De Garrulitate

Truly therefore was it said by Philippides the comedian, who being courteously and familiarly asked by King Lysimachus, what he should bestow upon him of all the treasure that he had, made answer, Any thing, O King, but your secrets.

But there is another vice no less mischievous that attends garrulity, called Curiosity. For there are a sort of people that desire to hear a great deal of news, that they may have matter enough to tattle abroad; and these are the most diligent in the world to pry and dive into the secrets of others, that they may enlarge and aggravate their own loquacity with new stories and fooleries. And then they are like children, that neither can endure to hold the ice in their hands nor will let it go; or rather they may be said to lodge other men’s secrets in their bosoms, like so many serpents, which they are not able to keep there long, because they eat their way through. It is said that the fish called the sea-needle and vipers rive asunder and burst themselves when they bring forth; in like manner, secrets,

dropping from the mouths of those that cannot contain them, destroy and overthrow the revealers. Seleucus Callinicus, having lost his whole army in a battle fought with the Galatians, threw off his royal diadem, and flew away full speed on a horse with three or four attendants, wandering through by-roads and deserts, till at last he began to faint for want of food. At length coming to a certain countryman’s house, and finding the owner himself within, he asked him for a little bread and water; which the countryman not only readily fetched him, but what else his ground would afford he very liberally and plentifully set before the king and his companions, making them all as heartily welcome as it was possible for him to do. At length, in the midst of their cheer, he knew the king’s face. This overjoyed the man to such a degree,—that he should have the happiness to relieve the king in his necessity,—that he was not able to contain himself or dissemble his knowledge of the king; but after he had rode a little way with him and came to take his leave; Farewell, King Seleucus, said the poor man. But then the king, stretching forth his right hand and pulling his host to his breast, as if he had intended to kiss him, nodded to one of his followers to strike off the countryman’s head with his sword.

E’en while he speaks, his head rolls in the dust.[*](Il. X. 457.)

Whereas if he could but have held his peace and mastered his tongue for a little while, till the king, as afterwards he did, had recovered his good fortune and grandeur, he had been doubtless better rewarded for his silence than he was for his hospitality. And yet this poor man had some colorable excuse for letting his tongue at liberty; that is to say, his hopes, and the kindness he had done the king.

But most of your twattlers, without any cause or pretence at all, destroy themselves; as it happened when

certain fellows began to talk pretty freely in a barber’s shop concerning the tyranny of Dionysius, that it was as secure and inexpugnable as a rock of adamant: I wonder, quoth the barber, laughing, that you should talk these things before me concerning Dionysius, whose throat is almost every day under my razor. Which scurrilous freedom of the barber being related to the tyrant, he caused him forthwith to be crucified. And indeed the generality of barbers are a prating generation of men; in regard the most loquacious praters usually resort to their shops, and there sit prattling; from whence the barbers also learn an ill habit of twattling. Pleasant therefore was the answer of Archelaus to the barber who, after he had cast the linen toilet about his shoulders, put this question to him, How shall I trim your majesty; In silence, quoth the king. It was a barber that first reported the news of the great overthrow which the Athenians received in Sicily; for being the first that heard the relation of it in the Piraeus, from a servant of one of those who had escaped out of the battle, he presently left his shop at sixes and sevens, and flew into the city as fast as his heels could carry him,

For fear some other should the honor claim

Of being first, when he but second came.

[*](I. XXII. 207.)

Now you may be sure that the first spreader of this news caused a great hubbub in the city, insomuch that the people, thronging together in the market-place, made diligent enquiry for the first divulger. Presently the barber was brought by head and shoulders to the crowd, and examined; but he could give no account of his author, only one that he never saw or knew in his life before had told him the news. Which so incensed the multitude, that they immediately cried out, To the rack with the traitor, tie the lying rascal neck and heels together. This is a mere story of the rogue’s own making. Who heard it? Who gave any credit to it beside himself? At the same instant the wheel was brought out, and the poor barber stretched upon it,—not to his ease, you may be sure. And then it was, and not before, that the news of the defeat was confirmed by several that had made a hard shift to escape the slaughter. Upon which the people scattered every one to his own home, to make their private lamentation for their particular losses, leaving the unfortunate barber bound fast to the wheel; in which condition he continued till late in the evening, before he was let loose. Nor would this reform the impertinent fool; for no sooner was he at liberty but he would needs be enquiring of the executioner, what news, and what was reported of the manner of Nicias the general’s being slain. So inexpugnable and incorrigible a vice is loquacity, gotten by custom and ill habit, that they cannot leave it off, though they were sure to be hanged.

And yet we find that people have the same antipathy against divulgers of bad tidings, as they that drink bitter and distasteful potions have against the cups wherein they drank them. Elegant therefore is the dispute in Sophocles between the messenger and Creon:

MESSENGER. By what I tell and what you hear,

Do I offend your heart or ear?

CREON. Why so inquisitive to sound

My grief, and search the painful wound?

MESSENGER. My news afflicts thy ears, I find,

But ’tis the fact torments thy mind.

[*](Soph. Antigone, 317.)

Thus they that bring us bad tidings are as bad as they who are the authors of our misery; and yet there is no restraining or correcting the tongue that will run at random.

It happened that the temple of Minerva in Lacedaemon called Chalcioecus was robbed, and nothing but an earthen pitcher left behind; which caused a great concourse of people, where every one spent his verdict about the empty

pitcher. Gentlemen, says one, pray give me leave to tell ye my opinion concerning this pitcher. I am apt to believe, that these sacrilegious villains, before they ventured upon so dangerous an attempt, drank each of them a draught of hemlock juice, and then brought wine along with them in this pitcher; to the end that, if it were their good hap to escape without being apprehended, they might soon dissolve and extinguish the strength and vigor of the venom by the force of the wine unmixed and pure; but if they should be surprised and taken in the fact, that then they might die without feeling any pain under the torture of the rack. Having thus said, the people, observing so much forecast and contrivance in the thing, would not be persuaded that any man could have such ready thoughts upon a bare conjecture, but that he must know it to be so. Thereupon, immediately gathering about him, one asked who he was; another, who knew him; a third, how he came to be so much a philosopher. And at length, they did so sift and canvass and fetch him about, that the fellow confessed himself to be one of those that committed the sacrilege.

And were not they who murdered the poet Ibycus discovered after the same manner, as they sat in the theatre? For as they were sitting there under the open sky to behold the public pastimes, they observed a flock of cranes flying over their heads; upon which they whispered merrily one to another, Look, yonder are the revengers of Ibycus’s death. Which words being overheard by some that sat next them,—in regard that Ibycus had been long missing but could not be found, though diligent search had been made after him,—they presently gave information of what they had heard to the magistrates. By whom being examined and convicted, they suffered condign punishment, though not betrayed by the cranes, but by the incontinency of their own tongues, and by an avenging

Erinnys hovering over their heads and constraining them to confess the murder. For as in the body, wounded and diseased members draw to themselves the vicious humors of the neighboring parts; in like manner, the unruly tongues of babblers, infested (as it were) with inflammations where a sort of feverish pulses continually lie beating, will be always drawing to themselves something of the secret and private concerns of other men. And therefore the tongue ought to be environed with reason, as with a rampart perpetually lying before it, like a mound, to stop the overflowing and slippery exuberance of impertinent talk; that we may not seem to be more silly than geese, which, when they take their flight out of Cilicia over the mountain Taurus, which abounds with eagles, are reported to carry every one a good big stone in their bills, instead of a bridle or barricade, to restrain their gaggling. By which means they cross those hideous forests in the night-time undiscovered.