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In the second place, then, let us purge away, as it were, and eliminate from our frankness all arrogance, ridicule, scoffing, and scurrility, which are the unwholesome seasoning of free speech. Just as a certain orderliness and neatness should pervade the work of a surgeon when he performs an operation, but his hand should forbear all dancing and reckless motions, all flourishes and superfluity of gesticulation, so frankness has plenty of room for tact and urbanity, if such graciousness does not impair the high office of frankness; but when effrontery and offensiveness and arrogance are coupled with it, they spoil and ruin it completely. There was point, therefore, and polish in the retort with which the harper The story is repeated by Plutarch, Moralia, 179 B, 334 D, and 634 D. stopped Philip’s mouth when Philip attempted to argue with him about playing upon his instrument. God forbid, said he, that your Majesty should ever fall so low as to have a better knowledge of these matters than I. But Epicharmus was not right in his retort upon Hiero, who had made away with some of his intimate friends, and then a few days later invited Epicharmus to dinner. But the other day, said Epicharmus, you held a sacrifice without invitation, of friends! As badly answered Antiphon, when the question was up for discussion in the presence of Dionysius as to what is the best kind of bronze, and he said, The kind from which they fashioned the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton The traditional tyrannicides of Athens. at Athens. For the offensiveness and bitterness of such retorts profits nothing, their scurrility and frivolity gives no pleasure; but a retort of this kind betokens intemperance of the tongue combined with malice and arrogance, and not without enmity. By employing it men eventually bring about their own destruction, since they are simply dancing on the edge of the pit. For Antiphon was put to death by order of Dionysius, and Timagenes lost his place in Caesar’s Caesar Augustus. friendship because, while he never indulged in any high-minded utterance, yet in social gatherings and in discussions, for no serious purpose at all, but Whatsoever he thought would move the Argives to laughter,Homer, Il. ii. 215. he would on every possible occasion put forward friendship’s cause as an artful excuse for railing. It is true that the comic poets Aristophanes, for example, as in the Frogs 686 ff. addressed to their audiences many stern rebukes of value to the citizens; but the admixture of drollery and scurrility in them, like a vile dressing with food, made their frankness ineffective and useless, so that there was nothing left for the authors but a name of malice and coarseness, and no profit for the hearers from their words. On other occasions jest and laughter may well enough be employed with friends, but frankness of speech ought to have seriousness and character. And if it concern matters of greater moment, let feeling be so evident, the countenance so serious, and the voice so earnest that the words may claim credence and touch the heart. Failure to observe the proper occasion is in any case exceedingly harmful, but particularly when frankness is concerned it destroys its profitableness. That in the midst of wine and hard drinking we must be on our guard against anything of this sort is plain enough. It is like overcasting fair weather with a storm-cloud, when in the midst of jesting and merrymaking someone starts a discussion that makes others frown and sets the face in rigid lines, as though the topic were meant to combat the god of Relaxation who relaxes the bond of troubled cares, as Pindar Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. i. 480 (Frag. 248). Lyaeus, an epithet of Bacchus, Plutarch assumes to be derived from λύειν, to loose. puts it. This neglect of occasion contains a great danger also. For men’s minds are perilously inclined to anger on account of the wine, and oftentimes heavy drinking takes control of their frankness and creates enmity. And in general, it does not show a noble or stout heart, but unmanliness rather, for one who never displays boldness of speech when he is sober to be bold at table, as is the way of cowardly curs. There is no need, then, to multiply words on this subject.
