Plutarch's Morals Part 30

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 a.s.ses that are in our way: like the man who was going to beat an a.s.s-driver, but when he cried out he was an Athenian, he said to the a.s.s, "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 quant.i.ty 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 p.r.o.neness 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 sc.r.a.pers,[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 p.r.o.ne 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 superst.i.tious 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 compa.s.sion, 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]

Good temper on the other hand is useful in some circ.u.mstances, 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 aeschines, and somebody said, "O Aristippus, where is now your friendship?" replied, "It is asleep, but I will wake it up," and went to aeschines, and said to him, "Do I seem to you so utterly unfortunate and incurable as to be unworthy of any consideration?" And aeschines 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 pa.s.sions 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 pa.s.sions. For it is drawn from pain and pleasure and haughtiness, and from envy it gets its property of malignity--and it is even worse 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 appet.i.te 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 pa.s.sion.

-- 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 s.p.a.ce,[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 much. 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 Panaetius 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 hands 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sistance 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.[710]

[676] Homer, "Iliad," xxii. 373.

[677] Alluded to again "On the tranquillity of the mind," -- i.

[678] The allusion is to Homer's "Odyssey," xx. 23.

[679] Reading [Greek: ex heautou] with Reiske.

[680] Euripides, "Orestes," 72.

[681] Euripides, "Orestes," 99.

[682] Fragment 361.

[683] Homer, "Iliad," xvii. 591.

[684] The reading of the MSS. is [Greek: auton].

[685] Lines of Callimachus. [Greek: phlien] is the admirable emendation of Salmasius.

[686] Sophocles, "Thamyras," Fragm. 232.

[687] "Iliad," v. 214-216.

[688] Reading [Greek: eniois], as Wyttenbach suggests.

[689] Aeschylus, "Prometheus," 574, 575.

[690] It will be seen I adopt the reading and punctuation of Xylander.

[691] This is the reading of Reiske and Dubner.

[692] That is _mild_. Zeus is so called, Pausanias, i.

37; ii. 9, 20.

[693] That is, _fierce_, _furious_. It will be seen I adopt the suggestion of Reiske.

[694] Literally "is silent about." It is like the saying about Von Moltke that he can be silent in six or seven languages.

[695] Adopting Reiske's reading.

[696] Compare Pausanias, iv. 8.

[697] Dubner puts this sentence in brackets.

[698] Sophocles, "Antigone," 563, 564.