On Being a Busybody (10-14)

For this reason the most useful means possible for turning the busybody from his vice is for him to

remember what he has previously learned.[*] For, as Simonides[*] used to say that when he opened his boxes after some time, he always found the fee-box full, but the thanks-box empty, so if one opens from time to time the deposit-box of inquisitiveness and examines it, full as it is of many useless, futile, and unlovely things, perhaps this procedure would give sufficient offence, so completely disagreeable and silly would it appear. Suppose a man should run over the works of the ancients and pick out the worst passages in them and keep a book compiled from such things as headless lines in Homer[*] and solecisms in the tragedians and the unbecoming and licentious language applied to women by which Archilochus[*] makes a sorry spectacle of himself, would he not deserve that curse in the tragedy,

Be damned, compiler of men’s miseries?[*]

And even without this curse, such a man’s treasurehouse of other people’s faults is unbecoming and useless. It is like the city populated by the vilest and most intractable of men which Philip founded and called Roguesborough.[*]

Busybodies, however, by gleaning and gathering the blunders and errors and solecisms, not of lines or poems, but of lives, carry about with them a most

inelegant and unlovely record-box of evils, their own memory. Therefore just as at Rome there are some who take no account of paintings or statues or even, by Heaven, of the beauty of the boys and women for sale, but haunt the monster-market, examining those who have no calves, or are weasel-armed,[*] or have three eyes, or ostrich-heads, and searching to learn whether there has been born some

Commingled shape and misformed prodigy,[*]

yet if one continually conduct them to such sights, they will soon experience satiety and nausea; so let those who are curious about life’s failures, the blots on the scutcheon, the delinquencies and errors in other people’s homes, remind themselves that their former discoveries have brought them no favour or profit.

The greatest factor, however, in ridding ourselves of this affliction is the habit of beginning early to train and teach ourselves to acquire this self-control. It is, in fact, by habituation that the disease has come to increase, advancing, as it does, little by little. How this habit is acquired, we shall learn when we discuss the proper training. So first let us begin with the most trifling and unimportant matters. What difficulty is there about refraining from reading the inscriptions on tombs as we journey along the roads? Or what is there arduous in just glancing at the writing on walls when we take our walks? We have only to remind ourselves that

nothing useful or pleasant has been written there: merely so-and-so commemorates so-and-so wishing him well, and someone else is the best of friends, and much twaddle of this sort.[*] It may seem that no harm will come from reading these, but harm you it does by imperceptibly instilling the practice of searching out matters which do not concern you. And as hunters do not allow young hounds to turn aside and follow every scent, but pull them up and check them with the leash, keeping their sense of smell pure and untainted for their proper task in order that it may keep more keenly to the trail,

With nostrils tracking down the paths of beasts[*];

so one should be careful to do away with or divert to useful ends the sallies and wanderings of the busybody, directed as they are to everything that one may see and hear. For as eagles and lions[*] draw in their claws when they walk so that they may not wear off the sharpness of the tips, so, if we consider that curiosity for learning has also a sharp and keen edge, let us not waste or blunt it upon matters of no value.

In the second place, then, let us accustom ourselves not to look inside when we pass another’s door, nor with our curious gaze to clutch, as it were by main force, at what is happening within, but let us ever keep ready for use the saying of Xenocrates,

that it makes no difference whether it is the feet or the eyes that we set within another’s house; for what the eyes behold is neither just nor honourable, and not even pleasant.

Unsightly, stranger, are the things within,[*]

since the greater part of what we see inside is of this sort-kitchen utensils lying about and servant-girls sitting in idleness, and nothing important or pleasurable. And this practice of throwing sidelong and furtive glances, distorting the soul as it does, is shameful, and the habit it implants is depraved. For instance, when Diogenes[*] saw the Olympic victor Dioxippus making his triumphal entry in his chariot and unable to tear his eyes away from a beautiful woman who was among the spectators of the procession, but continually turning around and throwing side-glances in her direction, Do you see, said the Cynic, how a slip of a girl gets a strangle-hold on our athlete? And you may observe how every kind of spectacle alike gets a strangle-hold on busybodies and twists their necks round when they once acquire a habit and practice of scattering their glances in all directions. But, as I think, the faculty of vision should not be spinning about outside of us,[*] like an ill-trained servant girl, but when it is sent on an errand by the soul it should quickly reach its destination and deliver its message, then return again in good order within the governance of the reason and heed its command. But as it is, the words of Sophocles[*] come true:

