rs when they
are blocked with dirt, the eyes when they are sealed by cataract. What
can the hands do, if they are fettered, or what the feet, if they are
shackled? What can[58] the mind that rules and directs us do, if it be
relaxed in sleep or drowned in wine or crushed beneath the weight of
disease? Nay, as the sword acquires its sheen by usage, and rusts if
it lie idle, so the voice is dulled by its long torpor if it be hidden
in the sheath of silence. Desuetude must needs beget sloth, and sloth
decay. If the tragic actor declaim not daily, the resonance of his
voice is dulled and its channels grow hoarse. Wherefore he purges his
huskiness by loud and repeated recitation. However, it is vain toil
and useless labour[59] for a man to attempt to improve the natural
quality of the human voice. There are many sounds that surpass it. The
trumpet's blare is louder, the music of the lyre more varied, the
plaint of the flute more pleasing, the murmurs of the pipe sweeter,
the message of the bugle further heard. I forbear to mention the
natural sounds of many animals which challenge admiration by their
different peculiarities, as, for instance, the deep bellow of the
bull, the wolf's shrill howl, the dismal trumpeting of the elephant,
the horse's lively neigh, the bird's piercing song, the angry roar of
the lion, together with the cries of other beasts, harsh or musical,
according as they are roused by the madness of anger or the charms of
pleasure. In place of such cries the gods have given man a voice of
narrower compass; but if it give less delight to the ear, it is far
more useful to the understanding. Wherefore it should be all the more
cultivated by the most frequent use, and that nowhere else[60] than in
the presence of an audience presided over by so great a man, and in
the midst of so numerous and distinguished a gathering of learned men
who come kindly disposed to hear. For my part, if I were skilled to
make ravishing music on the lyre, I should never play save before
crowded assemblies. It was in solitude that

_Orpheus to woods, to fish Arion sang._

[Footnote 57: om. _et negotiosis_ following MSS.]

[Footnote 58: _quid si etiam_ (Krueger).]

[Footnote 59: _cassus labor supervacaneo studio. Plurifariam
superatur_, (MSS.). The reading is uncertain, but the above
punctuation will yield adequate sense.]

[Footnote 60: om. _usquam libentius_ with MSS.]

For if we may believe legend, Orpheus had been driven