Since I so foolish was as thee to wrong,
I’ll please thee now, and give thee splendid gifts.[23]
For supplication is an act of one who is far from contemning; and when
he that hath done an injury appears submissive, he thereby removes all
suspicion of contempt. But he that is moved to anger must not expect or
wait for such a submission, but must rather take to himself the saying
of Diogenes, who, when one said to him, They deride thee, O Diogenes,
made answer, But I am not derided; and he must not think himself
contemned, but rather himself contemn that man that offends him, as one
acting out of weakness or error, rashness or carelessness, rudeness or
dotage, or childishness. But, above all, we must bear with our servants
and friends herein; for surely they do not despise us as being impotent
or slothful, but they think less of us by reason of our very moderation
or good-will towards them, some because we are gentle, others because
we are loving towards them. But now, alas! out of a surmise that we
are contemned, we not only become exasperated against our wives, our
servants, and friends, but we oftentimes fall out also with drunken
innkeepers, and mariners and ostlers, and all out of a suspicion that
they despise us. Yea, we quarrel with dogs because they bark at us, and
asses if they chance to rush against us; like him who was going to beat
a driver of asses, but when the latter cried out, I am an Athenian,
fell to beating the ass, saying, Thou surely art not an Athenian too,
and so accosted him with many a bastinado.
13. And especially self-love and morosity, together with luxury and
effeminacy, breed in us long and frequent fits of anger, which by
little and little are gathered together into our souls, like a swarm of
bees or wasps. Wherefore there is nothing more conducing to a gentle
behavior towards our wife and servants and friends than contentedness
and simplicity, if we can be satisfied with what we have, and not stand
in need of many superfluities. Whereas the man described in the poet,—
Who never is content with boiled or roast,
Nor likes his meat, what way soever drest,—
who can never drink unless he have snow by him, or eat bread if it
be bought in the market, or taste victuals out of a mean or earthen
vessel, or sleep on a bed unless it be swelled and puffed up with
feathers, like to the sea when it is heaved up from the bottom; but
who with cudgels and blows, with running, calling, and sweating doth
hasten his servitors that wait at table, as if they were sent for
plasters for some inflamed ulcer, he being slave to a weak, morose, and
fault-finding style of life,—doth, as it were by a continual cough
or many buffetings, breed in himself, before he is aware, an ulcerous
and defluxive disposition unto anger. And therefore the body is to be
accustomed to contentment by frugality, and so be made sufficient for
itself. For they who need but few things are not disappointed of many;
and it is no hard matter, beginning with our food, to accept quietly
whatever is sent to us, and not by being angry and querulous at every
thing, to entertain ourselves and our friends with the most unpleasant
dish of all, which is anger. And surely