Concerning Talkativeness (8-11)

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

the tyrants[*] - with her hopes, all a woman could do; for she also had joined in the revels about that noble mixing-bowl of Eros[*] and through the god had been initiated into the secrets which might not be revealed. When, therefore, the conspirators failed and were put to death, she was questioned and commanded to reveal those who still escaped detection; but she would not do so and continued steadfast, proving that those men had experienced a passion not unworthy of themselves in loving a woman like her. And the Athenians caused a bronze lioness[*] without a tongue to be made and set it up in the gates of the Acropolis, representing by the spirited courage of the animal Leaena’s invincible character, and by its tonguelessness her power of silence in keeping a holy secret.

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.

And Odysseus himself, as he sat beside Penelope,

Did pity in his heart his wife in tears,

But kept his eyes firm-fixed within their lids

Like horn or iron.[*]

So full of self-control was his body in every limb, and Reason, with all parts in perfect obedience and submission, ordered his eyes not to weep, his tongue not to utter a sound, his heart not to tremble or bark[*]:

His heart remained enduring in obedience,[*]

since his reason extended even to his irrational or involuntary movements and made amenable and subservient to itself[*] both his breath and his blood. Of such character were also most of his companions; for even when they were dragged about and dashed upon the ground by the Cyclops,[*] they would not denounce Odysseus nor show that fire-sharpened instrument prepared against the monster’s eye, but preferred to be eaten raw rather than to tell a single word of the secret-an example of self-control and loyalty which cannot be surpassed. Therefore Pittacus[*] did not do badly, when the king of Egypt sent him a sacrificial animal and bade him cut out the fairest and foulest meat, when he cut out and sent him the tongue, as being the instrument of both the greatest good and the greatest evil.

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.

For those who have received a noble and truly royal education learn first to be silent, and then to speak. For example, that famous king Antigonus,[*] when his son asked him at what hour they were to break camp, said, What are you afraid of? That you alone may not hear the trumpet? This was not, surely, because he would not entrust a secret to the man to whom he intended to leave his kingdom? No, he was teaching his son to be self-controlled and guarded about such matters. And the old Metellus,[*] when on a campaign he was asked some such question, said, If I thought my shirt was privy to that secret, I would have stripped it off and put it in the fire. And Eumenes,[*] when he heard that Cr at erus was advancing, told none of his friends, but pretended that it was Neoptolemi. For his soldiers despised Neoptolemus, but both respected the reputation of Craterus and admired his valour. No one else knew the truth, and they joined battle, won the victory, killed Craterus without knowing it, and only recognized him when he was dead. So successfully did silence manoeuvre the contest and keep hidden so formidable an opponent that his friends admired Eumenes for not forewarning them rather than blamed him. And even if some do blame you, it is better that men should criticize you when they are already saved through mistrust than that they should accuse you when they are being destroyed because you did trust them.

Yet, speaking generally, who has left himself the right to speak out boldly against one who has not kept silent? If the story ought not to have been known, it was wrong for it to be told to another; and if you have let the secret slip from yourself and yet seek to confine it to another, you have taken refuge in another’s good faith when you have already abandoned your own. And if he turns out to be no better than yourself, you are deservedly ruined; if better, you are saved beyond all expectation, since you have found another more faithful on your own behalf than you yourself are. But this man is my friend. Yet he has another friend, whom he will likewise trust as I trust him; and his friend, again, will trust another friend. Thus, then, the story goes on increasing and multiplying by link after link of incontinent betrayal. For just as the monad[*] does not pass out of its own boundaries, but remains once and for all one (for which reason it is called a monad), and as the dyad is the indeterminate beginning of difference (for by doubling it at once shifts from unity to plurality), so a story confined to its first possessor is truly secret; but if it passes to another, it has acquired the status of rumour. The Poet,[*] in fact, says that words are winged: neither when you let go from your hands a winged thing is it easy to get

it back again,[*] nor when a word is let slip from the mouth is it possible to arrest and control it, but it is borne away

Circling on swift wings,[*]

and is scattered abroad from one to another. So when a ship has been caught by a wind, they try to check it, deadening its speed with cables and anchors, but if a story runs out of harbour, so to speak, there is no roadstead or anchorage for it, but, carried away with a great noise and reverberation, it dashes upon the man who uttered it and submerges him in some great and terrible danger.

With but a little torch one might set fire

To Ida’s rock; and tell one man a tale,

Soon all the town will know.[*]

The Roman Senate[*] was once for many days debating in strict privacy a certain secret policy; and since the matter gave rise to much uncertainty and suspicion, a woman prudent in other respects, but yet a woman, kept pestering her husband and persistently begging to learn the secret. She vowed with imprecations upon herself that she would keep silent, and wept and moaned because she was not trusted. And the Roman, wishing to bring home her folly by proof, said, Wife, you have won; listen to a terrible and portentous matter. We have been informed by the priests that a lark has been seen flying about with a golden helmet and a spear; we

are therefore examining the portent whether it be good or bad, and are in constant consultation with the augurs. But do you hold your tongue. So saying he went off to the Forum. But his wife at once seized the first maid to come into the room and beat her own breast and tore her hair. Alas, she cried, for my husband and my country! What will become of us? wishing, and in fact instructing, the maid to ask, Why, what has happened? So when the maid asked the question, she told the tale and added that refrain common to every babbler, Keep this quiet and tell it to no one! The little maid had scarcely left her when she herself tells the tale to that fellow servant who, she saw,had least to do; and this servant, in turn, told it to her lover who was paying a visit. WTith such speed was the story rolled out[*] into the Forum that it preceded its inventor: he was met by an acquaintance who said, Have you just now come down to the Forum from home? This very moment, said he. Then you have heard nothing? Why, is there any news? A lark has been seen flying about with a gold helmet and a spear and the magistrates are going to convene the senate about the matter. And the husband laughed and said, All praise to your speed, my wife! The story has even reached the Forum before me! So he interviewed the magistrates and relieved them of their anxiety; but, by way of punishing his wife, as soon as he entered home, he said, Wife, you have ruined me! The secret has been discovered to have been made public from my house; consequently I am to be exiled from my native land because you lack self-control. When she denied it and said, What, didn’t you hear it in company with three hundred others? Three hundred, nonsense! said he. You made such a fuss that I had to invent the whole story to try you out. Thus this man made trial of his wife cautiously and in complete safety, pouring, as it were into a leaky vessel, not wine or oil, but water.[*]

But Fuivius,[*] the friend of Caesar Augustus, heard the emperor, now an old man, lamenting the desolation of his house: two of his grandsons[*] were dead, and Postumius,[*] the only one surviving, was in exile because of some false accusation, and thus he was forced to import his wife’s son[*] into the imperial succession; yet he pitied his grandson and was planning to recall him from abroad. Fulvius divulged what he had heard to his own wife, and she to Livia; and Livia bitterly rebuked Caesar: if he had formed this design long ago, why did he not send for his grandson, instead of making her an object of enmity and strife to the successor to the empire. Accordingly, when Fulvius came to him in the morning, as was his custom, and said, Hail, Caesar, Caesar replied, Farewell, Fulvius.[*] And Fulvius took his meaning and went away; going home at once, he sent for his wife, Caesar has found out, he said, that I have not kept his secret, and therefore

I intend to kill myself. It is right that you should, said his wife, since, after living with me for so long a time, you have not learned to guard against my incontinent tongue. But let me die first. And, taking the sword, she dispatched herself before her husband.