Sec. I. _Sylla._ Those painters, Fundanus, seem to me to do well who,
before giving the finishing touches to their paintings, lay them by for
a time and then revise them; because by taking their eyes off them for a
time they gain by frequent inspection a new insight, and are more apt to
detect minute differences, that continuous familiarity would have
hidden. Now since a human being cannot so separate himself from himself
for a time, and make a break in his continuity, and then approach
himself again--and that is perhaps the chief reason why a man is a worse
judge of himself than of others--the next best thing will be for a man
to inspect his friends after an interval, and likewise offer himself to
their scrutiny, not to see whether he has aged quickly, or whether his
bodily condition is better or worse, but to examine his moral character,
and see whether time has added any good quality, or removed any bad one.
On my return then to Rome after an absence of two years, and having been
with you now five months, I am not at all surprised that there has been
a great increase and growth in those good points which you formerly had
owing to your admirable nature; but when I see how gentle and obedient
to reason your former excessive impetuosity and hot temper has become,
it cannot but occur to me to quote the line,
"Ye gods, how much more mild is he become!"[676]
And this mildness has not wrought in you sloth or weakness, but like
cultivation of the soil it has produced a smoothness and depth fit for
action, instead of the former impetuosity and vehemence. And so it is
clear that your propensity to anger has not been effaced by any
declining vigour or through some chance, but has been cured by good
precepts. And indeed, for I will tell you the truth, when our friend
Eros[677] reported this change in you to me, I suspected that owing to
goodwill he bare witness not of the actual state of the case, but of
what was becoming to all good and virtuous men, although, as you know,
he can never be persuaded to depart from his real opinion to ingratiate
himself with anyone. But now he is acquitted of false witness, and do
you, as your journey gives you leisure, narrate to me the mode of cure
you employed to make your temper so under control, so natural, gentle
and obedient to reason.
_Fundanus._ Most friendly Sylla, take care that you do not in your
goodwill and affection to me rest under any misconception of my real
condition. For it is possible that Eros, not being able always himself
to keep his temper in its place in the obedience that Homer speaks
of,[678] but sometimes carried away by his hatred of what is bad, may
think me grown milder than I really am, as in changes of the scale in
music the lowest notes become the highest.
_Sylla._ Neither of these is the case, Fundanus, but oblige me by doing
as I ask.
Sec. II. _Fundanus._ One of the excellent precepts then of Musonius that I
remember, Sylla, is this, that those who wish to be well should diet
themselves all their life long. For I do not think we must employ reason
as a cure, as we do hellebore, by purging it out with the disease, but
we must retain it in the soul, to restrain and govern the judgement. For
the power of reason is not like physic, but wholesome food, which
co-operates with good health in producing a good habit of body in those
by whom it is taken. But admonition and reproof, when passion is at its
height and swelling, does little or no good, but resembles very closely
those strong-smelling substances, that are able to set on their legs
again those that have fallen in epileptic fits, but cannot rid them of
their disease. For although all other passions, even at the moment of
their acme, do in some sort listen to reason and admit it into the soul,
yet anger does not, for, as Melanthius says,
"Fell things it does when it the mind unsettles,"
for it absolutely turns reason out of doors, and bolts it out, and, like
those persons who burn themselves and houses together, it makes all the
interior full of confusion and smoke and noise, so that what would be
advantageous can neither be seen nor heard. And so an empty ship in a
storm at open sea would sooner admit on board a pilot from without, than
a man in a tempest of rage and anger would listen to another's advice,
unless his own reason was first prepared to hearken. But as those who
expect a siege get together and store up supplies, when they despair of
relief from without, so ought we by all means to scour the country far
and wide to derive aids against anger from philosophy, and store them up
in the soul: for, when the time of need comes, we shall find it no easy
task to import them. For either the soul doesn't hear what is said
without because of the uproar, if it have not within its own reason
(like a boatswain as it were) to receive at once and understand every
exhortation; or if it does hear, it despises what is uttered mildly and
gently, while it is exasperated by harsh censure. For anger being
haughty and self-willed and hard to be worked upon by another, like a
fortified tyranny, must have someone born and bred within it[679] to
overthrow it.
Sec. III. Now long-continued anger, and frequent giving way to it, produces
an evil disposition of soul, which people call irascibility, and which
ends in passionateness, bitterness, and peevishness, whenever the mind
becomes sore and vexed at trifles and querulous at everyday occurrences,
like iron thin and beaten out too fine. But when the judgement checks
and suppresses at once the rising anger, it not only cures the soul for
the moment, but restores its tone and balance for the future. It has
happened to myself indeed twice or thrice, when I strongly fought
against anger, that I was in the same plight as the Thebans, who after
they had once defeated the Lacedaemonians, whom they had hitherto thought
invincible, never lost a battle against them again. I then felt
confident that reason can win the victory. I saw also that anger is not
only appeased by the sprinkling of cold water, as Aristotle attested,
but is also extinguished by the action of fear; aye, and, as Homer tells
us, anger has been cured and has melted away in the case of many by some
sudden joy. So that I came to the conclusion that this passion is not
incurable for those who wish to be cured. For it does not arise from
great and important causes, but banter and joking, a laugh or a nod, and
similar trifles make many angry, as Helen by addressing her niece,
"Electra, maiden now for no short time,"[680]
provoked her to reply,
"Your wisdom blossoms late, since formerly
You left your house in shame;"[681]
and Callisthenes incensed Alexander, by saying, when a huge cup was
brought to him, "I will not drink to Alexander till I shall require the
help of AEsculapius."
