Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/285

Rh of mere wine; the nature and virtue whereof (as you know well enough) is to quench as it were and dissolve the vigour and strength of that poison, and so go their ways safe enough, but if it chance that they were taken in the deed doing, then they might by means of that hemlock which they had drunk die an easy death, and without any great pain and torment, before that they were put to torture by the magistrate. He had no sooner delivered this speech, but the whole company who heard his words, thought verily that such a contrived device and so deep a reach as this never came from one that suspected such a matter, but rather knew that it was so indeed; whereupon they flocked round about, and hemmed him in, and on every side each one had a saying unto him: And what art thou? quoth one. From whence art thou? saith another. Here comes one and asketh, who knew him? there sets upon him another, saying: And how comest thou by the light of all this that thou hast delivered? to be short, they handled the matter so well that they forced him to bewray himself in the end, and to confess that he was one of them that committed the sacrilege. Were not they also who murdered the poet Ibycus discovered and taken after the same manner? It happened that the said murderers were set at a theatre to behold the plays and pastimes which were exhibited; and seeing a flight of cranes over their heads, they whispered one to another: Lo, these be they that will revenge the death of Ibycus. Now had not Ibycus been a long time before seen, and much search was made after him, because he was out of the way and missed; whereupon they that sate next unto these men overhearing those words of theirs, and well noting the speech, went directly to the magistrates and justices to give intelligence and information of their words. Then were they attached and examined; and thus being convicted, suffered punishment in the end, not by the means of those cranes that they talked of, but surely by their own blab-tongues; as if some hellish fury had forced them to disclose that murder which they had committed. For like as in our bodies the members diseased and in pain draw humours continually unto them, and all the corruption of the parts near unto them flow thither; even so, the tongue of a babbling fellow, being never without an inflammation and a feverous pulse, draweth always and gathereth to it one secret and hidden thing or other. In which regard it ought to be well sensed with a rampart, and the bulwark of reason should evermore be set against it, which like unto a bar may stay and stop that over-