Minor Dialogues, Together With the Dialogue on Clemency
for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the
ground: it takes two men to fight. But[14] suppose that there is
an angry struggle on both sides, even then, he is the better man
who first gives way; the winner is the real loser. He struck you;
well then, do you fall back: if you strike him in turn you will
give him both an opportunity and an excuse for striking you again:
you will not be able to withdraw yourself from the struggle when
you please.
XXXV. Does any one wish to strike his enemy so hard, as to leave
his own hand in the wound, and not to be able to recover his balance
after the blow? yet such a weapon is anger: it is scarcely possible
to draw it back. We are careful to choose for ourselves light
weapons, handy and manageable swords: shall we not avoid these
clumsy, unwieldy,[15] and never-to-be-recalled impulses of the mind?
The only swiftness of which men approve is that which, when bidden,
checks itself and proceeds no further, and which can be guided, and
reduced from a run to a walk: we know that the sinews are diseased
when they move against our will. A man must be either aged or weakly
who runs when he wants to walk: let us think that those are the
most powerful and the soundest operations of our minds, which act
under our own control, not at their own caprice. Nothing, however,
will be of so much service as to consider, first, the hideousness,
and, secondly, the danger of anger. No passion bears a more troubled
aspect: it befouls the fairest face, makes fierce the expression
which before was peaceful. From the angry “all grace has fled;”
{112} though their clothing may be fashionable, they will trail it
on the ground and take no heed of their appearance; though their
hair be smoothed down in a comely manner by nature or art, yet it
will bristle up in sympathy with their mind. The veins become
swollen, the breast will be shaken by quick breathing, the man’s
neck will be swelled as he roars forth his frantic talk: then, too,
his limbs will tremble, his hands will be restless, his whole body
will sway hither and thither. What, think you, must be the state
of his mind within him, when its appearance without is so shocking?
how far more dreadful a countenance he bears within his own breast,
how far keener pride, how much more violent rage, which will burst
him unless it finds some vent? Let us paint anger looking like those
who are dripping with the blood of foemen or savage beasts, or those
who are just about to slaughter them—like those monsters of the
nether world fabled by the poet to be girt with serpents and breathing
flame, when they sally forth from hell, most frightful to behold,
in order that they may kindle wars, stir up strife between nations,
and overthrow peace; let us paint her eyes glowing with fire, her
voice hissing, roaring, grating, and making worse sounds if worse
there be, while she brandishes weapons in both hands, for she cares
not to protect herself, gloomy, stained with blood, covered with
scars and livid with her own blows, reeling like a maniac, wrapped
in a thick cloud, dashing hither and thither, spreading desolation
and panic, loathed by every one and by herself above all, willing,
if otherwise she cannot hurt her foe, to overthrow alike earth,
sea, and heaven, harmful and hateful at the same time. Or, if we
are to see her, let her be such as our poets have described her—
“There with her blood-stained scourge Bellona fights. And
Discord in her riven robe delights,”[16]
{113} or, if possible, let some even more dreadful aspect be invented
for this dreadful passion.
XXXVI. Some angry people, as Sextius remarks, have been benefited
by looking at the glass: they have been struck by so great an
alteration in their own appearance: they have been, as it were,
brought into their own presence and have not recognized themselves:
yet how small a part of the real hideousness of anger did that
reflected image in the mirror reproduce? Could the mind be displayed
or made to appear through any substance, we should be confounded
when we beheld how black and stained, how agitated, distorted, and
swollen it looked: even at present it is very ugly when seen through
all the screens of blood, bones, and so forth: what would it be,
were it displayed uncovered? You say, that you do not believe that
any one was ever scared out of anger by a mirror: and why not?
Because when he came to the mirror to change his mind, he had changed
it already: to angry men no face looks fairer than one that is
fierce and savage and such as they wish to look like. We ought
rather to consider, how many men anger itself has injured. Some in
their excessive heat have burst their veins; some by straining their
voices beyond their strength have vomited blood, or have injured
their sight by too violently injecting humours into their eyes, and
have fallen sick when the fit passed off. No way leads more swiftly
to madness: many have, consequently, remained always in the frenzy
of anger, and, having once lost their reason, have never recovered
it. Ajax was driven mad by anger, and driven to suicide by madness.
Men, frantic with rage, call upon heaven to slay their children,
to reduce themselves to poverty, and to ruin their houses, and yet
declare that they are not either angry or insane. Enemies to their
best friends, dangerous to their nearest and dearest, regardless
of the laws save where they injure, swayed by the smallest trifles,
unwilling to lend their ears {114} to the advice or the services
of their friends, they do everything by main force, and are ready
either to fight with their swords or to throw themselves upon them,
for the greatest of all evils, and one which surpasses all vices,
has gained possession of them. Other passions gain a footing in the
mind by slow degrees: anger’s conquest is sudden and complete, and,
moreover, it makes all other passions subservient to itself. It
conquers the warmest love: men have thrust swords through the bodies
of those whom they loved, and have slain those in whose arms they
have lain. Avarice, that sternest and most rigid of passions, is
trampled underfoot by anger, which forces it to squander its carefully
collected wealth and set fire to its house and all its property in
one heap. Why, has not even the ambitious man been known to fling
away the most highly valued ensigns of rank, and to refuse high
office when it was offered to him? There is no passion over which
anger does not bear absolute rule.
