Sec. II. As we must not disregard their weakness, so neither again must we praise that rigid and stubborn insensibility, "that recklessness and frantic energy to rush anywhere, that seemed like a dog's courage in Anaxarchus."[640] But we must contrive a harmonious blending of the two, that shall remove the shamelessness of pertinacity, and the weakness of excessive modesty; seeing its cure is difficult, and the correction of such excesses not without danger. For as the husbandman, in rooting up some wild and useless weed, at once plunges his spade vigorously into the ground, and digs it up by the root, or burns it with fire, but if he has to do with a vine that needs pruning, or some apple-tree, or olive, he puts his hand to it very carefully, being afraid of injuring any sound part; so the philosopher, eradicating from the soul of the young man that ignoble and untractable weed, envy, or unseasonable avarice, or amputating the excessive love of pleasure, may bandage and draw blood, make deep incision, and leave scars: but if he has to apply reason as a corrective to a tender and delicate part of the soul, such as shyness and bashfulness, he is careful that he may not inadvertently root up modesty as well. For nurses who are often rubbing the dirt off their infants sometimes tear their flesh and put them to torture. We ought not therefore, by rubbing off the shyness of youths too much, to make them too careless and contemptuous; but as those that pull down houses close to temples prop up the adjacent parts, so in trying to get rid of shyness we must not eradicate with it the virtues akin to it, as modesty and meekness and mildness, by which it insinuates itself and becomes part of a man's character, flattering the bashful man that he has a nature courteous and civil and affable, and not hard as flint or self-willed. And so the Stoics from the outset verbally distinguished shame and shyness from modesty, that they might not by identity of name give the vice opportunity to inflict harm. But let it be granted to us to use the words indiscriminately, following indeed the example of Homer. For he said,

"Modesty does both harm and good to men;"[641]

and he did well to mention the harm it does first. For it becomes advantageous only through reason's curtailing its excess, and reducing it to moderate proportions.

Sec. III. In the first place, then, the person who is afflicted with shyness ought to be persuaded that he suffers from an injurious disease, and that nothing injurious can be good: nor must he be wheedled and tickled with the praise of being called a nice and jolly fellow rather than being styled lofty and dignified and just; nor, like Pegasus in Euripides, "who stooped and crouched lower than he wished"[642] to take up his rider Bellerophon, must he humble himself and grant whatever favours are asked him, fearing to be called hard and ungentle. They say that the Egyptian Bocchoris, who was by nature very severe, had an asp sent him by Isis, which coiled round his head, and shaded him from above, that he might judge righteously. Bashfulness on the contrary, like a dead weight on languid and effeminate persons, not daring to refuse or contradict anybody, makes jurors deliver unjust verdicts, and shuts the mouth of counsellors, and makes people say and do many things against their wish; and so the most headstrong person is always master and lord of such, through his own impudence prevailing against their modesty. So bashfulness, like soft and sloping ground, being unable to repel or avert any attack, lies open to the most shameful acts and passions. It is a bad guardian of youth, as Brutus said he didn't think that person had spent his youth well who had not learnt how to say No. It is a bad duenna of the bridal bed and of women's apartments, as the penitent adultress in Sophocles said to her seducer,

"You did persuade, and coax me into sin."[643]

Thus shyness, being first seduced by vice,[644] leaves its citadel unbarred, unfortified, and open to attack. By gifts people ensnare the worse natures, but by persuasion and playing upon their bashfulness people often seduce even good women. I pass over the injury done to worldly affairs by bashfulness causing people to lend to those whose credit is doubtful, and to go security against their wish, for though they commend that saying, "Be a surety, trouble is at hand,"[645] they cannot apply it when business is on hand.

