There existed in ancient Greece a curious association called the Academy of Silence. It was composed of 100 members, each one pledged to do away with all unnecessary sound as far as possible.
All the meetings were carried on in silence, ideas being conveyed by signs. One day a stranger appeared at their council, signifying that he wished to join the society. The one in charge, in order to indicate to the would-be member that there was no vacancy in the Academy, showed him an urn so filled with water that not a drop could be added without causing the contents to overflow. The applicant, understanding what was meant, bowed low and started to withdraw, then hesitated and returned. The assembled members were curious to know the meaning of his action but it was made clear to them when the applicant, picking up a rose-leaf, deposited it so lightly and deftly upon the water in the urn that not a drop was displaced. His acuity of thought was rewarded. The Academy of Silence was at once enlarged to include an extra member.
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“Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.” ―
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The rather Borgesian double urn is suggestive of the onion-skin unlayering of meaning in the fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, while the Parable of the Silent Ballot is to be found in the Catholic Digest, New York, 1938. (Image: Watercolour by Giovanni Battista Lusieri, A Greek Double Urn, circa 1804, National Gallery of Scotland. The urn was excavated from a burial mound outside Athens. The outer vase was made of white marble and had been damaged by the weight of the tomb. The bronze inner vase contained some burnt bones and a sprig of myrtle* made of gold.)*Myrtle, a symbol of love, was a plant sacred to the goddess Aphrodite.
See also more Borgesian fables: I Have a Rendezvous with Dread at Destination Echoville.
https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-have-rendezvous-with-dread-at.html
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