"I'll keep it close as heart of oak or steel."[565]
"Though in his heart he pitied her sad grief, His eyes like horn or steel impassive stood Within their lids, and craft his tears repressed."[566]
So great control had he over all his body, and so much were all his members under the sway and rule of reason, that he commanded his eyes not to weep, his tongue not to speak, and his heart not to tremble or quake.[567]
"So calm and passive did his heart remain,"[568]
reason penetrating even to the irrational instincts, and making spirit and blood obedient and docile to it. Such also were most of his companions, for though they were dashed to the ground and dragged along by the Cyclops, they said not a word about Odysseus, nor did they show the stake of wood that had been put into the fire and prepared to put out Polyphemus' eye, but they would rather have been eaten alive than divulge secrets, such wonderful self-control and fidelity had they.[569] And so it was not amiss of Pittacus, when the king of Egypt sent him a victim, and bade him take from it the best and worst piece of it, to pull out the tongue and send that to the king, as being the instrument of the greatest blessings and withal the greatest mischiefs.
§ IX. So Ino in Euripides, speaking plainly about herself, says she knows "how to be silent when she should, and to speak when speech is safe."[570] For those who have enjoyed a truly noble and royal education learn first to be silent and then to speak. So the famous king Antigonus, when his son asked him, "When are we going to shift our quarters?" answered, "Are you afraid that you only will not hear the trumpet?" Was he afraid then to entrust a secret to him, to whom he intended one day to leave his kingdom? Nay rather, it was to teach him to be close and guarded on such matters. Metellus[571] also, the well-known veteran, when questioned somewhat similarly about an expedition, said, "If I thought my coat knew the secret, I would strip it off and throw it into the fire." And Eumenes, when he heard that Craterus was marching against him, told none of his friends, but pretended that it was Neoptolemus; for his soldiers despised Neoptolemus, but they admired the glory and loved the virtue of Craterus; and no one but Eumenes knew the truth, and they engaged and were victorious, and unwittingly killed Craterus, and only recognized his dead body. So great a part did silence play in the battle, concealing the name of the enemy's general: so that Eumenes' friends marvelled more than found fault at his not having told them the truth. And if anyone should receive blame in such a case, it is better to be censured when one has done well by keeping one's counsel, rather than to have to accuse others through having come to grief by trusting them.