Sec. IV. As then it is easy to put out a flame kindled in the hair of hares
and in wicks and rubbish, but if it once gets hold of things solid and
thick, it quickly destroys and consumes them, "raging amidst the lofty
work of the carpenters," as AEschylus[682] says; so he that observes
anger in its rise, and sees it gradually smoking and bursting forth into
fire from some chatter or rubbishy scurrility, need have no great
trouble with it, but can frequently smother it merely by silence and
contempt. For as a person puts out a fire by bringing no fuel to it, so
with respect to anger, he that does not in the beginning fan it, and
stir up its rage in himself, keeps it off and destroys it. And so,
though Hieronymus has given us many useful sayings and precepts, I am
not pleased with his remark that there is no perception of anger in its
birth, but only in its actual developement, so quick is it. For none of
the passions when stirred up and set in motion has so palpable a birth
and growth as anger. As indeed Homer skilfully shows us, where he
represents Achilles as seized at once with grief, when word was brought
him _of Patroclus' death_, in the line,
"Thus spake he, and grief's dark cloud covered him;"[683]
whereas he represents him as waxing angry with Agamemnon slowly, and as
inflamed by his many words, which if either of them[684] had abstained
from, their quarrel would not have attained such growth and magnitude.
And so Socrates, as often as he perceived any anger rising in him
against any of his friends, "setting himself like some ocean promontory
to break the violence of the waves," would lower his voice, and put on a
smiling countenance, and give his eye a gentler expression, by inclining
in the other direction and running counter to his passion, thus keeping
himself from fall and defeat.
Sec. V. For the first way, my friend, to overcome anger, like the putting
down of some tyrant, is not to obey or listen to it when it bids you
speak loud, and look fierce, and beat yourself, but to remain quiet, and
not to make the passion more intense, as one would a disease, by tossing
about and crying out. In love affairs indeed, such things as revellings,
and serenadings, and crowning the loved one's door with garlands, may
indeed bring, some pleasant and elegant relief.
"I went, but asked not who or whose she was,
I merely kissed her door-post. If that be
A crime, I do plead guilty to the same."[685]
In the case of mourners also giving up to weeping and wailing takes away
with the tears much of the grief. But anger on the contrary is much more
fanned by what angry persons do and say. It is best therefore to be
calm, or to flee and hide ourselves and go to a haven of quiet, when we
feel the fit of temper coming upon us as an epileptic fit, that we fall
not, or rather fall not on others, for it is our friends that we fall
upon most and most frequently. For we do not love all, nor envy all, nor
fear all men; but nothing is untouched or unassailed by anger; for we
are angry with friends and enemies, parents and children, aye, and with
the gods, and beasts, and even things inanimate, as was Thamyris,
"Breaking his gold-bound horn, breaking the music
Of well-compacted lyre;"[686]
and Pandarus, who called down a curse upon himself, if he did not burn
his bow "after breaking it with his hands."[687] And Xerxes inflicted
stripes and blows on the sea, and sent letters to Mount Athos, "Divine
Athos, whose top reaches heaven, put not in the way of my works stones
large and difficult to deal with, or else I will hew thee down, and
throw thee into the sea." For anger has many formidable aspects, and
many ridiculous ones, so that of all the passions it is the most hated
and despised. It will be well to consider both aspects.
Sec. VI. To begin then, whether my process was wrong or right I know not,
but I began my cure of anger by noticing its effects in others, as the
Lacedaemonians study the nature of drunkenness in the Helots. And in the
first place, as Hippocrates tells us that disease is most dangerous in
which the face of the patient is most unlike himself, so observing that
people beside themselves with anger change their face, colour, walk, and
voice, I formed an impression as it were of that aspect of passion, and
was very disgusted with myself if ever I should appear so frightful and
like one out of his mind to my friends and wife and daughters, not only
wild and unlike oneself in appearance, but also with a voice savage and
harsh, as I had noticed in some[688] of my acquaintance, who could
neither preserve for anger their ordinary behaviour, or demeanour, or
grace of language, or persuasiveness and gentleness in conversation.
