Of Garrulity, or Talkativeness (21)

Now therefore we come to understand that there are three sorts of answers to questions, the necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For example, if a man should ask whether Socrates is within, the other, if he were in an ill-humor or not disposed to make many words, would answer, Not within; or if he intended to be more Laconic, he would cut off within, and reply briefly, No. Thus the Lacedaemonians, when Philip sent them an epistle, to know whether or not they would admit him into their city, vouchsafed him no other answer than only No, fairly written in large letters upon a sheet of paper. Another that would answer more courteously would say: He is not within; he is gone among the bankers; and perhaps he

would add, Where he expects some friends. But a superfluous prater, if he chance to have read Antimachus of Colophon, would reply: He is not within; but is gone among the bankers, in expectation to meet certain Ionian friends, who are recommended to him in a letter from Alcibiades, who lives at Miletus with Tissaphernes, one of the great king of Persia’s lieutenant-generals, who formerly assisted the Lacedaemonians, but is now, by the solicitation of Alcibiades, in league with the Athenians; for Alcibiades, being desirous to return to his own country, has prevailed with Tissaphernes to change his mind and join with the Athenians. And thus perhaps you shall have him run on and repeat the whole eighth book of Thucydides, and overwhelm a man with his impertinent discourse, till he has taken Miletus, and banished Alcibiades a second time. Herein therefore ought a man chiefly to restrain the profuseness of his language, by following the footsteps of the question, and circumscribing the answer, as it were, within a circle proportionable to the benefit which the propounder proposes to make of his question. It is reported of Carneades, that before he was well known in the world, while he was disputing in the Gymnasium, the president of the place sent him an admonition to moderate his voice (for he naturally spoke very deep and loud); in answer to which he desired the president to send him a gauge for his voice, when the president not improperly made answer: Let that be the person who disputes with thee. In like manner, the intent of the propounder ought to be the rule and measure of the answer.