Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/106

84 hurtful and unwholesome sauces (as I may say) wherewith many use to season their free language. For like as a chirurgeon, when he maketh incision and cutteth the flesh of his patient, had need to use great dexterity, to have a nimble hand and an even; yea, and everything neat and fine belonging to this work and operation of his: as for all dancing, gesticulations besides of his fingers, toyish motions, and superfluous agitation thereof, to shew the agility of his hand, he is to forbear for that time: So this liberty of speech unto a friend doth admit well a certain kind of elegancy and civility, provided always that the grace thereof retain still a decent and comely gravity, whereas if it chance to have audacious bravery, saucy impurity and insolency, to the hurt or hindrance of credit, it is utterly marred and looseth all authority.

And therefore it was not an unproper and unelegant speech, wherewith a musician upon a time stopped King Philip's mouth that he had not a word to say again: For when he was about to have disputed and contested against the said minstrel, as touching good fingering, and the sound of the several strings of his instrument: Oh, sir (quoth he), God forbid that ever you should fall to so low an estate as to be more cunning in these matters than I. But contrariwise, Epicharmus spake not so aptly and to the purpose in this behalf: For when King Hiero, who a little before had put to death some of his familiar acquaintance, invited him not many days after to supper. Yea, marry, sir, but the other day when you sacrificed, you bade not your friends to the feast. And as badly answered Antiphon, who upon a time when there was some question before Denys the Tyrant, what was the best kind of brass: Marry, that (quoth he) whereof the Athenians made the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton. Such speeches as these are tart and biting, and no good can come thereof, neither hath that scurrility and scoffing manner any delight, but a kind of intemperance it is of the tongue, mingled with a certain maliciousness of mind, implying a will to do hurt and injury, and shewing plain enmity, which as many as use, work their own mischief and destruction, dancing (as the proverb saith) a dance untowardly about a pit's brink, or jesting with edged tools. For surely it cost Antiphon his life, who was put to death by the said Denys. And Timagenes lost for ever the favour and friendship of Augustus Caesar, not for any frank speech and broad language that ever he used against him; but only because he had taken up a foolish fashion at every feast or banquet, whereunto the