For soon a little spark of fire, let fly,
May kindle Ida's wool, so thick and high
What one man to his seeming fiend lets go,
Whole cities may with ease enquire and know.
2
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Nay, what man is he that dares take upon him the
freedom to blame another for not keeping the secret which
he himself has revealed to him? For if the secret ought
not to have been divulged, it was ill done to break it to
another; but if, after thou hast let it go from thyself, thou
wouldst have another keep it in, surely it is a great argument that thou hast more confidence in another than in
thyself; for, if he be like thyself, thou art deservedly
lost; if better, then thou art miraculously saved, as having
met with a person more faithful to thee than thou art to
thy own interest. But thou wilt say, he is my friend.
Very good: yet this friend of mine had another, in whom
he might confide as much as I did in him; and in like
manner his friend another, to the end of the chapter.
[p. 233]
And thus the secret gains ground, and spreads itself by
multiplication of babbling. For as a unit never exceeds
its bounds, but always remains one, and is therefore called
a unit; but the next is two, which contains the unlimited
principle of diversity,—for it straightway departs from
out of itself (as it were) and by doubling turns to a plurality,—so speech abiding in the first person's thoughts
may truly be called a secret; but being communicated to
another, it presently changes its name into common rumor.
This is the reason that Homer gives to words the epithet
of winged; for he that lets a bird go out of his hand
does not easily catch her again; neither is it possible for a
man to recall and cage again in his breast a word let slip
from his mouth;1 for with light wings it fetches many a
compass, and flutters about from one quarter to another in
a moment. The course of a ship may well be stayed by
cables and anchors, which else would spoon away before a
fresh gale of wind; but there is no fist riding or anchor-hold for speech, when once let loose as from a harbor;
but being whirled away with a sonorous noise and loud
echo, it carries off and plunges the unwary babbler into
some fatal danger.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 4.
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