Concerning Talkativeness (20-23)

Then the second matter for diligent practice concerns our own answers; to these the chatterer must pay very close attention: in the first place, that he may not inadvertently give a serious answer to those who provoke him to talk merely that they may insolently ridicule him.[*] For some persons who require no information, but merely to divert and amuse themselves, devise questions and put them to men of this sort to set going their foolish twaddle. Against this talkers should be on their guard and not leap upon a subject quickly, or as though grateful that it is offered to them, but should first consider both the character of the questioner and the necessity for the question. And when it appears that the questioner is really anxious to learn, the babbler must accustom himself to stop and leave between the question and the answer an interval, in which the asker may add anything he wishes and he himself may reflect upon his reply instead of overrunning and obscuring the question by giving a long string of answers in a hurry while the question is still being asked. For although the Pythian priestess is accustomed to

deliver some oracles on the instant, even before the question is put-for the god whom she serves

Understands the dumb and hears when no man speaks[*]-

yet the man who wishes to make a careful answer must wait to apprehend exactly the sense and the intent of him who asks the question, lest it befall, as the proverb[*] has it,

They asked for buckets, but tubs were refused.

In any case this ravenous hunger for talking must be checked so that it may not seem as though a stream which has long been pressing hard upon the tongue were being gladly discharged at the instance of the question. Socrates, in fact, used to control his thirst in this manner-he would not allow himself to drink after exercise until he had drawn up and poured out the first bucketful, so that his irrational part might be trained to await the time dictated by reason.

Furthermore, there are three kinds of answers to questions: the barely necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For example, if someone asks, Is Socrates at home? one person may reply, as it were unwillingly and grudgingly, Not at home. And if he wishes to adopt the Laconic style, he may omit the At home and only utter the bare negative. So the Spartans, when Philip wrote to ask if they would receive him into their city, wrote a large No on the paper and sent it back. Another will answer more politely, He is not at home, but at the bank, and if he wants to give fuller measure may

add, waiting there for some guests. But your over-officious and garrulous man, particularly if he happens to have read Antimachus[*] of Colophon, will say, He is not at home, but at the bank, waiting for some Ionian guests on whose behalf he has had a letter from Alcibiades who is near Miletus staying with Tissaphernes,[*] the satrap of the Great King, who formerly used to help the Spartans, but now is attaching himself to the Athenians because of Alcibiades. For Alcibiades desires to be restored to his native country and therefore is causing Tissaphernes to change sides. And he will run on, reciting at full stretch the whole eighth book of Thucydides, and deluge the questioner until, before he has done, Miletus is at war again and Alcibiades exiled for the second time.

Regarding this tendency especially, one must keep talkativeness within bounds by following the question step by step and circumscribing the answer within a circle to which the questioner’s need gives the centre and the radius.[*] So when Carneades,[*] who had not yet acquired a great reputation, was disputing in a gymnasium, the director sent and bade him lower his voice, which was a very loud one. And when Carneades said, Give me something to regulate my voice, the director aptly rejoined, I am giving you the person conversing with you. So, in making an answer, let the wishes of the questioner provide the regulation.

Moreover, just as Socrates[*] used to urge men to be on their guard against those foods which induce us to eat when we are not hungry, and against those liquids which induce us to drink when we are not thirsty, so it is with the babbler as regards subjects for talk: those in which he takes most delight and employs ad nauseam he should fear stoutly resist when they stream in upon him. For example, military men[*] are great tellers of war-stories, and the Poet introduces Nestor[*] in that character, often narrating his own deeds of prowess. Again, as one might expect, those who have scored a victory in the law-courts or have had some unexpected success at the courts of governors or kings are attacked, as it were, by a malady which never leaves them, by the desire to call to mind and tell over and over again how they made their entrance, how they were presented, how they argued, how they held forth, how they confuted some opponents or accusers, how they were applauded. For their delight is far more loquacious than that well-known insomnia in the comedy[*]: it often fans itself into new flame and makes itself ever fresh with each successive telling. They are, therefore, ready to slip into such subjects on any pretext. For not only