[1] “_Vehiculorum ridicule Koch_,” says Gertz, justly, “_vitiorum_
makes excellent sense.”—J. E. B. M.
[2] The murder of Pompeius, B.C. 48. Achillas and Theodotus acted
under the nominal orders of Ptolemy XII., Cleopatra’s brother, then
about seventeen years of age.
[3] See “De Clem.” ii. 6, 4, I emended many years ago ένὸς χανόντος
με ΤΕΣΧΗΚεν into ἐ. χ., με ΤΑΚΕΧΗΝεν ἄτερος: “when one has yawned,
the other yawns.”—J. E. B. M.
[4] The voting-place in the Campus Martius.
[5] Ovid, Metamorphoses, i., 144, sqq. The same lines are quoted
in the essay on Benefits, v. 15.
[6] _I.e._, he can plead that he kept the beaten track.
[7] De Clem. i. 12, 5.
[8] Compare Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar,” Act v. Sc. 5:—
“His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him, that
nature might stand up And say to all the world, _this was a
man!_”
See Mr. Aldis Wright’s note upon the passage.
[9] _Paedagogus_ was a slave who accompanied a boy to school, &c.,
to keep him out of mischief; he did not teach him anything.
[10] _Tempestiva_, beginning before the usual hour.
[11] Fear of self-condemnation.
[12] Lipsius conjectures _supprocax_, mischievous.
[13] I have adopted the transposition of Haase and Koch.
[14] I adopt Vahlen’s reading. See his Preface, p. viii., ed, Jenae,
1879.
[15] I read _onerosos_ with Vahlen, See his Preface, p, viii., ed,
Jenae, 1879.
[16] The lines are from Virgil, Aen. viii. 702, but are inaccurately
quoted.
{115}
THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO
NOVATUS.
OF ANGER.
Book III.
I. We will now, my Novatus, attempt to do that which you so especially
long to do, that is, to drive out anger from our minds, or at all
events to curb it and restrain its impulses. This may sometimes be
done openly and without concealment, when we are only suffering
from a slight attack of this mischief, and at other times it must
be done secretly, when our anger is excessively hot, and when every
obstacle thrown in its way increases it and makes it blaze higher.
It is important to know how great and how fresh its strength may
be, and whether it can be driven forcibly back and suppressed, or
whether we must give way to it until its first storm blow over,
lest it sweep away with it our remedies themselves. We must deal
with each case according to each man’s character: some yield to
entreaties, others are rendered arrogant and masterful by submission:
we may frighten some men out of their anger, while some may be
turned from their purpose by reproaches, some by acknowledging
oneself to be in the wrong, some by shame, and some by delay, a
tardy remedy for a hasty disorder, which we ought only to use when
all others have failed: {116} for other passions admit of having
their case put off, and may be healed at a later time; but the eager
and self-destructive violence of anger does not grow up by slow
degrees, but reaches its full height as soon as it begins. Nor does
it, like other vices, merely disturb men’s minds, but it takes them
away, and torments them till they are incapable of restraining
themselves and eager for the common ruin of all men, nor does it
rage merely against its object, but against every obstacle which
it encounters on its way. The other vices move our minds; anger
hurls them headlong. If we are not able to withstand our passions,
yet at any rate our passions ought to stand firm: but anger grows
more and more powerful, like lightning flashes or hurricanes, or
any other things which cannot stop themselves because they do not
proceed along, but fall from above. Other vices affect our judgment,
anger affects our sanity: others come in mild attacks and grow
unnoticed, but men’s minds plunge abruptly into anger. There is no
passion that is more frantic, more destructive to its own self; it
is arrogant if successful, and frantic if it fails. Even when
defeated it does not grow weary, but if chance places its foe beyond
its reach, it turns its teeth against itself. Its intensity is in
no way regulated by its origin: for it rises to the greatest heights
from the most trivial beginnings.
II. It passes over no time of life; no race of men is exempt from
it: some nations have been saved from the knowledge of luxury by
the blessing of poverty; some through their active and wandering
habits have escaped from sloth; those whose manners are unpolished
and whose life is rustic know not chicanery and fraud and all the
evils to which the courts of law give birth: but there is no race
which is not excited by anger, which is equally powerful with Greeks
and barbarians, and is just as ruinous among law-abiding folk as
among those whose only law is that of the {117} stronger. Finally,
the other passions seize upon individuals; anger is the only one
which sometimes possesses a whole state. No entire people ever fell
madly in love with a woman, nor did any nation ever set its affections
altogether upon gain and profit. Ambition attacks single individuals;
ungovernable rage is the only passion that affects nations. People
often fly into a passion by troops; men and women, old men and boys,
princes and populace all act alike, and the whole multitude, after
being excited by a very few words, outdoes even its exciter: men