Caius Gracchus, indeed, the orator, whose character was harsh and style
of oratory impassioned, had a pitch-pipe made for him, such as musicians
use to heighten or lower their voices by degrees, and this, when he was
making a speech, a slave stood behind him and held, and used to give him
a mild and gentle note on it, whereby he lowered his key, and removed
from his voice the harsh and passionate element, charming and laying the
heat of the orator,
"As shepherds' wax-joined reed sounds musically
With sleep provoking strain."[689]
For myself if I had some elegant and sprightly companion, I should not
be vexed at his showing me a looking-glass in my fits of anger, as they
offer one to some after a bath to little useful end. For to behold
oneself unnaturally distorted in countenance will condemn anger in no
small degree. The poets playfully tell us that Athene when playing on
the pipe was rebuked thus by a Satyr,
"That look no way becomes you, take your armour,
Lay down your pipes, and do compose your cheeks,"
and though she paid no attention to him, yet afterwards when she saw her
face in a river, she felt vexed and threw her pipes away, although art
had made melody a compensation for her unsightliness. And Marsyas, it
seems, by a sort of mouthpiece forcibly repressed the violence of his
breath, and tricked up and hid the contortion of his face,
"Around his shaggy temples put bright gold,
And o'er his open mouth thongs tied behind."
Now anger, that puffs up and distends the face so as to look ugly,
utters a voice still more harsh and unpleasant,
"Moving the mind's chords undisturbed before."
They say that the sea is cleansed when agitated by the winds it throws
up tangle and seaweed; but the intemperate and bitter and vain words,
which the mind throws up when the soul is agitated, defile the speakers
of them first of all and fill them with infamy, as always having those
thoughts within their bosom and being defiled with them, but only giving
vent to them in anger. And so for a word which is, as Plato styles it,
"a very small matter," they incur a most heavy punishment, for they get
reputed to be enemies, and evil speakers, and malignant in disposition.
Sec. VII. Seeing and observing all this, it occurs to me to take it as a
matter of fact, and record it for my own general use, that if it is good
to keep the tongue soft and smooth in a fever, it is better to keep it
so in anger. For if the tongue of people in a fever be unnatural, it is
a bad sign, but not the cause of their malady; but the tongue of angry
people, being rough and foul, and breaking out into unseemly speeches,
produces insults that work irremediable mischief, and argue deep-rooted
malevolence within. For wine drunk neat does not exhibit the soul in so
ungovernable and hateful a condition as temper does: for the outbreaks
of the one smack of laughter and fun, while those of the other are
compounded with gall: and at a drinking-bout he that is silent is
burdensome to the company and tiresome, whereas in anger nothing is more
highly thought of than silence, as Sappho advises,
"When anger's busy in the brain
Thy idly-barking tongue restrain."
Sec. VIII. And not only does the consideration of all this naturally arise
from observing ourselves in the moments of anger, but we cannot help
seeing also the other properties of rage, how ignoble it is, how
unmanly, how devoid of dignity and greatness of mind! And yet to most
people its noise seems vigour, its threatening confidence, and its
obstinacy force of character; some even not wisely entitle its
savageness magnanimity, and its implacability firmness, and its morosity
hatred of what is bad. For their actions and motions and whole demeanour
argue great littleness and meanness, not only when they are fierce with
little boys, and peevish with women, and think it right to treat dogs
and horses and mules with harshness, as Otesiphon the pancratiast
thought fit to kick back a mule that had kicked him, but even in the
butcheries that tyrants commit their littleness of soul is apparent in
their savageness, and their suffering in their action, so that they are
like the bites of serpents, that, when they are burnt and smart with
pain, violently thrust their venom on those that have hurt them. For as
a swelling is produced in the flesh by a heavy blow, so in softest souls
the inclination to hurt others gets its greater strength from greater
weakness. Thus women are more prone to anger than men, and people ill
than people well, and old men than men in their prime, and the
unfortunate than the prosperous; the miser is most prone to anger with
his steward, the glutton with his cook, the jealous man with his wife,
the vain man when he is spoken ill of; and worst of all are those "men
who are too eager in states for office, or to head a faction, a manifest
sorrow," to borrow Pindar's words. So from the very great pain and
suffering of the soul there arises mainly from weakness anger, which is
not like the nerves of the soul, as some one defined it, but like its
strainings and convulsions when it is excessively vehement in its thirst
for revenge.
Sec. IX. Such bad examples as these were not pleasant to look at but
necessary, but I shall now proceed to describe people who have been mild
and easy in dealing with anger, conduct gratifying either to see or hear
about, being utterly disgusted[690] with people who use such language
as,
"You have a man wronged: shall a man stand this?"
and,
"Put your heel upon his neck, and dash his head against
the ground,"
and other provoking expressions such as these, by which some not well
have transferred anger from the woman's side of the house to the man's.