Where one feels pain, there will he keep his hand,[*]

but also what causes pleasure draws the voice toward itself and twists the tongue from a desire to dwell perpetually on the joys of remembrance. So also with lovers, who chiefly occupy themselves with conversation that recalls some memory of the objects of their love; and if they cannot talk to human beings, they will speak of their passion to inanimate things:

O dearest bed!

and

O blessed lamp, Bacchis thought you a god,

And greatest god you are if she thinks so.[*]

There is, however, really not a pin’s difference[*] to the chatterer what subjects may arise; nevertheless he that has a greater weakness for one class of subjects than for the other should be on his guard against these subjects and force himself to hold back and withdraw as far as possible from them, since they are always able, because of the pleasure they give, to lure him on to dilate upon them. And talkers have this same difficulty with those subjects in which they think that they surpass all others because of some experience or acquired habit. For such a person, being self-centred and vain,

Will give the chief part of the day to that

In which he chances to surpass himself[*]:

the great reader will spend it in narrating tales, the literary expert in technical discussions, the wide traveller and wanderer over the face of the earth in stories of foreign parts. We must, therefore, be on our guard against these subjects also, since garrulity is enticed by them, like a beast making for familiar haunts. And Cyrus’s[*] conduct was admirable, because he challenged his mates to match themselves with him, not in those contests in which he was superior, but in those in which he was less skilled than they, so that he might cause no pain by surpassing them and might also have the advantage of learning something. But the chatterer, on the contrary, if some topic comes up from which he can learn and find out something he does not know, thrusts it aside and diverts it, being unable to give even so small a fee as silence, but he works steadily around until he drives the conversation into the stale and well-worn paths of twaddle. Just so, in my native town, there was a man who chanced to have read two or three books of Ephorus, and would always bore everybody to death and put every dinner-party to rout by invariably narrating the battle of Leuctra and its sequel; so he got the nickname of Epameinondas.[*]

Nevertheless, this is the least of the evils, and we should turn garrulity into these channels; for talkativeness will be less unpleasant when its excesses are in some learned subject. Yet such persons must accustom themselves to do some writing and so argue all by themselves. So Antipater[*] the Stoic, since, as it seems, he could not and would not come to close quarters with Carneades[*] and his violent attacks upon the Stoa, used to fill whole books with written disputations against him, and so earned the sobriquet of Pen-valiant. But with the talker, such shadowboxing[*]

with the pen and such alarums, by keeping him away from the multitude, may perhaps make him less of a daily burden to his associates, just as dogs that vent their anger on sticks and stones are less savage to men. And it will also be very advantageous for chatterers to frequent invariably the company of their superiors and elders, out of respect for whose opinion they will become accustomed to silence.

And with these exercises in habituation it is proper to intermix and entwine that well-known vigilance and habit of reflection, at the very moment when we are about to speak and the words are hurrying to our lips, What is this remark that is so pressing and importunate? What object is my tongue panting for? What good will come of its being said or what ill of its being suppressed? For it is not as though the remark were some oppressive weight which one ought to get rid of, since it stays by you all the same even if it is spoken; when men talk, it is either for their own sake, because they need something, or to benefit their hearers, or they seek to ingratiate themselves with each other by seasoning with the salt of conversation the pastime or business in which they happen to be engaged. But if a remark is neither useful to the speaker nor of serious importance to the hearers, and if pleasure or charm is not in it, why is it made? For the futile and purposeless can exist in speech as well as in deeds.

And over and above all else we must keep at hand and in our minds the saying of Simonides,[*] that he had often repented of speaking, but never of holding

his tongue. We must remember also that practice is master of all things and stronger than anything else; since people can even get rid of hiccoughs and coughs by resisting them resolutely and with much pain and trouble. But silence, as Hippocrates[*] says, not only prevents thirst, but also never causes sorrow and suffering.