Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/276

254 And Ulysses himself, sitting by Penelope before he would be known unto her who he was:

SO full was his tongue of patience, and his lips of continence. For why? reason had all the parts of his body so obeisant and ready at command, that it gave order to the eyes not to shed tears; to the tongue not to utter a word; to the heart not to pant or tremble, nor so much as to sob or sigh:

yea, his reason had gotten the mastery of those inward and secret motions which are void and incapable of reason, as having under her hand the very blood and vital spirits in all obeisance: his people also and train about him were for the most part of that disposition; for what wanted this of constancy and loyalty to their lord in the highest degree, to suffer themselves to be pulled and haled, to be tugged and tossed, yea and dashed against the hard ground under foot by the giant Cyclops, rather than to utter one word against Ulysses, or to bewray that log of wood which was burnt at the one end, and an instrument made ready for to put out his only eye that he had? nay, they endured rather to be eaten and devoured raw by him, than to disclose any of Ulysses his secrets. Pittacus therefore did not amiss, who when the King of Egypt had sent unto him a beast for sacrifice, and willed him withal to take out and lay apart the best and worst piece thereof, plucked out the tongue and sent it unto him, as being the organ of many good things, and no less instrument of the worst that be in the world. And Lady Ino, in Euripides, speaking freely of herself, saith that she knew the time For certainly those who have had noble and princely bringing up indeed, learn first to keep silence, and afterwards how to speak. And therefore King Antigonus the Great, when his son upon a time asked him. When they should dislodge and break up the camp: What, son (quoth he), art thou alone afraid, that when the time comes thou shalt not hear the trumpet sound