Dinner of Tongues

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1857

Dinner of Tongues.

Æsop was the servant or a philosopher named Xanthus. One day his master being desirous of entertaining some of his friends at dinner, he ordered him to provide the best things he could find in the market. Æsop thereupon made a very large provision of tongues, which he desired the cook to serve up with different sauces. When the dinner came, the first and second courses, the side dishes and the removes were all tongues.

"Did I not order you," said Xanthus in a violent passion, "to buy the best victuals the market afforded?"

"And have I not obeyed your orders?" said Æsop. "Is there anything better than tongues? Is not the tongue the bond of civil society, the key of science, and the organ of truth and reason? By means of the tongue cities are built, and governments established and administered; with it men instruct, persuade and preside in assemblies; it is the instrument with which we acquit ourselves of the chief of all our duties, the praising and adoring the gods."

"Well then," replied Xanthus, "go to market tomorrow and buy me the worst things you can find. This same company will dine with me, and I have a mind to change my entertainment."

When Xanthus assembled his friends the next day, he was astonished to find that Æsop had provided nothing but the very same dishes.

"Did I not tell you," said Xanthus, "to purchase the worst things for this day's feast? How comes it then, that you have placed before us the same food, which only yesterday, you declared to be the very best?"

Æsop not at all abashed, replied, "The tongue is the worst thing in the world as well as the best, for it is the instrument of all strife and contention, the fomenter of law-suits, the source of divisions and war, the organ of error, of calumny and falsehood, and even of profanity."