And his heart once more did obey, and endure with a patient enduring,
inasmuch as reason had extended even to his irrational movements and made his very breath and blood amenable to its authority. Most of his comrades also were of the same character. Self-command and loyalty could no further go than in their case. Though harried and dashed upon the ground by the Cyclops, they would not denounce Odysseus to him. They would not betray the plot against his eye and the implement which had |C| been sharpened in the fire for that purpose; but they chose to be eaten raw rather than tell a word of the secret.
Pittacus, therefore, was not far out, when, upon the King of Egypt sending him a sacrificial victim and bidding him pick out the ‘fairest and foulest’ part of the meat, he took out and sent him the tongue, as being the instrument of both the greatest good and the greatest evil.
Euripides’ Ino, making bold to speak for herself, says that she knows how to be
Silent in season, speak where speech is safe.
Those, indeed, who are blessed with a noble and a truly royal education, know first how to be silent and then how to talk. The famous king Antigonus, when his son asked him at what |D| hour they were to break camp, replied, ‘What are you afraid of? That you may be the only one to miss hearing the trumpet?’ Was it that he did not trust with a secret the man to whom he intended to bequeath his throne? Rather he meant to teach him self-mastery and caution in dealing with such matters. The aged Metellus, on being asked a similar question during a campaign, answered, ‘If I thought my shirt knew that secret, I would take it off and put it on the fire.’ When Eumenes heard that Craterus was advancing, he told the fact to none of his friends, but pretended that it was Neoptolemus, whom his |E| soldiers despised, whereas they entertained a great respect for the reputation of Craterus and a high esteem of his ability. As, however, no one else found out the truth, they joined battle, won the victory, killed Craterus without knowing him, and only discovered who he was from his corpse. So good a general was the silence of Eumenes in the battle, and so formidable the opponent whose presence it disguised, that his friends admired instead of blaming him for not forewarning them. Even if some one does find fault, it is better to be accused when mistrust has saved you than to be the accuser when trust proves your undoing.
What excuse can one possibly find for himself when blaming another for not holding his tongue? If the matter ought not to |F| have been known, it was wrong to tell it to any one else. If you let the secret slip from yourself, and yet ask another person to keep it, you take refuge in the loyalty of some one else while abandoning loyalty to yourself. And if he turns out as bad as you, you are deservedly undone; if better, you are saved by a miracle, through finding another person more faithful to you than yourself. ‘But So-and-So is my friend.’ So is a second person his friend, whom he again will trust as I trust him. So with that person and a third, and thus the talk will go on |507| increasing and extending in link after link of weak betrayal. The Unit never goes beyond its own limit, but is, once and for all, ‘oneness’—whence its name. But the number ‘two’ is the indefinite beginning of difference, for by the duplication it at once shifts in the direction of multitude. In the same way, so long as a piece of information is confined to the first possessor, it is really and truly a ‘secret’. But if it passes by him to a second, it must be classed as a ‘report’. ‘Winged words,’ says the poet. If you let go from your hand a thing with wings, it is not easy to get it back into your grasp; and if you let an observation slip from your lips, it is impossible to seize and secure it, but away it flies
on nimbly-whirling wing,
and circulates in all directions from one set of people to another.
When a ship is caught by a wind, they put a check upon it |B| and deaden its speed with cables and anchors; but let a speech run—so to speak—out of port, and it finds no place to cast and ride at anchor. It is carried away with a roar, till he who has uttered it is dashed and sunk upon some great and terrible danger.