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1. The reading is in dispute (v. the Leipzig edition. etc). The translation above will refer to the treat forensic duel between AEschines and Demosthenes on the motion of Ktesiphcn that Demosthenes should be crowned for his services to his country, on which oteasion was delivered the De Corona the greatest oration or the ancient world. 2.The Greek proverbial saying is a greater chatterer
than a swallow.
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The best definition of Loquacity—if
we wish to use a definition—would be incontinence of speech. The loquacious
man will say to you, if you meet him and tell him something, that you
are quite wrong, but he knows all about it, and if you’ll condescend to
listen he will make you perfectly acquainted with it. If you are answering
him he interrupts you in the middle of your speech with ‘Do you say so?
Don’t forget what you were going to say,’ or Thanks indeed for reminding
me,’ or ‘‘how much useful information do we get from a con- versation!
or ‘Oh, I omitted,’ or 'Why, you have seen through it quickly,’ or ‘I
have been watching for ages to see if you reach the same conclusion as
I,' and such other beginnings of talk will he find so that you haven’t
a moment’s breathing-space. Then when he has vanquished a few isolated
individuals he advances on large orderly companies and routs them while
they are busy at their work. He will go into the colleges and wrestling-schools
and prevent the boys from learning by talkng this sort of stuff to the
teachers and trainers. If you rise to go be will certainly accompany you
home, and see you restored to your own fireside. Having obtained news
from the Assembly he rushes away to tell it and, in addition, the hoary
tale of the struggle of the orators1 in the year Aristophon
was chief magistrate, and the speech by wbich he himself won renown in
the Assembly. Into the narration, too, he flings revilings against the
mob so that the listener forgets what he was talking about, or goes to
sleep, or leaves in the middle and gets rid of him. While acting as juryman
he will hinder the verdict being given, and at a theatre keep those near
him from seeing the performance, and at dinner prevent the company from
eating, saying ‘It is difficult for a loquacious man to be silent,’ and
that his tonuge cannot be still and that he could not be silent not even
if everybody were to think him a greater chatterer than a magpie.2
He will endure being made a fool of even by his own children, who when
they want to sleep cry to him 'Chatter to us, father, and make us go to
sleep.'
