Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/270

248 tendeth to, namely, to win credit with the hearers; and no man will ever believe these great talkers, no not when they speak the truth. For like as wheat, if it be enclosed within some dank or moist vessel, doth swell and yield more in measure, but for use is found to be worse; even so it is with the talk of a prattling person; well may he multiply and augment it with lying, but by that means it leeseth all the force of persuasion. Moreover, what modest, civil, and honest man is there who would not very carefully take heed of drunkenness? for anger (as some say) may well be ranged with rage and madness; and drunkenness doth lodge and dwell with her, or rather is madness itself, only in circumstance of time it may be counted less, for that it continueth less while, but surely in regard of the cause it is greater, for that it is voluntary, and we run wilfully into it, and without any constraint. Now there is no one thing for which drunkenness is so much blamed and accused as for intemperate speech and talk without end: for as the poet saith:

for the greatest and worst matter that ensueth thereupon is not singing, laughing, and dancing; there is another inconvenience in comparison whereof all these are nothing, and that is:

This is (I say) the mischief most dangerous of all the rest: and it may be that the poet covertly would assoil that question which the philosophers have propounded and disputed upon; namely, what difference there might be between liberal drinking of wine and stark drunkenness? in attributing unto the former mirth and jocundness extraordinary, and to the latter much babbling and foolish prattle: for according to the common proverb, that which is seated in the heart and thought of a sober person, lieth aloft in the mouth and tongue of a drunkard. And therefore wisely answered the philosopher Bias unto one of these jangling and prating companions: for when he seemed to mock him for sitting still, and saying nothing at a feast, insomuch as he gave him the lob and fool for it: And how is it possible (quoth he) that a fool should hold his peace at the table?