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No spoken word, it is true, has ever done such service as have in many instances words unspokenCf.Moralia, 10 e-f, 125 d; 515 a, infra.; for it is possible at some later time to tell what you have kept silent, but never to keep silent what once has been spoken - that has been spilled, and has made its way abroad.Cf. Horace, Ars Poet., 390: nescit vox missa reverti. Hence, I think, in speaking we have men as teachers, but in keeping silent we have gods, and we receive from them this lesson of silence at initiations into the Mysteries. And the Poet has made the most eloquent Odysseus the most reticent, and also his son and his wife and his nurse; for you hear the nurse saying,Eurycleia; adapted from Od., xix. 494. I’ll hold it safe like sturdy oak or iron. And Odysseus himself, as he sat beside Penelope, Did pity in his heart his wife in tears, But kept his eyes firm-fixed within their lids Like horn or iron.Od., xix. 210-212; Cf. 442 d-e, supra. So full of self-control was his body in every limb, and Reason, with all parts in perfect obedience and submission, ordered his eyes not to weep, his tongue not to utter a sound, his heart not to tremble or barkCf.Od., xx. 13, 16.: His heart remained enduring in obedience,Od., xx. 23; Cf. 453 d, supra. since his reason extended even to his irrational or involuntary movements and made amenable and subservient to itselfCf. 442 e, supra. both his breath and his blood. Of such character were also most of his companions; for even when they were dragged about and dashed upon the ground by the Cyclops,Cf.Od., ix. 289. they would not denounce Odysseus nor show that fire-sharpened instrument prepared against the monster’s eye, but preferred to be eaten raw rather than to tell a single word of the secret-an example of self-control and loyalty which cannot be surpassed. Therefore PittacusCf.Commentarii in Hesiodum, 71 (Bernardakis, vol. vii. p. 88); told also of Bias in Moralia, 38 b and 146 f. did not do badly, when the king of Egypt sent him a sacrificial animal and bade him cut out the fairest and foulest meat, when he cut out and sent him the tongue, as being the instrument of both the greatest good and the greatest evil.
