Plutarch, De Garrulitate, William Clark Helmbold (Translator), 1

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[1] It is a troublesome and difficult task that philosophy has in hand when it undertakes to cure garrulousness. For the remedy, words of reason, requires listeners; but the garrulous listen to nobody, for they are always talking. And this is the first symptom of their ailment: looseness of the tongue becomes impotence of the ears.¹ For it is a deliberate deafness, that of men who, I take it, blame Nature because they have only one tongue, but two ears.b If, then, Euripides² was right when he said with reference to the unintelligent hearer,

I could not fill a man who will not hold

My wise words flooding into unwise ears,

it would be more just to say to the garrulous man, or rather about the garrulous man,

I could not fill a man who will not take

My wise words flooding into unwise ears,

or rather submerging, a man who talks to those who will not listen, and will not listen when others talk. For even if he does listen for a moment, when his loquacity is, as it were, at ebb, the rising tide immediately makes up for it many times over.

They give the name of Seven-voiced³ to the portico at Olympia which reverberates many times from a single utterance; and if but the least word sets garrulousness in motion, straightway it echoes round about on all sides,

Touching the heart-strings never touched before.⁴

Indeed one might think that babbler’s ears have no passage bored through⁵ to the soul, but only to the tongue.⁶ Consequently, while others retain what is said, in talkative persons it goes right through in a flux; then they go about like empty vessels,⁷ void of sense, but full of noise.

De Garrulitate. Plutarch. William Clark Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1939.

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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Concerning Talkativeness (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. VI. Helmbold, William Clark, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1939 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ ἀδολεσχίας Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol IΙI. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1891.) — 1 focus

[1] 502b δύσκολον μὲν ἀναλαμβάνει θεράπευμα καὶ χαλεπὸν ἡ φιλοσοφία τὴν ἀδολεσχίαν. τὸ γὰρ φάρμακον αὐτῆς, ὁ λόγος, ἀκουόντων ἐστίν· οἱ δʼ ἀδόλεσχοι 502c οὐδενὸς ἁκούουσιν, ἀεὶ γὰρ λαλοῦσι. καὶ τοῦτʼ 5 ἔχει πρῶτον κακὸν ἡ ἀσιγησία, τὴν ἀνηκοΐαν. κωφότης γὰρ αὐθαίρετός ἐστιν, ἀνθρώπων οἶμαι μεμφομένων τὴν φύσιν, ὅτι μίαν μὲν γλῶτταν δύο δʼ ὦτʼ ἔχουσιν. εἴπερ οὖν ὁ Εὐριπίδης¹ καλῶς εἶπε πρὸς τὸν ἀσύνετον ἀκροατὴν 10

οὐκ ἂν δυναίμην μὴ στέγοντα πιμπλάναι,

σοφοὺς ἐπαντλῶν ἀνδρὶ μὴ σοφῷ λόγους

δικαιότερον ἄν τις εἴποι πρὸς τὸν ἀδόλεσχον²

οὐκ ἂν δυναίμην μὴ δεχόμενον πιμπλάναι,

σοφοὺς ἐπαντλῶν ἀνδρὶ μὴ σοφῷ λόγους·

15 μᾶλλον δὲ περιαντλῶν λόγους ἀνθρώπῳ λαλοῦντι 502d μὲν πρὸς τοὺς οὐκ ἀκούοντας, μὴ ἀκούοντι δὲ τῶν λαλούντων. καὶ γὰρ ἂν ἀκούσῃ τι βραχύ, τῆς ἀδολεσχίας ὥσπερ ἄμπωτιν λαβούσης, τοῦτο παραχρῆμα πολλαπλάσιον ἀνταποδίδωσι. τὴν μὲν γὰρ ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ 20 στοὰν ἀπὸ μιᾶς φωνῆς πολλὰς ἀντανακλάσεις ποιοῦσαν ἑπτάφωνον καλοῦσι· τῆς δʼ ἀδολεσχίας ἂν ἐλάχιστος ἅψηται λόγος, εὐθὺς ἀντιπεριηχεῖ

κινοῦσα χορδὰς τὰς ἀκινήτους φρενῶν.

³ μήποτε γὰρ αὐτοῖς οὐκ εἰς τὴν ψυχὴν ἀλλʼ εἰς τὴν 5 γλῶτταν ἡ ἀκοὴ συντέτρηται. διὸ τοῖς μὲν ἄλλοις 502e ἐμμένουσιν οἱ λόγοι, τῶν δʼ ἀδολέσχων διαρρέουσιν εἶθʼ ὥσπερ ἀγγεῖα κενοὶ φρενῶν ἤχου δὲ μεστοὶ περιίασιν.

Translations (1)

Of Garrulity, or Talkativeness Perseus (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.) — 1 focus

[1] 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.

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.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning Talkativeness

1. It suits Plutarch’s humour in this passage, in which he speaks of garrulity as a disease, to invent one, and possibly two, pseudo-medical terms, ἀσιγησία, inability to keep silent, and ἀνηκοΐα, inability to listen. The figure is maintained in διαρρέουσι at the end of section d. Rouse suggests: And here is the first bad symptom in diarrhoea of the tongue - constipation of the ears.

2. Cf. Moralia, 39 b; von Arnim, Stoic. Vet. Frag., i. p. 68, Zeno, Frag. 310.

3. A portico on the east side of the Altis; Cf. Pausanias, v. 21. 17, Pliny, Natural History, xxxvi. 15. 100.

4. Cf. 456 c, 501 a, supra.

5. Cf. Aristophanes, Thesm., 18: δίκην δὲ χοάνης ὦτα διετετρήνατο.

6. Cf. Philoxenus in Gnomologium Vaticanum, 547 ( Wiener Stud., xi. 234).

7. Cf. the proverb: Empty vessels make the loudest noise.

Plutarch De Garrulitate 1

William Clark Helmbold (Translator)

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