Your Morning Plutarch
For Wednesday, September 25th, 2024
Week 79 of our regular morning feature here at Friedman of the Plains Worldwide in which we highlight the great words and works of great men and women, as well as those who are insufferable, delusional, and even fictional.
This Week Plutarch
“When someone blamed Hecataeus the sophist because that, being invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time, Archidamidas answered in his vindication 'He who knows how to speak, knows also when'.”
And he who does not, holds rallies with red hats galore.
Corollary to Plutarch: better to be silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Sometimes these translations make me think that the translators are lacking the patois, the real language of the time. They come off as very formal when you just know the past was as pungent as the present.