Of Garrulity, or Talkativeness (19-20)

For there is no curb or bridle that can tame or restrain a libertine tongue; only custom must vanquish that disease. First therefore, when there are many questions propounded in the company where thou art, accustom thyself

to silence till all the rest have refused to give an answer. For, as Sophocles observes,

Although in racing swiftness is required,

In counselling there’s no such haste desired;

no more do speech and answer aim at the same mark with running. For it is the business of a racer to get the start of him that contends with him; but if another man gives a sufficient answer, there needs no more than to commend and approve what he says, and so gain the reputation of a candid person. If not, then to tell wherein the other failed and to supply the defect will neither be unseasonable nor a thing that can justly merit distaste. But above all things, let us take special heed, when another is asked a question, that we do not chop in to prevent his returning an answer. And perhaps it is as little commendable, when a question is asked of another, to put him by, and under take the solution of what is demanded ourselves. For thereby we seem to intimate that the person to whom the question was put was not able to resolve it, and that the propounder had not discretion sufficient to know of whom to ask it. Besides, such a malapert forwardness in answering is not only indecent, but injurious and affrontive. For he that prevents the person to whom the question is put in returning his answer, would in effect insinuate a What need had you to ask of him?—What can he say to it?—When I am in presence, no man ought to be asked those questions but myself. And yet many times we put questions to some people, not for want of an answer, but only to minister occasion of discourse to provoke them to familiarity, and to have the pleasure of their wit and conversation, as Socrates was wont to challenge Theaetetus and Charmides. Therefore to prevent another in returning his answers, to abstract his ears, and draw off his cogitations from another to himself, is the same thing as to run and salute a man who designs to be saluted by somebody else, or to divert his eyes upon ourselves which were already fixed upon another; considering that if he to whom the question is put refuse to return an answer, it is but decent for a man to contain himself, and by an answer accommodate to the will of the propounder, modestly and respectfully to put in, as if it had been at the request or in the behalf of the other. For they that are asked a question, if they fail in their answer, are justly to be pardoned; but he that voluntarily presumes to answer for another gives distaste, let his answer be never so rational; but if he mistake, he is derided by all the company.

The second point of exercise, in reference to our own answering of questions, wherein a man that is given to talk ought to be extremely careful, is first of all not to be over-hasty in his answers to such as provoke him to talk on purpose to make themselves merry and to put an affront upon him. For some there are who, not out of any desire to be satisfied, but merely to pass away the time, study certain questions, and then propound them to persons which they know love to multiply words, on purpose to make themselves sport. Such men therefore ought to take heed how they run headlong and leap into discourse, as if they were glad of the occasion, and to consider the behavior of the propounder and the benefit and usefulness of the question. When we find that the propounder is really desirous to be informed, it is convenient then for a man to bethink himself awhile, and make some pause between the question and the answer; to the end that the proposer, if he pleases to make any additions to his proposal, may have time to do it, and himself a convenient space to consider what answer to make, for fear of running at random and stifling the question before it be fully propounded, or of giving one answer for another for want of considering what he ought to say,—which is the effect of an over-hasty zeal to be talking. True it is,

indeed, that the Pythian priestess was wont to give her oracular answers at the very instant, and sometimes before the question was propounded. For that the Deity whom she serves

Both understands the mute that cannot speak,

And hears the silent e’er his mind he break.

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But it behooves a man that would return a pertinent answer, to stay till he rightly apprehend the sense and understand the intent of him that propounds the question, lest he may happen to make good the proverb,

A rake we called for; they refused a bowl.

Besides, we must subdue this inordinate and insatiate greediness of having all the talk, that it may not seem as if we had some old flux of humors impostumated about the tongue, which we were willing to have lanced and let out by a question. Socrates therefore, though never so thirsty after violent exercise, never would allow himself the liberty to drink, till he had drawn one bucket of water and poured it out upon the ground; to the end he might accustom his sensual appetite to attend reason’s appointment.