Concerning Talkativeness (5-9)

Lysias once composed a speech for a litigant and gave it to him. The man read it through a number of times and came to Lysias in despair and said that the first time he read it the speech seemed to him wonderfully good, but on taking it up a second and third time it appeared completely dull and ineffectual. Well, said Lysias laughing, isn’t it only once that you are going to speak it before the jurors? And consider the persuasiveness and charm of Lysias! For he is one who, for my part,

I say has a fair portion in the violet-tressed Muses.[*]

I scorn to tell

A tale again that’s once been clearly told[*];

Let this, then, be the first thing of which we remind them - that just as wine, discovered for the promotion of pleasure and good fellowship, is sometimes misused to produce discomfort and intoxication by those[*] who compel others to drink it undiluted in large quantities, so speech, which is the most pleasant and human of social ties, is made inhuman and unsocial by those who use it badly and wantonly, because they offend those whom they think they please, are ridiculed for their attempts at gaining admiration, and are disliked because of the very means they employ to gain affection. As, then, he can have no share in Aphrodite who uses her girdle to drive away and alienate those who seek his company, so he who arouses annoyance and hostility with his speech is no friend of the Muses and a stranger to art.

Now of the other affections and maladies some are dangerous, some detestable, some ridiculous; but garrulousness has all these qualities at once; for babblers are derided for telling what everyone knows, they are hated for bearing bad news, they run into danger since they cannot refrain from revealing secrets. So it is that Anacharsis,[*] when he had been entertained and feasted at Solons house and lay down to sleep, was seen to have his left hand placed

Since other labour was pressing,[*]

Sulla is a mulberry sprinkled with meal[*];

The loquacity of one man, again, prevented Rome from becoming free by the removal of Nero.[*] For but one night remained, after which the tyrant was to die, and all preparations had been made; but the man[*] who was to kill him saw at the palace gates when on his way to the theatre a prisoner about to be led before Nero and lamenting his evil fortune. He approached the prisoner and whispered to him, Only pray, my good man, that to-day may pass by and to-morrow you will be thankful to me. So the prisoner grasped the intended meaning, and reflecting, I suppose, that

He is a fool who leaves things close at hand

To follow what is out of reach,[*]

Zeno[*] the philosopher, in order that even against his will no secret should be betrayed by his body when under torture, bit his tongue through and spat it out at the despot.[*] And Leaena[*] also has a splendid reward for her self-control. She was a courtesan belonging to the group led by Harmodius and Aristogeiton and shared in the conspiracy against

No spoken word, it is true, has ever done such service as have in many instances words unspoken[*]; for it is possible at some later time to tell what you have kept silent, but never to keep silent what once has been spoken - that has been spilled, and has made its way abroad.[*] Hence, I think, in speaking we have men as teachers, but in keeping silent we have gods, and we receive from them this lesson of silence at initiations into the Mysteries. And the Poet[*] has made the most eloquent Odysseus the most reticent, and also his son and his wife and his nurse; for you hear the nurse saying,[*]

I’ll hold it safe like sturdy oak or iron.

Did pity in his heart his wife in tears,

But kept his eyes firm-fixed within their lids

Like horn or iron.[*]

His heart remained enduring in obedience,[*]

And Ino in Euripides,[*] speaking out boldly concerning herself, says that she knows how to be

Silent in season, to speak where speech is safe.