De Garrulitate

Now then, among all other passions and maladies, some are dangerous, others hateful, and others ridiculous; but in foolish prating all these inconveniences concur. Praters are derided when they make relations of common matters; they are hated for bringing unwelcome tidings; they are in danger for divulging of secrets. Whereas Anarcharsis, being feasted by Solon, was esteemed a wise man, for that, as he lay asleep after the

banquet was over, he was seen with his left hand over his privy parts, and his right hand laid upon his mouth; deeming, as indeed he rightly believed, that his tongue required the stronger curb. For though it would be a hard task to reckon up how many men have perished through the venereal intemperance, yet I dare say it would be almost as difficult to tell how many cities and States have been demolished and totally subverted by the inconsiderate blurting out of a secret.

Sylla besieged Athens at a time when it was certain that he could not lie long before the city, by reason that other affairs and troubles called him another way. For on the one side, Mithridates ravaged Asia; on the other, Marius’s party had made themselves masters of Rome. But it happened, that certain old fellows being met together in a barber’s shop, among other discourse, blabbed it out, that the Heptachalcon was ill guarded, and that the city was in great danger of a surprise in that part. Which being overheard and reported to Sylla by certain of his spies, he presently brought all his forces on that side, and about midnight, after a sharp assault, entered the city with his whole army, and it was a thousand to one but that he had laid it in ashes. However, he filled it with the carcasses of the slain, and made the Ceramicus run with blood; being highly incensed against the Athenians, more for their reproachful language than their military opposition. For they had abused both him and his wife Metella, getting up upon the walls and calling him mulberry strewed with dust meal, with many other provoking scoffs of the same nature; and merely for a few words—which, as Plato observes, are the lightest things in the world—they drew upon their heads the severest punishment.

The tongue of one man prevented Rome from recovering her freedom by the destruction of Nero. For there was but one night to pass before Nero was to be murdered on

the morrow, all things being ready prepared and agreed on for that purpose. But in the mean time it happened that he who had undertaken to execute the act, as he was going to the theatre, seeing one of those poor creatures that were bound and pinioned, just ready to be led before Nero, and hearing the fellow bewail his hard fortune, gathered up close to him, and whispered the poor fellow in the ear: Pray only, honest friend, said he, that thou mayest but escape this day; to-morrow thou shalt give me thanks. Presently the fellow taking hold of this enigmatical speech, and calling to mind the vulgar saying, that he is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush, preferred the surer to the juster way of saving himself, and presently declared to Nero what that man had whispered in his ear. Immediately the whisperer was laid hold of, and hurried away to the place of torture, where by racking, searing, and scourging he was constrained, poor miserable creature, to confess that by force which before he had discovered without any compulsion at all.

Zeno, that he might not be compelled by the tortures of his body to betray, against his will, the secrets entrusted in his breast, bit off his tongue, and spit it in the tyrant’s face. Notorious also was the example of Leaena, and signal the reward which she had for being true to her trust and constant in her taciturnity. She was a courtesan with whom Harmodius and Aristogiton were very familiar; and for that reason they had imparted to her the great hopes which they had upon the success of the conspiracy against the tyrants, wherein they were so deeply engaged; while she on the other side, having drunk freely of the noble cup of love, had been initiated into their secrets through the God of Love; and she failed not of her vow. For the two paramours being taken and put to death after they had failed in their enterprise, she was also apprehended and put to the torture, to force out of her a discovery of

the rest of the accomplices; but all the torments and extremities they could exercise upon her body could not prevail to make her discover so much as one person; whereby she manifested to the world that the two gentlemen, her friends, had done nothing misbecoming their descent, in having bestowed their affections upon such a woman. For this reason the Athenians, as a monument of her virtue, set up a lioness (which the name Leaena signifies) in brass, without a tongue, just at the entrance into the Acropolis; by the stomachful courage of that beast signifying to posterity the invincible resolution of the woman; and by making it without a tongue, denoting her constancy in keeping the secret with which she was entrusted. For never any word spoken did so much good, as many locked up in silence. Thus at one time or other a man may utter what heretofore has been kept a secret; but when a secret is once blurted forth, it can never be recalled; for it flies abroad, and spreads in a moment far and near. And hence it is that we have men to teach us to speak, but the Gods are they that teach us silence; silence being the first thing commanded upon our first initiation into their divine ceremonies and sacred mysteries. And therefore it is that Homer makes Ulysses, whose eloquence was so charming, to be the most silent of men; and the same virtue he also attributes to his son, to his wife, and also to his nurse. For thus you hear her speaking:

Safe, as in hardened steel or sturdy oak,

Within my breast these secrets will I lock.

And Ulysses himself, sitting by Penelope before he discovered himself, is thus brought in:

His weeping wife with pity he beheld,

Although not willing yet to be revealed.

lie would not move his eyes, but kept them fast,

Like horn or steel within his eyebrows placed.

[*](Odyss. XIX. 494 and 204.)

So powerfully possessed with continence were both his tongue and lips; and having all the rest of his members so obedient and subject to his reason, he commanded his eye not to weep, his tongue not to speak a word, and his heart neither to pant nor tremble.

So was his suffering heart confined

To give obedience to his mind;

[*](Odyss. XX. 23.)

his reason penetrating even to those inward motions, and subduing to itself the blood and vital spirits. Such were many of the rest of his followers. For though they were dragged and haled by Polyphemus, and had their heads dashed against the ground, they would not confess a word concerning their lord and master Ulysses, nor discover the long piece of wood that was put in the fire and prepared to put out his eye; but rather suffered themselves to be devoured raw than to disclose any one of their master’s secrets; which was an example of fidelity and reservedness not to be paralleled. Pittacus therefore did very well, who, when the king of Egypt sent him an oblation-beast, and ordered him to take out and set apart the best and worst piece of it, pulled out the tongue and sent to him, as being the instrument of many good things as well as the instrument of the greatest evils in the world.