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Moreover, just as SocratesCf. Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 3. 6; Moralia, 124 d, 521 f, infra, 661 f. used to urge men to be on their guard against those foods which induce us to eat when we are not hungry, and against those liquids which induce us to drink when we are not thirsty, so it is with the babbler as regards subjects for talk: those in which he takes most delight and employs ad nauseam he should fear stoutly resist when they stream in upon him. For example, military menCf.Moralia, 546 d, 630 f ff. are great tellers of war-stories, and the Poet introduces NestorFor example, Homer, Il., i. 269 ff. in that character, often narrating his own deeds of prowess. Again, as one might expect, those who have scored a victory in the law-courts or have had some unexpected success at the courts of governors or kings are attacked, as it were, by a malady which never leaves them, by the desire to call to mind and tell over and over again how they made their entrance, how they were presented, how they argued, how they held forth, how they confuted some opponents or accusers, how they were applauded. For their delight is far more loquacious than that well-known insomnia in the comedyCf. Kock, Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 48, Menander, Frag. 164 (p. 353 ed. Allinson): Surely of all things insomnia is the most loquacious. At any rate, it has roused me and brings me here to tell my whole life from the very beginning.: it often fans itself into new flame and makes itself ever fresh with each successive telling. They are, therefore, ready to slip into such subjects on any pretext. For not only Where one feels pain, there will he keep his hand,A proverb, according to Stobaeus, vol. v. p. 860 ed. Hense, where see the note. Ubi dolor, ibi digitus. but also what causes pleasure draws the voice toward itself and twists the tongue from a desire to dwell perpetually on the joys of remembrance. So also with lovers, who chiefly occupy themselves with conversation that recalls some memory of the objects of their love; and if they cannot talk to human beings, they will speak of their passion to inanimate things: O dearest bed! and O blessed lamp, Bacchis thought you a god, And greatest god you are if she thinks so.Kock, Com. Att. Frag., iii. p. 438, ades. 151, 152.
