EVILSPEAKING is a tendency to
speak of others for the worse. The evil-speaker, when asked who so-and-so
is, answers as if he were setting down a genealogy. I’ll begin with his
parents. The gentleman’s father was originally called Sosias among the
soldiers he blossomed into Sosistratos, and was enrolled in his township
roll as Soside- mos. His mother was a Thracian of a really aristocratic
family; at any rate she was called “my darling,” like a true courtesan
and they say such ladies are of noble birth there. As you might expect
from such parents he himself is a scoundrelly knave. All benignance, he
says to another, ‘Yes, yes, I know that kind of thing exactly: you weren’t
wrong in confiding in me' And further on this, ‘these women snatch passers-by
from the street,’ ‘That house has a bad name,’ ‘They are always talking
with men, and they answer the hall-door themselves. It is his way when
others are speaking evil to chime in with 'I hate that fellow, too, more
than anybody else. You can see the rascality in his face, and his baseness
— there’s nothing like it. Proof? Ever since the child was born he has
given his wife — who brought him thousands by her dowry, mark you — three
brass farthings a day for the table, and makes her wash with cold water
in mid-winter.’ When he is sitting with friends he is sure to speak about
one who has risen and gone away. If he gets the chance he will not refrain
from slandering his own relations. He will say any malicious things of
friend or relative, even of the dead. His name for abuse is freedom of
speech, democratic liberty, independence, and he makes it his chief delight.
Thus the sting of evil temper makes men mad and frenzied in mind.
1I A common slave-name
2 On the other interpretations v. Jebb, p.199 etc.
EVILSPEAKING is a tendency to
speak of others for the worse. The evil-speaker, when asked who so-and-so
is, answers as if he were setting down a genealogy. I’ll begin with his
parents. The gentleman’s father was originally called Sosias among the
soldiers he blossomed into Sosistratos, and was enrolled in his township
roll as Soside- mos. His mother was a Thracian of a really aristocratic
family; at any rate she was called “my darling,” like a true courtesan
and they say such ladies are of noble birth there. As you might expect
from such parents he himself is a scoundrelly knave. All benignance, he
says to another, ‘Yes, yes, I know that kind of thing exactly: you weren’t
wrong in confiding in me' And further on this, ‘these women snatch passers-by
from the street,’ ‘That house has a bad name,’ ‘They are always talking
with men, and they answer the hall-door themselves. It is his way when
others are speaking evil to chime in with 'I hate that fellow, too, more
than anybody else. You can see the rascality in his face, and his baseness
— there’s nothing like it. Proof? Ever since the child was born he has
given his wife — who brought him thousands by her dowry, mark you — three
brass farthings a day for the table, and makes her wash with cold water
in mid-winter.’ When he is sitting with friends he is sure to speak about
one who has risen and gone away. If he gets the chance he will not refrain
from slandering his own relations. He will say any malicious things of
friend or relative, even of the dead. His name for abuse is freedom of
speech, democratic liberty, independence, and he makes it his chief delight.
Thus the sting of evil temper makes men mad and frenzied in mind.