Then the Aenianian’s hard-mouthed yearlings break

From his control and bolt;

that is, the senses which have not received what we called above right instruction and training run away, dragging the intellect with them, and often plunge it into deep disaster. Consequently, though that story about Democritus[*] is false, that he deliberately destroyed his sight by fixing his eyes on a red-hot mirror and allowing its heat to be reflected on his sight, in order that his eyes might not repeatedly summon his intellect outside and disturb it, but might allow his mind to remain inside at home and occupy itself with pure thinking, blocking up as it were windows which open on the street; yet nothing is more true than this, that those who make most use of the intellect make fewest calls upon the senses.[*] We observe, for instance, that men have built their sanctuaries of the Muses[*] far from cities and that they have called night kindly[*] from a belief that its quiet and absence of distraction is greatly conducive to the investigation and solution of the problems in hand.

Yet truly, neither is this[*] a difficult nor arduous task: when men are reviling and abusing each other in the market-place, not to approach them, or when a crowd is running to see something or other, to remain seated, or, if you are without self-control, to get up and go away. For you will reap no advantage from mixing yourself with busy bodies, whereas you will

obtain great benefit from forcibly turning aside your curiosity and curtailing it and training it to obey reason.

And after this it is well to make our training more intensive and pass by a theatre where a successful performance is in progress; and, when our friends urge us to see a certain dancer or comedian, to thrust them aside; and, when shouts are heard on the racecourse or in the circus, not to turn round. For as Socrates[*] used to advise the avoidance of such foods as tempt us to eat when we are not hungry and such drinks as tempt us to imbibe when we are not thirsty, so we also should avoid and guard against such sights and sounds as master and attract us without fulfilling any need of ours. Thus Cyrus[*] was unwilling to see Pantheia; and when Araspes declared that the woman’s beauty was worth seeing, Cyrus said, Then this is all the more reason for keeping away from her. For if, persuaded by you, I should go to her, perhaps she herself might tempt me, when I couldn’t spare the time, to go to see her again and sit by her, to the neglect of many important matters. So too Alexander[*] would not go to see Darius’s wife who was said to be very beautiful, but although he visited her mother, an elderly woman, he could not bring himself to see the young and beautiful daughter. Yet we peep into women’s litters and hang about their windows, and think we are doing nothing wrong in thus making our curiosity prone to slip and slide into all kinds of vice.

Since, therefore, for the attainment of justice you may sometimes forgo an honest gain that you may accustom yourself to keep clear of dishonest profit, so likewise, for the attainment of continence, you may sometimes keep aloof from your own wife in order that you may never be stirred by another’s. Then apply this habit to inquisitiveness and endeavour sometimes not to hear or see some of the things that concern you, and when someone wishes to tell you something that has happened in your house, put him off and refuse to hear words that are supposed to have been spoken about you. It was, in fact, curiosity which involved Oedipus in the greatest calamities. Believing that he was no Corinthian, but a foreigner, and seeking to discover his identity, he encountered Laïus; and when he had killed Laïus and had taken, in addition to the throne, his own mother to wife, though seeming to all to be blessed by fortune, he began again to try to discover his identity. And although his wife attempted to prevent him, all the more vigorously did he cross-examine the old man who knew the truth, bringing every form of compulsion to bear. And at last, when circumstances were already bringing him to suspect the truth and the old man[*] cried out,

Alas! I stand on the dread brink of speech,[*]

Oedipus was none the less so inflamed and maddened by his affliction[*] that he replied,

And I of hearing, and yet hear I must[*];

so bitter-sweet, so uncontrollable is the itching of curiosity, like the itching of a sore which gets bloody whenever we scratch it. But the man who has got rid of this disease and is gentle by nature will say, if he is ignorant of something unpleasant,

Forgetfulness of evil, sovereign queen,

How wise you are![*]