Plutarch's Morals
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