Plutarch, De Garrulitate, William Clark Helmbold (Translator), 10

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[10] Yet, speaking generally, who has left himself the right to speak out boldly against one who has not kept silent? If the story ought not to have been known, it was wrong for it to be told to another; and if you have let the secret slip from yourself and yet seek to confine it to another, you have taken refuge in another’s good faith when you have already abandoned your own. And if he turns out to be no better than yourself, you are deservedly ruined; if better, you are saved beyond all expectation, since you have found another more faithful on your own behalf than you yourself are. But this man is my friend. Yet he has another friend, whom he will likewise trust as I trust him; and his friend, again, will trust another friend. Thus, then, the story goes on increasing and multiplying by link after link of incontinent betrayal. For just as the monad¹ does not pass out of its own boundaries, but remains once and for all one (for which reason it is called a monad), and as the dyad is the indeterminate beginning of difference (for by doubling it at once shifts from unity to plurality), so a story confined to its first possessor is truly secret; but if it passes to another, it has acquired the status of rumour. The Poet,² in fact, says that words are winged: neither when you let go from your hands a winged thing is it easy to get it back again,³ nor when a word is let slip from the mouth is it possible to arrest and control it, but it is borne away

Circling on swift wings,⁴

and is scattered abroad from one to another. So when a ship has been caught by a wind, they try to check it, deadening its speed with cables and anchors, but if a story runs out of harbour, so to speak, there is no roadstead or anchorage for it, but, carried away with a great noise and reverberation, it dashes upon the man who uttered it and submerges him in some great and terrible danger.

With but a little torch one might set fire

To Ida’s rock; and tell one man a tale,

Soon all the town will know.⁵

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.) — 10 focus

[10] τίς δʼ ὅλως ἑαυτῷ παρρησίαν ἀπολέλοιπε 506f κατὰ τοῦ μὴ σιωπήσαντος; εἰ γὰρ ἀγνοεῖσθαι τὸν λόγον ἔδει, κακῶς ἐλέχθη πρὸς ἄλλον· εἰ δʼ ἀφεὶς ἐκ σεαυτοῦ κατέχεις ἐν ἑτέρῳ τἀπόρρητον, εἰς ἀλλοτρίαν πίστιν καταπέφευγας τὴν σεαυτοῦ προέμενος. 25 κἂν μὲν ἐκεῖνος ὅμοιός σοι γένηται, δικαίως ἀπόλωλας· ἂν δὲ βελτίων, σῴζῃ παραλόγως ἕτερον εὑρὼν ὑπὲρ σεαυτὸν πιστότερον. ἀλλὰ φίλος οὗτος ἐμοί. τούτῳ δʼ ἕτερός τις, ᾧ πιστεύσει καὶ οὗτος ὡς ἐγὼ τούτῳ· κἀκεῖνος ἄλλῳ πάλιν· εἶθʼ οὕτως ἐπιγονὴν λαμβάνει καὶ πολλαπλασιασμόν, εἰρομένης τῆς ἀκρασίας, ὁ λόγος. ὡς γὰρ ἡ μονὰς οὐκ 5 507a ἐκβαίνει τὸν ἑαυτῆς ὅρον ἀλλʼ ἅπαξ τὸ ἓν μένει, διὸ κέκληται μονάς· ἡ δὲ δυὰς ἀρχὴ διαφορᾶς ἀόριστος· εὐθὺς γὰρ ἑαυτὴν ἐξίστησι τῷ διπλασιασμῷ εἰς τὸ πλῆθος τρεπομένη· οὕτω λόγος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ καταμένων ἀπόρρητος ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐστιν· ἂν δʼ εἰς 10 ἕτερον ἐκβῇ φήμης ἔσχε τάξιν. ἔπεα¹ γάρ πτερόεντα φησὶν ὁ ποιητής οὔτε γὰρ πτηνὸν² ἐκ τῶν χειρῶν ἀφέντα ῥᾴδιόν ἐστιν αὖθις κατασχεῖν, οὔτε λόγον ἐκ τοῦ στόματος προέμενον κρατῆσαι καὶ συλλαβεῖν δυνατόν, ἀλλὰ φέρεται 15

