Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/287

Rh were), to weed them out of the soul, unless he hate and detest them first. Now then, and never before, begin we to take an hatred to vices, when by the light of reason we consider and weigh the shame and loss that cometh unto us by them: as for example, we know and see that these great praters, whiles they desire to win love, gain hatred; thinking to do a pleasure, they displease; looking to be well esteemed, are mocked and derided; they lay for lucre, and get nothing; they hurt their friends, aid their enemies, and undo themselves.

So then, let this be the first receipt and medicine for to cure this malady; even the consideration and reckoning up of the shameful infamies and painful inconveniences that proceed and ensue thereof. The second remedy is, to take a survey of the contrary; that is to say, to hear always, to remember and have ready at hand the praises and commendations of silence, the majesty (I say), the mystical gravity and holiness of taciturnity, to represent always unto our mind and understanding, how much more admired, how much more loved, and how far wiser they are reputed, who speak roundly at once, and in few words, their mind pithily; who in a short and compendious speech comprehend more good matter and substance a great deal, than these great talkers, whose tongues are unbridled and run at random. Those (I say) be they whom Plato so highly esteemeth, comparing them to skilful and well-practised archers and darters, who have the feat of shooting arrows and lancing darts; for they know how and when to speak graciously and bitterly, soundly, pithily, and compactly. And verily, wise Lycurgus framed and exercised his citizens immediately from their childhood by keeping them down at the first with silence to this short and sententious kind Of speech, whereby they spake always compendiously, and knit up much in a little. For like as they of Biskay or Celtiberia do make their steel of iron, by entering it and letting it lie first within the ground, and then by purging and refining it from the gross, terrene, and earthly substance that it hath; even so the Laconians' speech hath no outward bark (as a man would say) or crust upon it, but when all the superfluity thereof is taken away, it is steeled (as it were) and tempered, yea, and hath an edge upon it, fit for to work withal and to pierce: and verily that apophthegmatical and powerful speech of theirs, that grace which they had to answer sententiously and with such gravity, together with a quick and ready gift to meet at every turn with all objections, they attained unto by nothing else but by their much silence.