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Thus silence is something profound and awesome and sober, but drunkenness is a babbler, for it is foolish and witless, and therefore loquacious also. And the philosophersCf.Moralia, 716 f; Chrysippus, Frag. Mor. 643 (von Arnim, op. cit., iii. p. 163). even in their very definition of drunkenness say that it is intoxicated and foolish talking; thus drinking is not blamed if silence attends the drinking, but it is foolish talk which converts the influence of wine into drunkenness. While it is true that the drunken man talks foolishness in his cups, the chatterer talks foolishness on all occasions, in the market-place, in the theatre, out walking, drunk or sober, by day, by night. As your physician, he is worse than the disease; as your ship-mate, more unpleasant than sea-sickness; his praises are more annoying than another’s blame: we certainly have greater pleasure in company with clever rascals than with honest chatterboxes. In Sophocles,Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. 2, p. 312, Frag. 771 (Frag. 855 ed. Pearson, vol. iii. p. 63); Cf.Moralia, 810 b. when Ajax uses boisterous language, Nestor, in soothing him, says in words which show his knowledge of character, I blame you not: ill your words, but good your deeds. But these are not our feelings toward the chatterer; on the contrary, the untimeliness of his words destroys and annuls all gratitude for any deed.