Sec. IV. It would not be easy to enumerate how many this vice has ruined. When Creon said to Medea,

"Lady, 'tis better now to earn your hate, Than through my softness afterwards to groan,"[646]

he uttered a pregnant maxim for others; for he himself was overcome by his bashfulness, and granted her one day more, and so was the undoing of his family. And some, when they suspected murder or poison, have failed through it to take precautions for their safety. Thus perished Dion, not ignorant that Callippus was plotting against him, but ashamed to be on his guard against a friend and host. So Antipater, the son of Cassander, having invited Demetrius to supper, and being invited back by him for the next day, was ashamed to doubt another as he had been trusted himself, and went, and got his throat cut after supper. And Polysperchon promised Cassander for a hundred talents to murder Hercules, the son of Alexander by Barsine, and invited him to supper, and, as the stripling suspected and feared the invitation, and pleaded as an excuse that he was not very well, Polysperchon called on him, and addressed him as follows, "Imitate, my lad, your father's good-nature and kindness to his friends, unless indeed you fear us as plotting against you." The young man was ashamed to refuse any longer, so he went with him, and some of those at the supper-party strangled him. And so that line of Hesiod,[647]

"Invite your friend to supper, not your enemy,"

is not ridiculous, as some say, or stupid advice, but wise. Show no bashfulness in regard to an enemy, and do not suppose him trustworthy, though he may seem so.[648] For if you invite you will be invited back, and if you entertain others you will be entertained back to your hurt, if you let the temper as it were of your caution be weakened by shame.

Sec. V. As then this disease is the cause of much mischief, we must try and exterminate it by assiduous effort, beginning first, as people are wont to do in other matters, with small and easy things. For example, if anyone pledge you to drink with him at a dinner when you have had enough, do not be bashful, or do violence to nature, but put the cup down without drinking. Again, if somebody else challenge you to play at dice with him in your cups, be not bashful or afraid of ridicule, but imitate Xenophanes, who, when Lasus of Hermione called him coward because he would not play at dice with him, admitted that he was a great coward and had no courage for what was ignoble. Again, if you meet with some prating fellow who attacks you and sticks to you, do not be bashful, but get rid of him, and hasten on and pursue your undertaking. For such flights and repulses, keeping you in practice in trying to overcome your bashfulness in small matters, will prepare you for greater occasions. And here it is well to record a remark of Demosthenes. When the Athenians were going to help Harpalus, and to war against Alexander, all of a sudden Philoxenus, who was Alexander's admiral, was sighted in the offing. And the populace being greatly alarmed, and speechless for fear, Demosthenes said, "What will they do when they see the sun, if they cannot lift their eyes to face a lamp?" And what will you do in important matters, if the king desires anything, or the people importune you, if you cannot decline to drink when your friend asks you, or evade the onset of some prating fellow, but allow the trifler to waste all your time, from not having nerve to say, "I will see you some other time, I have no leisure now."[649]

Sec. VI. Moreover, the use and practice of restraining one's bashfulness in small and unimportant matters is advantageous also in regard to praise. For example, if a friend's harper sings badly at a drinking party, or an actor hired at great cost murders[650] Menander, and most of the party clap and applaud, I find it by no means hard, or bad manners, to listen silently, and not to be so illiberal as to praise contrary to one's convictions. For if in such matters you are not master of yourself, what will you do if your friend reads a poor poem, or parades a speech stupidly and ridiculously written?[651] You will praise it of course, and join the flatterers in loud applause. But how then will you find fault with your friend if he makes mistakes in business? How will you be able to correct him, if he acts improperly in reference to some office, or marriage, or the state? For I cannot indeed assent to the remark of Pericles to his friend, who asked him to bear false witness in his favour even to the extent of perjury, "I am your friend as far as the altar." He went too far. But he that has long accustomed himself never to go against his convictions in praising a speaker, or clapping a singer, or laughing at a dull buffoon, will never go to this length, nor say to some impudent fellow in such matters, "Swear on my behalf, bear false witness, pronounce an unjust verdict."

Sec. VII. So also we ought to refuse people that want to borrow money of us, from being accustomed to say No in small and easily refused matters. Thus Archelaus, king of the Macedonians, being asked at supper for a gold cup by a man who thought Receive the finest word in the language, bade a boy give it to Euripides,[652] and gazing intently on the man said to him, "You are fit to ask, and not to receive, and he is fit to receive without asking." Thus did he make judgement and not bashfulness the arbiter of his gifts and favours. Yet we oftentimes pass over our friends who are both deserving and in need, and give to others who continually and impudently importune us, not from the wish to give but from the inability to say No. So the older Antigonus, being frequently annoyed by Bion, said, "Give a talent to Bion and necessity." Yet he was of all the kings most clever and ingenious at getting rid of such importunity. For on one occasion, when a Cynic asked him for a drachma, he replied, "That would be too little for a king to give;"[653] and when the Cynic rejoined, "Give me then a talent," he met him with, "That would be too much for a Cynic to receive."[654] Diogenes indeed used to go round begging to the statues in the Ceramicus, and when people expressed their astonishment said he was practising how to bear refusals. And we must practise ourselves in small matters, and exercise ourselves in little things, with a view to refusing people who importune us, or would receive from us when inconvenient, that we may be able to avoid great miscarriages. For no one, as Demosthenes says,[655] if he expends his resources on unnecessary things, will have means for necessary ones. And our disgrace is greatly increased, if we are deficient in what is noble, and abound in what is trivial.

