A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SYLLA AND FUNDANUS.
§ 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 or268 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 Eros677 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.
269§ 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 a270 fortified tyranny, must have someone born
and bred within it679 to overthrow it.
§ 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
Lacedæmonians, 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 Æsculapius."
§ 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
271carpenters," as Æschylus682 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 them684 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.
§ 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 272one'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.
§ 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 Lacedæmonians 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 273change 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 some688 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."
274Now 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.
§ 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."
§ 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,275 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
Ctesiphon 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.
§ 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 disgusted690 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 276side 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 foolish691 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 Achæan, 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,
277 "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 Parætonium, 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.
§ 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 278lictor of
the Roman prætor 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 Lacedæmonians 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 279and 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.
§ 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 280within 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,281 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.
§ 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 282all 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.
§ 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 an283 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 284himself 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.
§ 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
285Good 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 Æschines, and somebody
said, "O Aristippus, where is now your friendship?" replied, "It is
asleep, but I will wake it up," and went to Æschines, and
said to him, "Do I seem to you so utterly unfortunate and incurable
as to be unworthy of any consideration?" And Æschines
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.
§ 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 286worse 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.
§ 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 287much. 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 Panætius 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 288hands 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