For manliness in all other respects seems to resemble justice, and to
differ from it only in respect to gentleness, with which it has more
affinities. For it sometimes happens to worse men to govern better ones,
but to erect a trophy in the soul against anger (which Heraclitus says
it is difficult to contend against, for whatever it wishes is bought at
the price of the soul), is a proof of power so great and victorious as
to be able to apply the judgement as if it were nerves and sinews to the
passions. So I always try to collect and peruse the remarks on this
subject not only of the philosophers, who foolish[691] people say had no
gall in their composition, but still more of kings and tyrants. Such was
the remark of Antigonus to his soldiers, when they were abusing him near
his tent as if he were not listening, so he put his staff out, and said,
"What's to do? can you not go rather farther off to run me down?" And
when Arcadio the Achaean, who was always railing against Philip, and
advising people to flee
"Unto a country where they knew not Philip,"
visited Macedonia afterwards on some chance or other, the king's friends
thought he ought to be punished and the matter not looked over; but
Philip treated him kindly, and sent him presents and gifts, and
afterwards bade inquiry to be made as to what sort of account of him
Arcadio now gave to the Greeks; and when all testified that the fellow
had become a wonderful praiser of the king, Philip said, "You see I knew
how to cure him better than all of you." And at the Olympian games when
there was defamation of Philip, and some of his suite said to him, that
the Greeks ought to smart for it, because they railed against him when
they were treated well by him, he replied, "What will they do then if
they are treated badly by me?" Excellent also was the behaviour of
Pisistratus to Thrasybulus, and of Porsena to Mucius, and of Magas to
Philemon. As to Magas, after he had been publicly jeered at by Philemon
in one of his comedies at the theatre in the following words,
"Magas, the king hath written thee a letter,
Unhappy Magas, since thou can'st not read,"
after having taken Philemon, who had been cast on shore by a storm at
Paraetonium, he commanded one of his soldiers only to touch his neck with
the naked sword and then to go away quietly, and dismissed him, after
sending him a ball and some dice as if he were a silly boy. And Ptolemy
on one occasion, flouting a grammarian for his ignorance, asked him who
was the father of Peleus, and he answered, "I will tell you, if you tell
me first who was the father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure
birth of the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it as an
unpardonable liberty; but Ptolemy said, "If it is not kingly to take a
flout, neither is it kingly to give one." And Alexander was more savage
than usual in his behaviour to Callisthenes and Clitus. So Porus, when
he was taken captive, begged Alexander to use him as a king. And on his
inquiring, "What, nothing more?" he replied "No. For everything is
included in being used as a king." So they call the king of the gods
Milichius,[692] while they call Ares Maimactes;[693] and punishment and
torture they assign to the Erinnyes and to demons, not to the gods or
Olympus.
Sec. X. As then a certain person passed the following remark on Philip when
he had razed Olynthus to the ground, "He certainly could not build such
another city," so we may say to anger, "You can root up, and destroy,
and throw down, but to raise up and save and spare and tolerate is the
work of mildness and moderation, the work of a Camillus, a Metellus, an
Aristides, a Socrates; but to sting and bite is to resemble the ant and
horse-fly. For, indeed, when I consider revenge, I find its angry method
to be for the most part ineffectual, since it spends itself in biting
the lips and gnashing the teeth, and in vain attacks, and in railings
coupled with foolish threats, and eventually resembles children running
races, who from feebleness ridiculously tumble down before they reach
the goal they are hastening to. So that speech of the Rhodian to a
lictor of the Roman praetor who was shouting and talking insolently was
not inapt, "It is no matter to me what you say, but what your master
thinks."[694] And Sophocles, when he had introduced Neoptolemus and
Eurypylus as armed for the battle, gives them this high
commendation,[695]
"They rushed into the midst of armed warriors,"
Some barbarians indeed poison their steel, but bravery has no need of
gall, being dipped in reason, but rage and fury are not invincible but
rotten. And so the Lacedaemonians by their pipes turn away the anger of
their warriors, and sacrifice to the Muses before commencing battle,
that reason may abide with them, and when they have routed a foe do not
follow up the victory,[696] but relax their rage, which like small
daggers they can easily take back. But anger kills myriads before it is
glutted with revenge, as happened in the case of Cyrus and Pelopidas the
Theban. But Agathocles bore mildly the revilings of those he was
besieging, and when one of them cried out, "Potter, how are you going to
get money to pay your mercenaries?" he replied laughingly, "Out of your
town if I take it." And when some of those on the wall threw his
ugliness into the teeth of Antigonus, he said to them, "I thought I was
rather a handsome fellow." But after he had taken the town, he sold for
slaves those that had flouted him, protesting that, if they insulted him
again, he would bring the matter before their masters. I have noticed
also that hunters and orators are very unsuccessful when they give way
to anger.[697] And Aristotle tells us that the friends of Satyrus
stopped up his ears with wax when he was to plead a cause, that he might
not make any confusion in the case through rage at the abuse of his
enemies. And does it not frequently happen with ourselves that a slave
who has offended escapes punishment, because they abscond in fear of our
threats and harsh words? What nurses then say to children, "Give up
crying, and you shall have it," may usefully be applied to anger, thus,
"Do not be in a hurry, or bawl out, or be vehement, and you will sooner
and better get what you want." For a father, seeing his boy trying to
cut or cleave something with a knife, takes the knife from him and does
it himself: and similarly a person, taking revenge out of the hand of
passion, does himself safely and usefully and without harm punish the
person who deserves punishment, and not himself instead, as anger often
does.