λαιψηρὰ κυκλώσας πτερά

³ διʼ ἄλλων⁴ ἐπʼ ἄλλους σκιδνάμενος. νεὼς μὲν γὰρ ἁρπαγείσης ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἐπιλαμβάνονται, σπείραις 507b καὶ ἀγκύραις τὸ τάχος ἀμβλύνοντες· τοῦ λόγου δʼ ὥσπερ ἐκ λιμένων ἐκδραμόντος οὐκ ἔστιν ὅρμος οὐδʼ 20 ἀγκυροβόλιον, ἀλλὰ ψόφῳ πολλῷ καὶ ἤχῳ φερόμενος προσέρρηξε καὶ κατέδυσεν εἰς μέγαν τινὰ καὶ δεινὸν τὸν φθεγξάμενον κίνδυνον.

μικροῦ γὰρ ἐκ λαμπτῆρος Ἰδαῖον λέπας

⁵

πρήσειεν ἄν τις· καὶ πρὸς ἄνδρʼ εἰπὼν ἕνα, 25

πύθοιντʼ ἂν ἀστοὶ πάντες.

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.) — 10 focus

[10] Nay, what man is he that dares take upon him the freedom to blame another for not keeping the secret which he himself has revealed to him? For if the secret ought not to have been divulged, it was ill done to break it to another; but if, after thou hast let it go from thyself, thou wouldst have another keep it in, surely it is a great argument that thou hast more confidence in another than in thyself; for, if he be like thyself, thou art deservedly lost; if better, then thou art miraculously saved, as having met with a person more faithful to thee than thou art to thy own interest. But thou wilt say, he is my friend. Very good: yet this friend of mine had another, in whom he might confide as much as I did in him; and in like manner his friend another, to the end of the chapter. And thus the secret gains ground, and spreads itself by multiplication of babbling. For as a unit never exceeds its bounds, but always remains one, and is therefore called a unit; but the next is two, which contains the unlimited principle of diversity,—for it straightway departs from out of itself (as it were) and by doubling turns to a plurality,—so speech abiding in the first person’s thoughts may truly be called a secret; but being communicated to another, it presently changes its name into common rumor. This is the reason that Homer gives to words the epithet of winged; for he that lets a bird go out of his hand does not easily catch her again; neither is it possible for a man to recall and cage again in his breast a word let slip from his mouth;¹ for with light wings it fetches many a compass, and flutters about from one quarter to another in a moment. The course of a ship may well be stayed by cables and anchors, which else would spoon away before a fresh gale of wind; but there is no fist riding or anchor-hold for speech, when once let loose as from a harbor; but being whirled away with a sonorous noise and loud echo, it carries off and plunges the unwary babbler into some fatal danger.

For soon a little spark of fire, let fly,

May kindle Ida’s wool, so thick and high

What one man to his seeming fiend lets go,

Whole cities may with ease enquire and know.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning Talkativeness

1. Cf. Moralia, 429 a, 1012 d-f. For the indeterminate dyad, see Aristotle, Met., 987 b 26 and 1081 a 14; A. E. Taylor, Philosophical Studies, pp. 130 ff; and for Plutarch’s understanding of the dyad see L. Robin, La Theorie platonicienne des idees et des nombres , pp. 648-651 (Notopoulos and Fobes).

2. Homer, passim; on the formula, see the most recent discussions in Classical Philology, xxx. 215 ff., xxxii. 59 ff., Classical Quart., xxx. 1-3.

3. Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 691, Euripides, Frag. 1044.

4. Cf. Moralia, 750 b; probably from the Epodes of Archilochus, Cf. Eusebius, Praep. Evang., xv. 4. 5; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii. p. 142.

5. Nauck, op. cit., p. 486, Euripides, Frag. 411, vv. 2-4, from the Ino; Cf. St. James, iii. 5, 6.

Plutarch De Garrulitate 10

William Clark Helmbold (Translator)

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