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But because the words of Euripides move many, who seems to frame a heavy charge against banishment and to urge it home, let us see what he says more particularly in his questions and answers about it. JOCASTA. But is’t so sad one’s country to forego, And live in exile? Pray, son, let me know. POL. Some ills when told are great, when tried are less; But this is saddest felt, though sad t’ express. JOC. What is’t, I pray, afflicts the banished most? POL. That liberty to speak one’s mind is lost. JOC. He is indeed a slave that dares not utter His thoughts, nor ’gainst his cruel masters mutter. POL. But all their insolencies must o’erpass, And bear their follies tamely like an ass.Eurip. Phoeniss. 388. These assertions of his are neither good nor true. For first, not to speak what one thinks is not a piece of slavery; but it is the part of a prudent man to hold one’s peace and be silent when time and the circumstances of affairs require it; as he himself says better elsewhere, that a wise man knows Both when it’s best no tongue to find, And when it’s safe to speak his mind. Again, as for the rudeness and insolency of such as have power in their hands, they that stay in their country are no less forced to bear and endure it than those that are driven out of it; nay, commonly the former stand more in fear of false informations and the violence of unjust rulers in cities than the latter. But his greatest mistake and absurdity is his taking away all freedom of speech from exiles. It is wonderful indeed if Theodorus had no freedom of this kind, who,—when King Lysimachus said to him: Thou being such a criminal, the country cast thee forth, did it not?—replied: Yes, not being able to bear me; just as Semele cast out Bacchus, when she could bear him no longer. And when the king showed him Telesphorus in an iron cage, with his eyes digged out of their holes, his nose and ears and tongue cut off, and said: So I deal with those that injure me, he was not abashed. What! did not Diogenes retain his wonted freedom of speaking, who coming into King Philip’s camp, when he was going to give the Grecians battle, was brought before him for a spy; and confessed that he was so, but that he came to take a view of his unsatiable greediness of empire and of his madness and folly who was going in the short time of a fight to throw a die for his crown and life?
