compactness and simplicity of speech, combining brevity with shrewdness of mind. And is not the god himself short and concise in his oracles? Is he not called Loxias,597 because he prefers ambiguity to longwindedness? And are not those who express their meaning by signs without words wonderfully praised and admired? As Heraclitus, when some of the citizens asked him to give them his opinion about concord, got on the platform, and took a cup of cold water, and put some barley-meal in it, and stirred it up with penny-royal, thus showing them that it is being content with anything, and not needing costly dainties, that keeps cities in peace and concord. Scilurus, the king of the Scythians, left eighty sons, and on his death-bed asked for a bundle of sticks, and bade his sons break it when it was tied together, and when they could not, he took the sticks one by one and easily broke them all up: thus showing them that their harmony and concord would make them strong and hard to overthrow, while dissension would make them feeble and insecure.

§ xviii. If then anyone were continually to recollect and repeat these or similar terse sayings, he would probably cease to be pleased with idle talk. As for myself, when I consider of what importance it is to attend to reason, and to keep to one's purpose, I confess I am quite put out of countenance by the example of the slave of Pupius Piso the orator. He, not wishing to be annoyed by their prating, ordered his slaves merely to answer his questions, and not say a word more. On one occasion wishing to pay honour to Clodius who was then in power, he ordered him to be invited to his house, and provided for him no doubt a sumptuous entertainment. At the time fixed all the guests were present except Clodius, for whom they waited, and the host frequently sent the slave who used to invite guests to see if he was coming, but when evening came, and he was now quite despaired of, he said to his slave, "Did you not invite him?" "Certainly," said the slave. "Why then has he not come?" said the master. "Because he declined," said the slave. "Why then did you not tell me of it at once?" said the master. "Because you never asked me," said the slave. This was a Roman slave. But an Athenian slave "while digging will tell his master on what terms peace was made." So great is the force of habit in all matters. And of it we will now speak.

§ xix. For it is not by applying bit or bridle that we can restrain the talkative person, we must master the disease by habit. In the first place then, when you are in company and questions are going round, accustom yourself not to speak till all the rest have declined giving an answer. For as Sophocles says, "counsel is not like a race;" no more are question and answer. For in a race the victory belongs to him who gets in first, but in company, if anyone has given a satisfactory answer, it is sufficient by assenting and agreeing to his view to get the reputation of being a pleasant fellow; and if no satisfactory answer is given, then to enlighten ignorance and supply the necessary information is well-timed and does not excite envy. But let us be especially on our guard that, if anyone else is asked a question, we do not ourselves anticipate and intercept him in giving an answer. It is indeed perhaps nowhere good form, if another is asked a favour, to push him aside and undertake to grant it ourselves; for we shall seem so to upbraid two people at once, the one who was asked as not able to grant the favour, and the other as not knowing how to ask in the right quarter. But especially insulting is such forwardness and impetuosity in answering questions. For he that anticipates by his own answer the person that was asked the question seems to say, "What is the good of asking him? What does he know about it? In my presence nobody else ought to be asked about these matters."

And yet we often put questions to people, not so much because we want an answer, as to elicit from them conversation and friendly feeling, and from a wish to fit them for company, as Socrates drew out Theætetus and Charmides. For it is all one to run up and kiss one who wishes to be kissed by another, or to divert to oneself the attention that he was bestowing on another, as to intercept another person's answers, and to transfer people's ears, and force their attention, and fix them on oneself; when, even if he that was asked declines to give an answer, it will be well to hold oneself in reserve, and only to meet the question modestly when one's turn comes, so framing one's answer as to seem to oblige the person who asked the question, and as if one had been appealed to for an answer by the other. For if people are asked questions and cannot give a satisfactory answer they are with justice excused; but he who without being asked undertakes to answer a question, and anticipates another, is disagreeable even if he succeeds, while, if his answer is unsatisfactory, he is ridiculed by all the company, and his failure is a source of the liveliest satisfaction to them.

§ xx. The next thing to practise oneself to in answering the questions put to one,—a point to which the talkative person ought to pay the greatest attention,—is not through inadvertence to give serious answers to people who only challenge you to talk in fun and sport. For some people concoct questions not for real information, but simply for amusement and to pass the time away, and propound them to talkative people, just to have them on. Against this we must be on our guard, and not rush into conversation too hastily, or as if we were obliged for the chance, but we must consider the character of the inquirer and his purpose. When it seems that he really desires information, we should accustom ourselves to pause, and interpose some interval between the question and answer; during which time the questioner can add anything if he chooses, and the other can reflect on his answer, and not be in too great a hurry about it, nor bury it in obscurity, nor, as is frequently the case in too great haste, answer some other question than that which was asked. The Pythian Priestess indeed was accustomed to utter some of her oracles at the very moment before the question was put: for the god whom she serves "understands the dumb, and hears the mute."598 But he that wishes to give an appropriate answer must carefully consider both the question and the mind of the questioner, lest it be as the proverb expresses it,

Besides we ought to check this greediness and hunger for words, that it may not seem as if we had a flood on our tongue which was dammed up, but which we were only too glad to discharge600 on a question being put. Socrates indeed so repressed his thirst, that he would not allow himself to drink after exercise in the gymnasium, till he had first drawn from the well one bucket of water and poured it on to the ground, that he might accustom his irrational part to wait upon reason.

