t he was one of those that had
committed the sacrilege. And were not the murderers of Ibycus similarly
captured? They were sitting in the theatre, and some cranes flew over
their heads, and they laughed and whispered to one another, "Behold the
avengers of Ibycus." And this being overheard by some who sat near, as
Ibycus had now been some time missing and inquired after, they laid hold
of this remark, and reported it to the magistrates. And so they were
convicted and dragged off to punishment, being brought to justice not by
the cranes but by their own inability to hold their tongues, being
compelled by some Fury or Vengeance as it were to divulge the
murder.[587] For as in the body there is an attraction to sore and
suffering parts from neighbouring parts, so the tongue of talkative
persons, ever suffering from inflammation and a throbbing pulse,
attracts and draws to it secret and hidden things. And so the tongue
ought to be fenced in, and have reason ever before it, as a bulwark, to
prevent its tripping: that we may not seem to be more silly than geese,
of whom it is said that, when they fly from Cilicia over Mt. Taurus
which swarms with eagles, they carry in their mouths a large stone,
which they employ as a gag or bridle for their scream, and so they cross
over by night unobserved.

Sec. XV. Now if anyone were to ask who is the worst and most abandoned man,
no one would pass over the traitor, or mention anyone else. It was as
the reward of treason that Euthycrates roofed his house with Macedonian
wood, as Demosthenes tells us; and that Philocrates got a large sum of
money, and spent it on women and fish; and it was for betraying Eretria
that Euphorbus and Philagrus got an estate from king Philip. But the
talkative man is an unhired and officious traitor, not of horses[588] or
walls, but of secrets which he divulges in the law courts, in factions,
in party-strife, no one thanking him for his pains; but should anyone
listen to him he thinks he is the obliged party. So that what was said
to a man who rashly and indiscriminately squandered away all his means
and bestowed them on others,

"It is not kindness in you but disease,
This itch for giving,"[589]

is appropriate also to the prater, "You don't communicate to us all this
out of friendship or goodwill, but it is a disease in you, this itch for
talking and prating."

Sec. XVI. But all this must not be looked upon merely as an indictment
against talkativen