De Garrulitate

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. IV. Goodwin, William W., editor; Philips, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.

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.

Moreover, as Socrates was wont to say, that those meats were chiefly to be abstained from which allured men to eat when they were not a-hungry, and those drinks to be refrained that invited men to drink when they were not a-dry; so it would behoove a man that is lavish of his

tongue, to be afraid of those discourses and themes wherein he most delights and makes it his business to be most prolix, and whenever he perceives them flowing in upon him, to resist them to the utmost of his power. For example, your martial men are always talking of sieges and battles, and the great poet often introduces Nestor boasting of his own achievements and feats of arms. The same disease is incident to noted pleaders at the bar, and accompanies such as have unexpectedly risen to be the favorites of great princes. For such will be always up with their stories,—how they were introduced at first, how they ascended by degrees, how they got the better in such a case, what arguments they used in such a case, and lastly how they were hummed up and applauded in court. For to say truth, gladness and joy are much more loquacious than the sleeplessness so often feigned in their comedies, rousing up and still refreshing itself with new relations; and therefore they are prone to fall into such stories upon the least occasion given. For not only
  • Where the body most is pained,
  • There the patient lays his hand;
    • but pleasure also has a voice within itself, and leads the tongue about to be a support to the memory. So lovers spend the greatest part of their time in songs and sonnets, to refresh their memories with the representations of their mistresses; concerning which amours of theirs, when companions are wanting, they frequently discourse with things that are void of life. Thus,
  • O dearest bed, whereon we wont to rest;
    • and again,
  • O blessed lamp divine,—for surely thee
  • Bacchis believes some mighty Deity,—
  • Surely the greatest of the Gods thou art,
  • If she so wills who does possess my heart.
    • And indeed it may well be said, that a loose-tongued fellow is no more, in respect of his discourse, than a white
    line struck with chalk upon white marble. For in regard there are several subjects of discourse, and many men are more subject to some than to others, it behooves every one to be on his guard especially against these, and to suppress them in such a manner that the delight which they take therein may not decoy them into their beloved prolixity and profuseness of words. The same inclination to overshoot themselves in prattling appears in such as are prone to that kind of discourses wherein they suppose themselves to excel others, either in habit or experience. For such a one, being as well a lover of himself as ambitious of glory,
  • The chiefest part of all the day doth spend,
  • Himself to pass and others to transcend.
    • [*](From the Antiope of Euripides, Frag. 183.)
    For example, he that reads much endeavors to excel in history; the grammarian, in the artificial couching of words; the traveller is full of his geography. But all these surplusages are to be avoided with great caution, lest men, intoxicated therewith, grow fond of their old infirmities, and return to their former freaks, like beasts that cannot be driven from their haunts. Cyrus therefore, yet a young stripling, was most worthy of admiration, who would never challenge his equals and playfellows to any exercise wherein he excelled, but to such only wherein he knew himself to be inferior; unwilling that they should fret for the loss of the prize which he was sure to win, and loath to lose what he could himself gain from the others’ better skill.

    On the other side, the profuse talker is of such a disposition that, if any discourse happen from which he might be able to learn something and inform his ignorance, that he refuses and rejects, nor can you hire him even to hold his tongue; but after his rolling and restless fancy has mustered up some few obsolete and all-to-be-tattered rhapsodies

    to supply his vanity, out he flings them, as if he were master of all the knowledge in the world. Just like one amongst us who, having read two or three of Ephorus’s books, tired all men’s ears, and spoiled and brake up all the feasts and societies wherever he came, with his continual relations of the battle of Leuctra and the consequences of it; by which means he got himself a nickname, and every one called him Epaminondas.

    But this is one of the least inconveniences of this infirmity; and indeed we ought to make it one step towards the cure, to turn this violent vein of twattling upon such subjects as those. For such a loquacity is less a nuisance when it superabounds in what belongs to humane literature. It would be well also that the sort of people who are addicted to this vice should accustom themselves to write upon some subject or other, and to dispute of certain questions apart. For Antipater the Stoic, as we may probably conjecture, either not being able or else unwilling to come into dispute with Carneades, vehemently inveighing against the Stoics, declined to meet him fairly in the schools, yet would be always writing answers against him; and because he filled whole volumes full of contradictory arguments, and still opposed him with assertions that only made a noise, he was called Calamoboas, as one that made a great clamor with his pen to no purpose. So it is very probable that such fighting with their own shadows, and exclaiming one against another apart by themselves, driving and restraining them from the multitude, would render them gradually more tolerable and sociable in civil company; as curs, after they have once discharged their fury upon sticks and stones, become less fierce towards men. It would be always of great importance to them to converse with their superiors and elders; for that the awful reverence and respect which they bear to their dignity and gravity may accustom them in time to silence.

    And it would be evermore expedient to intermix and involve with these exercises this manner of ratiocination with ourselves, before we speak, and at the very moment that the words are ready to break out of our mouths: What is this which I would say, that presses so hard to be gone? For what reason would this tongue of mine so fain be talking? What good shall I get by speaking, What mischief shall I incur by holding my peace? For we are not to case and discharge ourselves of our words, as if they were a heavy burthen that overloaded us; for speech remains as well when uttered as before; but men either speak in behalf of themselves when some necessity compels them, or for the benefit of those that hear them, or else to recreate one another with the delights of converse, on purpose to mitigate and render more savory, as with salt, the toils of our daily employments. But if there be nothing profitable in speaking, nothing necessary to them that hear what is said, nothing of satisfaction or delight, what need is there it should be spoken? For words may be in vain and to no purpose, as well as deeds. But after and above all that has been said, we ought always to bear in remembrance, and always to have at our tongue’s end, that saying of Simonides, that he had often repented him of talking, but never of keeping silent. Then as for exercise, we must believe it to be a matter of great importance, as being that which overcomes and masters all things; considering what watchful care and even toil and labor men will undergo to get rid of an old cough or hiccough. But silence and taciturnity not only never cause a dry throat, as Hippocrates observes, but are altogether free from pain and sorrow.