Sec. XI. Now though all the passions need such discipline as by exercise
shall tame and subdue their unreasoning and disobedient elements, yet
there is none which we ought to keep under by such discipline so much as
the exhibition of anger to our servants. For neither envy, nor fear, nor
rivalry come into play between them and us; but our frequent displays of
anger to them, creating many offences and faults, make us to slip as if
on slippery ground owing to our autocracy with our servants, which no
one resists or prevents. For it is impossible to check irresponsible
power so as never to break out under the influence of passion, unless
one wields power with much meekness, and refuses to listen to the
frequent complaints of one's wife and friends charging one with being
too easy and lax with one's servants. And by nothing have I been more
exasperated against them, as if they were being ruined for want of
correction. At last, though late, I got to see that in the first place
it is better to make them worse by forbearance, than by bitterness and
anger to distort oneself for the correction of others. In the next place
I observed that many for the very reason that they were not corrected
were frequently ashamed to be bad, and made pardon rather than
punishment the commencement of their reformation, aye, and made better
slaves to some merely at their nod silently and cheerfully than to
others with all their beatings and brandings, and so I came to the
conclusion that reason gets better obeyed than temper, for it is not as
the poet said,
"Where there is fear, there too is self-respect,"
but it is just the other way about, for self-respect begets that kind of
fear that corrects the behaviour. But perpetual and pitiless beating
produces not so much repentance for wrong-doing as contrivances to
continue in it without detection. In the third place, ever remembering
and reflecting within myself that, just as he that teaches us the use of
the bow does not forbid us to shoot but only to miss the mark, so it
will not prevent punishment altogether to teach people to do it in
season, and with moderation, utility, and decorum, I strive to remove
anger most especially by not forbidding those who are to be corrected to
speak in their defence, but by listening to them. For the interval of
time gives a pause to passion, and a delay that mitigates it, and so
judgement finds out both the fit manner and adequate amount of
punishment. Moreover he that is punished has nothing to allege against
his correction, if he is punished not in anger but only after his guilt
is brought home to him. And the greatest disgrace will not be incurred,
which is when the servant seems to speak more justly than the master. As
then Phocion, after the death of Alexander, to stop the Athenians from
revolting and believing the news too soon, said to them, "Men of Athens,
if he is dead to-day, he will certainly also be dead to-morrow and the
next day," so I think the man who is in a hurry to punish anyone in his
rage ought to consider with himself, "If this person has wronged you
to-day, he will also have wronged you to-morrow and the next day; and
there will be no harm done if he shall be punished somewhat late;
whereas if he shall be punished at once, he will always seem to you to
have been innocent, as has often happened before now." For which of us
is so savage as to chastise and scourge a slave because five or ten days
before he over-roasted the meat, or upset the table, or was somewhat
tardy on some errand? And yet these are the very things for which we put
ourselves out and are harsh and implacable, immediately after they have
happened and are recent. For as bodies seem greater in a mist, so do
little matters in a rage. We ought therefore to consider such arguments
as these at once, and if, when there is no trace of passion left, the
matter appear bad to calm and clear reason, then it ought to be taken in
hand, and the punishment ought not to be neglected or abandoned, as we
leave food when we have lost our appetites. For nothing causes people to
punish so much when their anger is fierce, as that when it is appeased
they do not punish at all, but forget the matter entirely, and resemble
lazy rowers, who lie in harbour when the sea is calm, and then sail out
to their peril when the wind gets up. So we, condemning reason for
slackness and mildness in punishing, are in a hurry to punish, borne
along by passion as by a dangerous gale. He that is hungry takes his
food as nature dictates, but he that punishes should have no hunger or
thirst for it, nor require anger as a sauce to stimulate him to it, but
should punish when he is as far as possible from having any desire for
it, and has to compel his reason to it. For we ought not, as Aristotle
tells us slaves in his time were scourged in Etruria to the music of the
flute, to go headlong into punishing with a desire and zest for it, and
to delight in punishing, and then afterwards to be sorry at it--for the
first is savage, and the last womanish--but we should without either
sorrow or pleasure chastise at the dictates of reason, giving anger no
opportunity to interfere.
Sec. XII. But this perhaps will not appear a cure of anger so much as a
putting away and avoiding such faults as men commit in anger. And yet,
though the swelling of the spleen is only a symptom of fever, the fever
is assuaged by its abating, as Hieronymus tells us. Now when I
contemplated the origin of anger itself, I observed that, though
different persons fell into it for different reasons, yet in nearly all
of them was the idea of their being despised and neglected to be found.
So we ought to help those who try to get rid of anger, by removing as
far as possible from them any action savouring of contempt or contumely,
and by looking upon their anger as folly or necessity, or emotion, or
mischance, as Sophocles says,
"In those that are unfortunate, O king,
No mind stays firm, but all their balance lose."[698]
And so Agamemnon, ascribing to Ate his carrying off Briseis, yet says to
Achilles,
"I wish to please you in return, and give
Completest satisfaction."[699]
For suing is not the action of one who shews his contempt, and when he
that has done an injury is humble he removes all idea of slighting one.