Sec. VIII. But bashfulness is not only a bad and inconsiderate manager of money, but also in more important matters makes us reject expediency and reason. For when we are ill we do not call in the experienced doctor, because we stand in awe of the family one; and instead of the best teachers for our boys we select those that importune us;[656] and in our suits at law we frequently refuse the aid of some skilled advocate, to oblige the son of some friend or relative, and give him a chance to make a forensic display; and lastly, you will find many so-called philosophers Epicureans or Stoics, not from deliberate choice or conviction, but simply from bashfulness, to have the same views as their friends and acquaintances. Since this is the case, let us accustom ourselves betimes in small and everyday matters to employ no barber or fuller merely from bashfulness, nor to put up at a sorry inn, when a better is at hand, merely because the innkeeper has on several occasions been extra civil to us, but for the benefit of the habit to select the best even in a small matter; as the Pythagoreans were careful never to put their left leg across the right, nor to take an even number instead of an odd, all other matters being indifferent. We must accustom ourselves also, at a sacrifice or marriage or any entertainment of that kind, not to invite the person who greets us and runs up to meet us, but the friend who is serviceable to us. For he that has thus practised and trained himself will be difficult to catch tripping, nay even unassailable, in greater matters.

Sec. IX. Let so much suffice for practice. And of useful considerations the first is that which teaches and reminds us, that all passions and maladies of the soul are accompanied by the very things which we think we avoid through them. Thus infamy comes through too great love of fame, and pain comes from love of pleasure, and plenty of work to the idle, and to the contentious defeats and losses of lawsuits. And so too it is the fate of bashfulness, in fleeing from the smoke of ill-repute, to throw itself into the fire of it.[657] For the bashful, not venturing to say No to those that press them hard, afterwards feel shame at just rebuke, and, through standing in awe of slight blame, frequently in the end incur open disgrace. For if a friend asks some money of them, and through bashfulness they cannot refuse, a little time after they are disgraced by the facts becoming known;[658] or if they have promised to help friends in a lawsuit, they turn round and hide their diminished heads, and run away from fear of the other side. Many also, who have accepted on behalf of a daughter or sister an unprofitable offer of marriage at the bidding of bashfulness, have afterwards been compelled to break their word, and break off the match.

Sec. X. He that said all the dwellers in Asia were slaves to one man because they could not say the one syllable No, spoke in jest and not in earnest; but bashful persons, even if they say nothing, can by raising or dropping their eyebrows decline many disagreeable and unpleasant acts of compliance. For Euripides says, "Silence is an answer to wise men,"[659] but we stand more in need of it to inconsiderate persons, for we can talk over the sensible. And indeed it is well to have at hand and frequently on our lips the sayings[660] of good and famous men to quote to those who importune us, as that of Phocion to Antipater, "You cannot have me both as a friend and flatterer;" or his remark to the Athenians, when they applauded him and bade him contribute to the expenses of a festival, "I am ashamed to contribute anything to you, till I have paid yonder person my debts to him," pointing out his creditor Callicles. For, as Thucydides says, "It is not disgraceful to admit one's poverty, but it is very much so not to try to mend it."[661] But he who through stupidity or softness is too bashful to say to anyone that importunes him,

"Stranger, no silver white is in my caves,"

but goes bail for him as it were through his promises,

"Is bound by fetters not of brass but shame."[662]

But Persaeus,[663] when he lent a sum of money to one of his friends, had the fact duly attested by a banker in the market-place, remembering belike that line in Hesiod,[664]

"E'en to a brother, smiling, bring you witness."

