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Yet, speaking generally, who has left himself the right to speak out boldly against one who has not kept silent? If the story ought not to have been known, it was wrong for it to be told to another; and if you have let the secret slip from yourself and yet seek to confine it to another, you have taken refuge in another’s good faith when you have already abandoned your own. And if he turns out to be no better than yourself, you are deservedly ruined; if better, you are saved beyond all expectation, since you have found another more faithful on your own behalf than you yourself are. But this man is my friend. Yet he has another friend, whom he will likewise trust as I trust him; and his friend, again, will trust another friend. Thus, then, the story goes on increasing and multiplying by link after link of incontinent betrayal. For just as the monadCf.Moralia, 429 a, 1012 d-f. For the indeterminate dyad, see Aristotle, Met., 987 b 26 and 1081 a 14; A. E. Taylor, Philosophical Studies, pp. 130 ff; and for Plutarch’s understanding of the dyad see L. Robin, La Theorie platonicienne des idees et des nombres , pp. 648-651 (Notopoulos and Fobes). does not pass out of its own boundaries, but remains once and for all one (for which reason it is called a monad), and as the dyad is the indeterminate beginning of difference (for by doubling it at once shifts from unity to plurality), so a story confined to its first possessor is truly secret; but if it passes to another, it has acquired the status of rumour. The Poet,Homer, passim; on the formula, see the most recent discussions in Classical Philology, xxx. 215 ff., xxxii. 59 ff., Classical Quart., xxx. 1-3. in fact, says that words are winged: neither when you let go from your hands a winged thing is it easy to get it back again,Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 691, Euripides, Frag. 1044. nor when a word is let slip from the mouth is it possible to arrest and control it, but it is borne away Circling on swift wings,Cf.Moralia, 750 b; probably from the Epodes of Archilochus, Cf. Eusebius, Praep. Evang., xv. 4. 5; Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii. p. 142. and is scattered abroad from one to another. So when a ship has been caught by a wind, they try to check it, deadening its speed with cables and anchors, but if a story runs out of harbour, so to speak, there is no roadstead or anchorage for it, but, carried away with a great noise and reverberation, it dashes upon the man who uttered it and submerges him in some great and terrible danger. With but a little torch one might set fire To Ida’s rock; and tell one man a tale, Soon all the town will know.Nauck, op. cit., p. 486, Euripides, Frag. 411, vv. 2-4, from the Ino; Cf. St. James, iii. 5, 6.