But the angry person must not expect this, but rather take to himself
the answer of Diogenes, who, when it was said to him, "These people
laugh at you," replied, "But I am not one to be laughed at," and not
think himself despised, but rather despise the person who gave the
offence, as acting from weakness, or error, or rashness, or
heedlessness, or illiberality, or old age, or youth. Nor must we
entertain such notions with regard to our servants and friends. For they
do not despise us as void of ability or energy, but owing to our
evenness and good-nature, some because we are mild, and others presuming
on our affection for them. But as it is we not only fly into rages with
wife and slaves and friends, as if we were slighted by them, but we also
frequently, from forming the same idea of being slighted, fall foul of
innkeepers and sailors and muleteers, and are vexed at dogs that bark
and asses that are in our way: like the man who was going to beat an
ass-driver, but when he cried out he was an Athenian, he said to the
ass, "You are not an Athenian anyway," and beat it with many stripes.
Sec. XIII. Moreover those continuous and frequent fits of anger that gather
together in the soul by degrees, like a swarm of bees or wasps, are
generated within us by selfishness and peevishness, luxury and softness.
And so nothing causes us to be mild to our servants and wife and friends
so much as easiness and simplicity, and the learning to be content with
what we have, and not to require a quantity of superfluities.
"He who likes not his meat if over-roast
Or over-boiled, or under-roast or under-boiled,
And never praises it however dressed,"
but will not drink unless he have snow to cool his drink, nor eat bread
purchased in the market, nor touch food served on cheap or earthenware
plates, nor sleep upon any but a feather bed that rises and falls like
the sea stirred up from its depths, and with rods and blows hastens his
servants at table, so that they run about and cry out and sweat as if
they were bringing poultices to sores, he is slave to a weak querulous
and discontented mode of life, and, like one who has a continual cough
or various ailments, whether he is aware of it or not, he is in an
ulcerous and catarrh-like condition as regards his proneness to anger.
We must therefore train the body to contentment by plain living, that it
may be easily satisfied: for they that require little do not miss much;
and it is no great hardship to begin with our food, and take it silently
whatever it is, and not by being choleric and peevish to thrust upon
ourselves and friends the worst sauce to meat, anger.
"No more unpleasant supper could there be"[700]
than that wherein the servants are beaten, and the wife scolded, because
something is burnt or smoked or not salt enough, or because the bread is
too cold. Arcesilaus was once entertaining some friends and strangers,
and when dinner was served, there was no bread, through the servants
having neglected to buy any. In such a case as this which of us would
not have broken the walls with vociferation? But he only smiled and
said, "How unfit a sage is to give an entertainment!" And when Socrates
once took Euthydemus home with him from the wrestling-school, Xanthippe
was in a towering rage, and scolded, and at last upset the table, and
Euthydemus rose and went away full of sorrow. But Socrates said to him,
"Did not a hen at your house the other day fly in and act in the very
same way? And we did not put ourselves out about it." We ought to
receive our friends with gaiety and smiles and welcome, not knitting our
brows, or inspiring fear and trembling in the attendants. We ought also
to accustom ourselves to the use of any kind of ware at table, and not
to stint ourselves to one kind rather than another, as some pick out a
particular tankard or horn, as they say Marius did, out of many, and
will not drink out of anything else; and some act in the same way with
regard to oil-flasks and scrapers,[701] being content with only one out
of all, and so, if such an article is broken or lost, they are very much
put out about it, and punish with severity. He then that is prone to
anger should not use rare and dainty things, such as choice cups and
seals and precious stones: for if they are lost they put a man beside
himself much more than the loss of ordinary and easily got things would
do. And so when Nero had got an eight-cornered tent constructed, a
wonderful object both for its beauty and costliness, Seneca said to him,
"You have now shown yourself to be poor, for if you should lose this,
you will not be able to procure such another." And indeed it did so
happen that the tent was lost by shipwreck, but Nero bore its loss
patiently, remembering what Seneca had said. Now this easiness about
things generally makes a man also easy and gentle to his servants, and
if to them, then it is clear he will be so to his friends also, and to
all that serve under him in any capacity. So we observe that
newly-purchased slaves do not inquire about the master who has bought
them, whether he is superstitious or envious, but only whether he is a
bad-tempered man: and generally speaking we see that neither can men put
up with chaste wives, nor wives with loving husbands, nor friends with
one another, if they be ill-tempered to boot. So neither marriage nor
friendship is bearable with anger, though without anger even drunkenness
is a small matter. For the wand of Dionysus punishes sufficiently the
drunken man, but if anger be added it turns wine from being the
dispeller of care and inspirer of the dance into a savage and fury. And
simple madness can be cured by Anticyra,[702] but madness mixed with
anger is the producer of tragedies and dreadful narratives.
