De Garrulitate

IT is a troublesome and difficult task that philosophy undertakes in going about to cure the disease, or rather itch, of intemperate rating. For that words, which are the sole remedy against it, require attention; but they who are given to prate will hear nobody, as being a sort of people that love to be always talking themselves. So that the principal vice of loquacious persons is this, that their ears are stopped to every thing else but their own impertinencies; which I take to be a wilful deafness in men, controlling and contradicting Nature, that has given us two ears, though but one tongue. Therefore it was that Euripides spoke very right to a certain stupid hearer of his:

Impossible it is to fill that brain,

That in a moment lets out all again;

’Tis but the words of wisdom to unfold

Unto a fool, whose skull will nothing hold.

[*](Euripides, Frag. 891.)

More justly and truly might I say to an idle prate-too-fast, or rather concerning such a fellow:

In vain I seek to fill thy sieve-like brain,

That in a moment lets out all again;

Infusing wisdom into such a skull

As leaks so fast, it never will be full.

Much more may he be said to spill his instructions over (rather than pour them into) a man, who is always talking to those that do not hear, and never hears when others talk. For so soon as a wise man has uttered any thing, be it never so short, garrulity swallows it forthwith like the sea, and throws it up again threefold, with the violence of a swelling tide. Such was the portico at Olympia, called Heptaphonos, by the reverberation of one single voice causing no less than seven distinct echoes. And in like manner, if the least word light into the ears of an impertinent babbler, presently all the room rings with it, and he makes such a din,

That soon the jangling noise untunes the strings

Of minds sedately fixt on better things.

Insomuch that we may say, that the conduits and conveyances of their hearing reach not to the souls, but only to their tongues. Therefore it is that other people retain what is spoken to them; whereas, whatever is said to talkative people runs through them as through a cullender; and then they run about from place to place, like empty vessels void of sense or wit, but making a hideous noise.

However, in hopes that there is yet some room left to try an experiment for the cure of this distemper, let us begin with this golden sentence to the impertinent prater

Be silent, boy, and thou wilt find i’ th’ end,

What benefits on silent lips attend.

[*](From the Aleadae of Sophocles, Frag. 79.)

Among these benefits two of the first and chiefest are to hear and to be heard. To neither of which can these talkative companions ever attain; so unhappy they are still to meet with disappointments, though they desire a thing never so much. For as for those other distempers of the soul, such as avarice, ambition, and exorbitant love of pleasure, they have this happiness, to enjoy what they so eagerly covet. But this is that which most afflicts these idle rattlers, that being desirous of nothing more than of company that will hear them prate, they can never meet with it, in regard that all men avoid their society; and whether sitting in a knot together or walking, so soon as they behold a prattler advancing towards them, they presently give warning to each other and adjourn to another place. And as, when there happens a deep silence in any assembly, so that all the company seems to be mute, we say that Mercury is got among them; so when a fool, full of noise and talk, enters into any room where friends and acquaintance are met to discourse or else to feast and be merry, all people are hushed of a sudden, as afraid of giving him any occasion to set his tongue upon the career. But if he once begin to open his mouth, up they rise and away they trip, like seamen foreseeing a sudden storm and rolling of the waves, when they hear the north wind begin to whistle from some adjoining promontory, and hastening into harbor. Whence it comes to pass, that he never can meet with any that are willing either to eat or drink or lodge with him in the same room, either upon the road or upon a voyage, unless constrained thereto by necessity. For so importunate he is in all places, that sometimes he will pull you by the coat, sometimes by the beard, and sometimes be hunching your sides, to make you speak. How highly then are to be prized a swift pair of legs, according to the saying of Archilochus! Nay, by Jove, it was the opinion of wise Aristotle himself. For he being perplexed with an egregious prater, and tired out with his absurd stories and idle repetitions of, And is not this a wonderful thing, Aristotle?—No wonder at all, said he, is this; but if a man should stand still to hear you prate thus, who had legs to run away, that were a wonder indeed. To another of the same stamp that, after a long tale of a roasted horse, excused himself by saying that he was afraid he had tired him with his prolixity; No, upon my word, quoth the philosopher, for I never minded what you said. On the other side, should it so fall out that there was no avoiding the vexation of one of these chattering fops, Nature has afforded us this happiness, that it is in the power of the soul to lend the outward ears of the body, to endure the brunt of the noise, while she retires to the remoter apartments of the mind, and there employs herself in better and more useful thoughts. By which means those sonorous babblers are at the same time disappointed, as well of auditors, as of people that believe what they say. All men look upon their vain babbling with the same opinion that they have of the seed of people insatiably addicted to the use of women; for as the one is barren and useless for generation, so is the other void of the end of discourse, altogether frivolous and impertinent.