The Education of Children (14)

Moreover, one’s sons are to be kept from foul

language; for, according to Democritus,[*]

A word is a deed’s shadow.

Then, too, proper measures must be taken to ensure that they shall be tactful and courteous in their address; for nothing is so deservedly disliked as tactless characters. Besides, children may avoid getting themselves disliked by their associates if they do not prove totally unyielding in discussions. For it is a fine thing to understand, not only how to gain the victory, but also how to submit to defeat, in cases where victory is injurious; for there is really such a thing as a Cadmean victory. [*] As a witness of this I may quote Euripides the wise, who says:

When of two speakers one is growing wroth, Wiser is he that yields in argument.[*]

We must now lay down some rules of conduct which the young should follow no less but even more than those previously given. These are: To practise the simple life, to hold the tongue in check, to conquer anger, to control the hands. We must consider the importance of each of these; and they will be more intelligible if based on examples.

So, to begin with the last, some men by putting their hands to wrongful gains have upset the good repute of their earlier lives. Witness the case of Gylippus, [*] the Spartan, who was forced into exile because he had secretly unsewed the bags of money.

Again, an unruffled temper is certainly the mark of a wise man. Thus Socrates once, when a bold and impudent youth had kicked him, observed that the bystanders were so indignant and so violently moved as to wish to follow up the offender; but he only said: If an ass had kicked me, should you have thought it proper to kick him in return? That youth, however, did not by any means get off scot-free, but as everybody jeered at him, and nicknamed him Kicker, he ended by hanging himself.

And when Aristophanes brought out the Clouds, and heaped all manner of abuse upon Socrates in every possible way, one of those who had been present said to Socrates, Are you not indignant, Socrates, that he used you as he did in the play? No indeed, he replied; when they break a jest upon me in the theatre I feel as if I were at a big party of good friends. What Archytas of Tarentum and Plato did will be seen to be closely akin to this. For Archytas, on his return from the war (where he had been general) found his land gone to waste. He summoned his overseer and said, You should be sorry for this, if I were not in too great a temper. And Plato, provoked at a gluttonous and impudent slave, called his sister’s son, Speusippus, and said as he withdrew, Beat this fellow, for I am too much provoked. But it may be urged that such actions are difficult and hard to imitate. I know that myself. But the effort must be made, by employing the actions of such men as standards as far as possible, to abate a great part of our unbridled and furious temper; for in other respects also we are not comparable with them either in

experience or in magnanimity. Yet we, no less than they, feeling ourselves to be the high priests of God’s mysteries and torch-bearers of wisdom, do attempt, so far as lies in our power, to imitate and to get a little taste of such conduct for ourselves.

The control of the tongue, then, still remains to be discussed of the topics I suggested. If anybody has the notion that this is a slight and insignificant matter, he is very far from the truth. For timely silence is a wise thing, and better than any speech. And this is the reason, as it appears to me, why the men of olden time established the rites of initiation into the mysteries, that we, by becoming accustomed to keep silence there, may transfer that fear which we learned from the divine secrets to the safe keeping of the secrets of men. For, again, nobody was ever sorry because he kept silent, but hundreds because they talked. Again, the word unspoken can easily be uttered later; but the spoken word cannot possibly be recalled. I have heard of countless men who have fallen into the greatest misfortunes through intemperate speech. Of these I shall mention one or two as typical and omit the rest. When Ptolemy Philadelphus married his sister Arsinoe, Sotades [*] said,

’Tis wrong for you to try to spur that mare,

and thereafter he rotted in prison for many years; and so suffered condign punishment for his untimely talking, and to make other men laugh he sorrowed a long time himself. A story to match and couple with this, and much more dreadful, is what the sophist Theocritus said and suffered. Alexander had bidden the Greeks to make ready crimson robes so that on his return he might offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving for his victory in the war against the barbarians, and all the states had to pay a polltax in money, when Theocritus remarked, Before this I used to be in doubt, but now I know for a certainty that this is Homer’s ’ Crimson Death.’ [*] And thereby he made an enemy of Alexander. And Antigonus, king of the Macedonians, who was blind of one eye, he drove to immoderate anger by reproaching him with his disfigurement. For Antigonus sent his chief cook, Eutropion, who had been an officer in his army, to Theocritus, and insisted that Theocritus should come to him and engage him in discussion. When Eutropion delivered his message to Theocritus, coming several times for the purpose, the latter said, I know very well that you want to serve me up raw to your Cyclops, twitting the one for being disfigured and the other for being now a cook. Then you shall not keep your head on, said Eutropion, but you shall pay the penalty for this reckless talk and madness of yours. He thereupon reported the remark to the king, who sent and had Theocritus put to death.

But besides all this, we should, as a most sacred duty, accustom children to speak the truth. For lying is fit for slaves only, and deserves to be hated of all men, and even in decent slaves it is not to be condoned.