Sec. XIV. So we ought to give anger no vent, either in jest, for that draws
hatred to friendliness; or in discussion, for that turns love of
learning into strife; or on the judgement-seat, for that adds insolence
to power; or in teaching, for that produces dejection and hatred of
learning: or in prosperity, for that increases envy; or in adversity,
for that deprives people of compassion, when they are peevish and run
counter to those who condole with them, like Priam,
"A murrain on you, worthless wretches all,
Have you no griefs at home, that here you come
To sympathize with me?"[703]
Good temper on the other hand is useful in some circumstances, adorns
and sweetens others, and gets the better of all peevishness and anger by
its gentleness. Thus Euclides,[704] when his brother said to him in a
dispute between them, "May I perish, if I don't have my revenge on you!"
replied, "May I perish, if I don't persuade you!" and so at once turned
and changed him. And Polemo, when a man reviled him who was fond of
precious stones and quite crazy for costly seal-rings, made no answer,
but bestowed all his attention on one of his seal-rings, and eyed it
closely; and he being delighted said, "Do not look at it so, Polemo, but
in the light of the sun, and it will appear to you more beautiful." And
Aristippus, when there was anger between him and AEschines, and somebody
said, "O Aristippus, where is now your friendship?" replied, "It is
asleep, but I will wake it up," and went to AEschines, and said to him,
"Do I seem to you so utterly unfortunate and incurable as to be unworthy
of any consideration?" And AEschines replied, "It is not at all wonderful
that you, being naturally superior to me in all things, should have been
first to detect in this matter too what was needful."
"For not a woman only, but young child
Tickling the bristly boar with tender hand,
Will lay him prostrate sooner than an athlete."
But we that tame wild beasts and make them gentle, and carry in our arms
young wolves and lions' whelps, inconsistently repel our children and
friends and acquaintances in our rage, and let loose our temper like
some wild beast on our servants and fellow-citizens, speciously trying
to disguise it not rightly under the name of hatred of evil, but it is,
I suppose, as with the other passions and diseases of the soul, we
cannot get rid of any of them by calling one prudence, and another
liberality, and another piety.
Sec. XV. And yet, as Zeno said the seed was a mixture and compound drawn
from all the faculties of the soul, so anger seems a universal seed from
all the passions. For it is drawn from pain and pleasure and
haughtiness, and from envy it gets its property of malignity--and it is
even worse than envy,[705] for it does not mind its own suffering if it
can only implicate another in misery--and the most unlovely kind of
desire is innate in it, namely the appetite for injuring another. So
when we go to the houses of spendthrifts we hear a flute-playing girl
early in the morning, and see "the dregs of wine," as one said, and
fragments of garlands, and the servants at the doors reeking of
yesterday's debauch; but for tokens of savage and peevish masters these
you will see by the faces, and marks, and manacles of their servants:
for in the house of an angry man
"The only music ever heard is wailing,"
stewards being beaten within, and maids tortured, so that the spectators
even in their jollity and pleasure pity these victims of passion.
Sec. XVI. Moreover those to whom it happens through their genuine hatred of
what is bad to be frequently overtaken by anger, can abate its excess
and acerbity by giving up their excessive confidence in their intimates.
For nothing swells the anger more, than when a good man is detected of
villainy, or one who we thought loved us falls out and jangles with us.
As for my own disposition, you know of course how mightily it inclines
to goodwill and belief in mankind. As then people walking on empty
space,[706] the more confidently I believe in anybody's affection, the
more sorrow and distress do I feel if my estimate is a mistaken one. And
indeed I could never divest myself of my ardour and zeal in affection,
but as to trusting people I could perhaps use Plato's caution as a curb.
