Plutarch's Morals
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,