Chapter 72: Judging the Audience

Verse 719
Two elders have gathered under a shade-giving tree to speak to a learned gathering. One inattentive young visitor raises his hand to ask them to repeat themselves, and they decline.

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Weaver’s Wisdom

Verse 711

Pure men of studied eloquence should study
an audience before speaking deliberate words.

Verse 712

Let good men who know the orator’s art knowingly await
the right moment to articulate their good knowledge.

Verse 713

Failing to assess an audience before venturing to speak
is to be unaware of the way of words and remain ineffective.

Verse 714

Be brilliant before brilliant men; but assume
the dullness of pale mortar before dullards.

Verse 715

Of all good things, the best is the polite reserve
that refrains from speaking first when with elders and superiors.

Verse 716

To blunder before perceptive, erudite men
is like slipping and falling from a very high place.

Verse 717

A learned man’s learning shines the brightest
among luminaries capable of critiquing his language.

Verse 718

Speaking to an audience of thinking men
is like watering a bed of growing plants.

Verse 719

Those who speak good things to good and learned gatherings
should never repeat them to ignorant groups, even forgetfully.

Verse 720

Expounding to a throng of unfit men
is like pouring sweet nectar into an open gutter.