For he said he so praised Helicon the mathematician, because he was by
nature a changeable animal, but that he was afraid of those that were
well educated in the city, lest, being human beings and the seed of
human beings, they should reveal by some trait or other the weakness of
human nature. But Sophocles' line,
"Trace out most human acts, you'll find them base,"
seems to trample on human nature and lower its merits too much. Still
such a peevish and condemnatory verdict as this has a tendency to make
people milder in their rage, for it is the sudden and unexpected that
makes people go distracted. And we ought, as Panaetius somewhere said, to
imitate Anaxagoras, and as he said at the death of his son, "I knew that
I had begotten a mortal," so ought every one of us to use the following
kind of language in those contretemps that stir up our anger, "I knew
that the slave I bought was not a philosopher," "I knew that the friend
I had was not perfect," "I knew that my wife was but a woman." And if
anyone would also constantly put to himself that question of Plato, "Am
I myself all I should be?" and look at home instead of abroad, and curb
his propensity to censoriousness, he would not be so keen to detect evil
in others, for he would see that he stood in need of much allowance
himself. But now each of us, when angry and punishing, quote the words
of Aristides and Cato, "Do not steal, Do not tell lies," and "Why are
you lazy?" And, what is most disgraceful of all, we blame angry people
when we are angry ourselves, and chastise in temper faults that were
committed in temper, unlike the doctors who
"With bitter physic purge the bitter bile,"
for we rather increase and aggravate the disease. Whenever then I busy
myself with such considerations as these, I try also to curtail my
curiosity. For to scrutinize and pry into everything too minutely, and
to overhaul every business of a servant, or action of a friend, or
pastime of a son, or whisper of a wife, produces frequent, indeed daily,
fits of anger, caused entirely by peevishness and harshness of
character. Euripides says that the Deity
"In great things intervenes, but small things leaves
To fortune;"[707]
but I am of opinion that a prudent man should commit nothing to fortune,
nor neglect anything, but should put some things in his wife's hands to
manage, others in the hands of his servants, others in the hands of his
friends, (as a governor has his stewards, and financiers, and
controllers), while he himself superintends the most important and
weighty matters. For as small writing strains the eyes, so small matters
even more strain and bother people, and stir up their anger, which
carries this evil habit to greater matters. Above all I thought that
saying of Empedocles, "Fast from evil,"[708] a great and divine one, and
I approved of those promises and vows as not ungraceful or
unphilosophical, to abstain for a year from wine and Venus, honouring
the deity by continence, or for a stated time to give up lying, taking
great heed to ourselves to be truthful always whether in play or
earnest. With these I compared my own vow, as no less pleasing to the
gods and holy, first to abstain from anger for a few days, like spending
days without drunkenness or even without wine at all, offering as it
were wineless offerings of honey.[709] Then I tried for a month or two,
and so in time made some progress in forbearance by earnest resolve, and
by keeping myself courteous and without anger and using fair language,
purifying myself from evil words and absurd actions, and from passion
which for a little unlovely pleasure pays us with great mental
disturbance and the bitterest repentance. In consequence of all this my
experience, and the assistance of the deity, has made me form the view,
that courtesy and gentleness and kindliness are not so agreeable, and
pleasant, and delightful, to any of those we live with as to ourselves,
that have those qualities.[710]
[676] Homer, "Iliad," xxii. 373.
[677] Alluded to again "On the tranquillity of the
mind," Sec. i.
[678] The allusion is to Homer's "Odyssey," xx. 23.
[679] Reading [Greek: ex heautou] with Reiske.
[680] Euripides, "Orestes," 72.
[681] Euripides, "Orestes," 99.
[682] Fragment 361.
[683] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 591.
[684] The reading of the MSS. is [Greek: auton].
[685] Lines of Callimachus. [Greek: phlien] is the
admirable emendation of Salmasius.
[686] Sophocles, "Thamyras," Fragm. 232.
[687] "Iliad," v. 214-216.
[688] Reading [Greek: eniois], as Wyttenbach suggests.
[689] Aeschylus, "Prometheus," 574, 575.
[690] It will be seen I adopt the reading and
punctuation of Xylander.
[691] This is the reading of Reiske and Duebner.
[692] That is _mild_. Zeus is so called, Pausanias, i.
37; ii. 9, 20.
[693] That is, _fierce_, _furious_. It will be seen I
adopt the suggestion of Reiske.
[694] Literally "is silent about." It is like the saying
about Von Moltke that he can be silent in six or seven
languages.
[695] Adopting Reiske's reading.
[696] Compare Pausanias, iv. 8.
[697] Duebner puts this sentence in brackets.
[698] Sophocles, "Antigone," 563, 564.
[699] Homer, "Iliad," xix. 138.
[700] Homer, "Odyssey," xx. 392.
[701] Or strigils.
[702] Anticyra was famous for its hellebore, which was
prescribed in cases of madness. See Horace, "Satires,"
ii. 3. 82, 83.
[703] Homer, "Iliad," xxiv. 239, 240.
[704] A philosopher of Megara, and disciple of Socrates.
Compare our author, "De Fraterno Amore," Sec. xviii.
[705] So Reiske. Duebner reads [Greek: phobou]. The MSS.
have [Greek: phonou], which Wyttenbach retains, but is
evidently not quite satisfied with the text. Can [Greek:
phthonou]--[Greek: heteron] be an account of [Greek:
epichairekakia]?
[706] Up in the clouds. Cf. [Greek: aerobateo].
[707] Horace, remembering these lines no doubt, says "De
Arte Poetica," 191, 192,
"Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit."
[708] It is quite likely that the delicious poet Robert
Herrick borrowed hence his "To starve thy sin not bin,
That is to keep thy Lent." For we know he was a student
of the "Moralia" when at the University of Cambridge.
[709] See AEschylus, "Eumenides," 107. Sophocles,
"Oedipus Colonaeus," 481. See also our author's "De
Sanitate Praecepta," Sec. xix.
[710] Jeremy Taylor has closely imitated parts of this
Dialogue in his "Holy Living," chapter iv. sect. viii.,
"Twelve remedies against anger, by way of exercise,"
"Thirteen remedies against anger, by way of
consideration." Such a storehouse did he make of the
"Moralia."