§ xxi. There are moreover three kinds of answers to questions, the necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For instance, if anyone asked, "Is Socrates at home?" one, as if backward and disinclined to answer, might say, "Not at home;" or, if he wished to speak with Laconic brevity, might cut off "at home," and simply say "No;" as, when Philip wrote to the Lacedæmonians to ask if they would receive him in their city, they sent him back merely a large "No." But another would answer more politely, "He is not at home, but with the bankers," and if he wished to add a little more, "he expects to see some strangers there." But the superfluous prater, if he has read Antimachus of Colophon,601 says, "He is not at home, but with the bankers, waiting for some Ionian strangers, about whom he has had a letter from Alcibiades who is in the neighbourhood of Miletus, staying with Tissaphernes the satrap of the great king, who used long ago to favour the Lacedæmonian party, but now attaches himself to the Athenians for Alcibiades' sake, for Alcibiades desires to return to his country, and so has succeeded in changing the views of Tissaphernes." And then he will go over the whole of the Eighth Book of Thucydides, and deluge the man, till before he is aware Miletus is captured, and Alcibiades is in exile the second time. In such a case most of all ought we to curtail talkativeness, by following the track of a question closely, and tracing out our answer according to the need of the questioner with the same accuracy as we describe a circle.

When Carneades was disputing in the gymnasium before the days of his great fame, the superintendent of the gymnasium sent to him a message to bid him modulate his voice (for it was of the loudest), and when he asked him to fix a standard, the superintendent replied not amiss, "The standard of the person talking with you." So the meaning of the questioner ought to be the standard for the answer.

§ xxii. Moreover as Socrates urged his disciples to abstain from such food as tempted them to eat when they were not hungry, and from such drinks as tempted them to drink when they were not thirsty, so the talkative person ought to be afraid most of such subjects of conversation as he most delights in and repeats ad nauseam, and to try and resist their influence. For example, soldiers are fond of descriptions about war, and thus Homer introduces Nestor frequently narrating his prowess and glorious deeds. And generally speaking those who have been successful in the law courts, or beyond their hopes been favourites of kings and princes, are possessed, as it were by some disease, with the itch for frequently recalling and narrating, how they got on and were advanced, what struggles they underwent, how they argued on some famous occasion, how they won the day either as plaintiffs or defendants, what panegyrics were showered upon them. For joy is much more inclined to prate than the well-known sleeplessness represented in comedies, frequently rousing itself, and finding something fresh to relate. And so at any excuse they slip into such narratives. For not only,

but also delight has a voice of its own, and leads about the tongue in its train, ever wishing to fortify it with memory. Thus lovers spend most of their time in conversations that revive the memory of their loves; and if they cannot talk to human beings about them, they talk about them to inanimate objects, as, "O dearest bed," and,

The talkative person therefore is merely as regards words a white line,603 but he that is especially inclined to certain subjects should be especially on his guard against talking about them, and should avoid such topics, since from the pleasure they give him they may entice him to be very prolix and tedious. The same is the case with people in regard to such subjects as they think they are more experienced in and acquainted with than others. For such a one, being self-appreciative and fond of fame, "spends most of the day in that particular branch of study in which he chances to be proficient."604 Thus he that is fond of reading will give his time to research; the grammarian his to syntax; and the traveller, who has wandered over many countries, his to geography. We must therefore be on our guard against our favourite topics, for they are an enticement to talkativeness, as its wonted haunts are to an animal. Admirable therefore was the behaviour of Cyrus in challenging his companions, not to those contests in which he was superior to them, but to those in which he was inferior, partly that he might not give them pain through his superiority, partly for his own benefit by learning from them. But the talkative person acts just contrary, for if any subject is introduced from which he might learn something he did not know, this he rejects and refuses, not being able to earn a good deal by a short silence,605 but he rambles round the subject and babbles out stale and commonplace rhapsodies.

As one amongst us, who by chance had read two or three of the books of Ephorus,606 bored everybody, and dispersed every social party, by always narrating the particulars of the battle of Leuctra and its consequences, so that he got nicknamed Epaminondas.

§ xxiii. Nevertheless this is one of the least of the evils of talkativeness, and we ought even to try and divert it into such channels as these, for prating is less of a nuisance when it is on some literary subject. We ought also to try and get some persons to write on some topic, and so discuss it by themselves. For Antipater the Stoic philosopher,607 not being able or willing it seems to dispute with Carneades, who inveighed vehemently against the Stoic philosophy, writing and filling many books of controversy against him, got the nickname of Noisy-with-the-pen; and perhaps the exercise and excitement of writing, keeping him very much apart from the community, might make the talkative man by degrees better company to those he associated with; as dogs, bestowing their rage on sticks and stones, are less savage to men. It will also be very advantageous for such to mix with people better and older than themselves, for they will accustom themselves to be silent by standing in awe of their reputation. And withal it will be well, when we are going to say something, and the words are on our lips, to reflect and consider, "What is this word that is so eager for utterance? To what is this tongue marching? What good will come of speaking now, or what harm of silence?"

For we ought not to drop words as we should a burden that pressed upon us, for the word remains still after it has been spoken just the same; but men speak either on their own behalf if they want something, or to benefit those that hear them, or, to gratify one another, they season everyday life with speech, as one seasons food with salt. But if words are neither useful to the speaker, nor necessary for the hearer, nor contain any pleasure or charm, why are they spoken? For words may be idle and useless as well as deeds. And besides all this we must ever remember as most important the dictum of Simonides, that he had often repented he had spoken, but never that he had been silent: while as to the power and strength of practice consider how men by much toil and painstaking will get rid even of a cough or hiccough. And silence is not only never thirsty, as Hippocrates says, but also never brings pain or sorrow.