Chapter 72: Judging the Audience
Kural 711
Pure men of studied eloquence should study
an audience before speaking deliberate words.
Kural 712
Let good men who know the orator's art knowingly await
the right moment to articulate their good knowledge.
Kural 713
Failing to assess an audience before venturing to speak
is to be unaware of the way of words and remain ineffective.
Kural 714
Be brilliant before brilliant men; but assume
the dullness of pale mortar before dullards.
Kural 715
Of all good things, the best is the polite reserve
that refrains from speaking first when with elders and superiors.
Kural 716
To blunder before perceptive, erudite men
is like slipping and falling from a very high place.
Kural 717
A learned man's learning shines the brightest
among luminaries capable of critiquing his language.
Kural 718
Speaking to an audience of thinking men
is like watering a bed of growing plants.
Kural 719
Those who speak good things to good and learned gatherings
should never repeat them to ignorant groups, even forgetfully.
Kural 720
Expounding to a throng of unfit men
is like pouring sweet nectar into an open gutter.