And he wondering and saying, "Why all these legal forms, Persaeus?" he replied, "Ay, verily, that my money may be paid back in a friendly way, and that I may not have to use legal forms to get it back." For many, at first too bashful to see to security, have afterwards had to go to law, and lost their friend.[665]

Sec. XI. Plato again, giving Helicon of Cyzicus a letter for Dionysius, praised the bearer as a man of goodness and moderation, but added at the end of the letter, "I write you this about a man, an animal by nature apt to change." But Xenocrates, though a man of austere character, was prevailed upon through his bashfulness to recommend to Polysperchon by letter, one who was no good man as the event showed; for when the Macedonian welcomed him, and inquired if he wanted any money, he asked for a talent, and Polysperchon gave it him, but wrote to Xenocrates advising him for the future to be more careful in the choice of people he recommended. But Xenocrates knew not the fellow's true character; we on the other hand very often when we know that such and such men are bad, yet give them testimonials and money, doing ourselves injury, and not getting any pleasure for it, as people do get in the company of whores and flatterers, but being vexed and disgusted at the importunity that has upset and forced our reason. For the line

"I know that what I'm going to do is bad,"[666]

is especially applicable to people that importune us, when one is going to perjure oneself, or deliver an unjust verdict, or vote for a measure that is inexpedient, or borrow money for someone who will never pay it back.

Sec. XII. And so repentance follows more closely upon bashfulness than upon any emotion, and that not afterwards, but in the very act. For we are vexed with ourselves when we give, and ashamed when we perjure ourselves, and get ill-fame from our advocacies, and are put to the blush, when we cannot fulfil our promises. For frequently, from inability to say No, we promise impossibilities to persevering applicants, as introductions at court, and audiences with princes, from reluctance or want of nerve to say, "The king does not know us, others have his regard far more." But Lysander, when he was out of favour with Agesilaus, though he was thought to have very great influence with him owing to his great reputation, was not ashamed to dismiss suitors, and bid them go and pay their court to others who had more influence with the king. For not to be able to do everything carries no disgrace with it, but to undertake and try and force your way to what you are unable to do, or unqualified by nature for, is in addition to the disgrace incurred a task full of trouble.

Sec. XIII. To take another element into consideration, all seemly and modest requests we ought readily to comply with, not bashfully but heartily, whereas in injurious or unreasonable requests we ought ever to remember the conduct of Zeno, who, meeting a young man he knew walking very quietly near a wall, and learning from him that he was trying to get out of the way of a friend who wanted him to perjure himself on his behalf, said to him, "O stupid fellow, what do you tell me? Is he not afraid or ashamed to press you to what is not right? And dare not you stand up boldly against him for what is right?" For he that said "villainy is no bad weapon against villainy"[667] taught people the bad practice of standing on one's defence against vice by imitating it; but to get rid of those who shamelessly and unblushingly importune us by their own effrontery, and not to gratify the immodest in their disgraceful desires through false modesty, is the right and proper conduct of sensible people.

Sec. XIV. Moreover it is no great task to resist disreputable and low and worthless fellows who importune you, but some send such off with a laugh or a jest, as Theocritus did, who, when two fellows in the public baths, one a stranger, the other a well-known thief, wanted to borrow his scraper,[668] put them both off with a playful answer, "You, sir, I don't know, and you I know too well." And Lysimache,[669] the priestess of Athene Polias at Athens, when some muleteers that bore the sacred vessels asked her to give them a drink, answered, "I hesitate to do so from fear that you would make a practice of it." And when a certain young man, the son of a distinguished officer, but himself effeminate and far from bold, asked Antigonus for promotion, he replied, "With me, young man, honours are given for personal prowess, not for the prowess of ancestors."

Sec. XV. But if the person that importunes us be famous or a man of power, for such persons are very hard to move by entreaty or to get rid of when they come to sue for your vote and interest, it will not perhaps be easy or even necessary to behave as Cato, when quite a young man, did to Catulus. Catulus was in the highest repute at Rome, and at that time held the office of censor, and went to Cato, who then held the office of quaestor, and tried to beg off someone whom he had fined, and was urgent and even violent in his petitions, till Cato at last lost all patience, and said, "To have you, the censor, removed by my officers against your will, Catulus, would not be a seemly thing for you." So Catulus felt ashamed, and went off in a rage. But see whether the answers of Agesilaus and Themistocles are not more modest and in better form. Agesilaus, when he was asked by his father to pronounce sentence contrary to the law, said, "Father, I was taught by you even from my earliest years to obey the laws, so now I shall obey you and do nothing contrary to law." And Themistocles, when Simonides asked him to do something unjust, replied, "Neither would you be a good poet if your lines violated the laws of metre, nor should I be a good magistrate if I gave decisions contrary to law."

