12
Philippides,Cf. 517 b, infra; Moralia, 183 e; Life of Demetrius, xii. (894 d). the comic poet, therefore, made the right answer when King Lysimachus courteously asked him, What is there of mine that I may share with you? and he replied, Anything you like, Sire, except your secrets. And to garrulousness is attached also a vice no less serious than itself, inquisitiveness.Cf. 519 c, infra. For babblers wish to hear many things so that they may have many things to tell. And they go about tracking down and searching out especially those stories that have been kept hidden and are not to be revealed, storing up for their foolish gossip, as it were, a second-hand stock of hucksters’ wares; then, like children with a piece of ice,Proverbia Alexandr., i. 19 (Paroemiographi Graeci, i. p. 324); Cf. Pearson on Sophocles, Frag. 149 (153 ed. Nauck). they are neither able to hold it nor willing to let it go. Or rather, the secrets are like reptilesCf. Aesop, Fable 97 ed. Halm. which they catch and place in their bosoms, yet cannot confine them there, but are devoured by them; for pipefishCf. Aristotle, Historia Animalium, vi. 13 (567 b 23); De Generatione Animalium, iii. 4 (755 a 33). and vipers, they say, burst in giving birth, and secrets, when they escape, destroy and ruin those who cannot keep them.