Sec. XVI. And yet it is not on account of want of metrical harmony in respect to the lyre, to borrow the words of Plato, that cities quarrel with cities and friends with friends, and do and suffer the worst woes, but on account of deviations[670] from law and justice. And yet some, who themselves pay great attention to melody and letters and measures, do not think it wrong for others to neglect what is right in magistracies and judicial sentences and business generally. One must therefore deal with them in the following manner. Does an orator ask a favour of you when you are acting as juryman, or a demagogue when you are sitting in council? Say you will grant his request if he first utter a solecism, or introduce a barbarism into his speech; he will refuse because of the shame that would attach itself to him; at any rate we see some that will not in a speech let two vowels come together. If again some illustrious and distinguished person importune you to something bad, bid him come into the market-place dancing or making wry faces, and if he refuse you will have an opportunity to speak, and ask him which is more disgraceful, to utter a solecism and make wry faces, or to violate the law and one's oath, and contrary to justice to do more for a bad than for a good man. Nicostratus the Argive, when Archidamus offered him a large sum of money and any Lacedaemonian bride he chose if he would deliver up Cromnum, said Archidamus could not be a descendant of Hercules, for he travelled about and killed evil-doers, whereas Archidamus tried to make evil-doers of the good. In like manner, if a man of good repute tries to force and importune us to something bad, let us tell him that he is acting in an ignoble way, and not as his birth and virtue would warrant.

Sec. XVII. But in the case of people of no repute you must see whether you can persuade the miser by your importunity to lend you money without a bond, or the proud man to yield you the better place, or the ambitious man to surrender some office to you when he might take it himself. For truly it would seem monstrous that, while such remain firm and inflexible and unmoveable in their vicious propensities, we who wish to be, and profess to be, men of honour and justice should be so little masters of ourselves as to abandon and betray virtue. For indeed, if those who importune us do it for glory and power, it is absurd that we should adorn and aggrandize others only to get infamy and a bad name ourselves; like unfair umpires in the public games, or like people voting only to ingratiate themselves, and so bestowing improperly offices and prizes[671] and glory on others, while they rob themselves of respect and fair fame. And if we see that the person who importunes us only does so for money, does it not occur to one that it is monstrous to be prodigal of one's own fame and reputation merely to make somebody else's purse heavier? Why the idea must occur to most people, they sin with their eyes open; like people who are urged hard to toss off big bumpers, and grunt and groan and make wry faces, but at last do as they are told.

Sec. XVIII. Such weakness of mind is like a temperament of body equally susceptible to heat and cold; for if such people are praised by those that importune them they are overcome and yield at once, whereas they are mortally afraid of the blame and suspicions of those whose desires they do not comply with. But we ought to be stout and resolute in either case, neither yielding to bullying nor cajolery. Thucydides indeed tells us, since envy necessarily follows ability, that "he is well advised who incurs envy in matters of the highest importance."[672] But we, thinking it difficult to escape envy, and seeing that it is altogether impossible not to incur blame or give offence to those we live with, shall be well advised if we prefer the hatred of the perverse to that of those who might justly find fault with us for having iniquitously served their turn. And indeed we ought to be on our guard against praise from those who importune us, which is sure to be altogether insincere, and not to resemble swine, readily allowing anyone that presses to make use of us from our pleasure at itching and tickling, and submitting ourselves to their will. For those that give their ears to flatterers differ not a whit from such as let themselves be tripped up at wrestling, only their overthrow and fall is more disgraceful; some forbearing hostility and reproof in the case of bad men, that they may be called merciful and humane and compassionate; and others on the contrary persuaded to take up unnecessary and dangerous animosities and charges by those who praise them as the only men, the only people that never flatter, and go so far as to entitle them their mouthpieces and voices. Accordingly Bio[673] compared such people to jars, that you could easily take by the ears and turn about at your will. Thus it is recorded that the sophist Alexinus in one of his lectures said a good many bad things about Stilpo the Megarian, but when one of those that were present said, "Why, he was speaking in your praise only the other day," he replied, "I don't doubt it; for he is the best and noblest of men." Menedemus on the contrary, having heard that Alexinus[674] frequently praised him, replied, "But I always censure him, for that man is bad who either praises a bad man or is blamed by a good." So inflexible and proof was he against such flattery, and master of that advice which Hercules in Antisthenes[675] gave, when he ordered his sons to be grateful to no one that praised them; which meant nothing else than that they should not be dumbfoundered at it, nor flatter again those who praised them. Very apt, I take it, was the remark of Pindar to one who told him that he praised him everywhere and to all persons, "I am greatly obliged to you, and will make your account true by my actions."

Sec. XIX. A useful precept in reference to all passions is especially valuable in the case of the bashful. When they have been overcome by this infirmity, and against their judgement have erred and been confounded, let them fix it in their memories, and, remembering the pain and grief it gave them, let them recall it to their mind and be on their guard for a very long time. For as travellers that have stumbled against a stone, or pilots that have been wrecked off a headland, if they remember these occurrences, not only dread and are on their guard continually on those spots, but also on all similar ones; so those that frequently remember the disgrace and injury that bashfulness brought them, and its sorrow and anguish, will in similar cases be on their guard against their weakness, and will not readily allow themselves to be subjugated by it again.

[636] Or bashfulness, shamefacedness, what the French call mauvaise honte.

[637] Shakespeare puts all this into one line: "Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds."—2 Henry IV., A. iv. Sc. iv.

[638] Or girls. [Greek: kore] means both a girl, and the pupil of the eye.

[639] So Wyttenbach.

[640] These lines are quoted again "On Moral Virtue," Sec. vi.

[641] "Iliad," xxiv. 44, 45.

[642] Euripides, "Bellerophon," Fragm., 313.

[643] Soph., Fragm., 736.

[644] Surely it is necessary to read [Greek: prodiaphthareisa to akolasto].

[645] See Plato, "Charmides," 165 A.

[646] Euripides, "Medea," 290, 291.

[647] "Works and Days," 342.

[648] Reading with Wyttenbach, [Greek: med hypolabe pisteuein, dokounta].

[649] See Horace's very amusing "Satire," i. ix., on such tiresome fellows.

[650] [Greek: epitribo] is used in the same sense by Demosthenes, p. 288.

[651] On such social pests see Juvenal, i. 1-14.

[652] See Pausanias, i. 2. Euripides left Athens about 409 B.C., and took up his abode for good in Macedonia at the court of Archelaus, where he died 406 B.C.

[653] For a drachma was only worth 6 obols, or 93/4d. of our money, nearly = Roman denarius.

[654] A talent was 6,000 drachmae, or 36,000 obols, about L243 15s. of our money.

[655] "Olynth." iii. p. 33, Sec. 19.

[656] Compare "On Education," Sec. vii.

[657] Our "Out of the frying-pan into the fire." Cf. "Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim."

[658] By their having to borrow themselves.

[659] Fragm. 947.

[660] Or apophthegms, of which Plutarch and Lord Verulam have both left us collections.

[661] Thucydides, ii. 40. Pericles is the speaker.

[662] A slightly-changed line from Euripides' "Pirithous," Fragm. 591. Quoted correctly "On Abundance of Friends," Sec. vii.

[663] "Zenonis discipulus."—Reiske.

[664] "Works and Days," 371.

[665] Cf. Shakspere, "Hamlet," i. iii. 76.

[666] Euripides, "Medea," 1078.

[667] Our "Set a thief to catch a thief."

[668] Or strigil. See Otto Jahn's note on Persius, v. 126.

[669] "Forsitan illa quam nominat Pausanias, i. 27."—Reiske.

[670] Literally "want of tune in." We cannot well keep up the metaphor. Compare with this passage, "That virtue may be taught," Sec. ii.

[671] Literally "crowns."

[672] Thucydides, ii. 64. Pericles is the speaker. Quoted again in "How one may discern a flatterer from a friend," Sec. XXXV.

[673] "Est Bio Borysthenita, de quo vide Diog. Laert."—Reiske.

[674] "De Alexino Eleo vide Diog. Laert., ii. 109. Nostri p. 1063, 3."—Reiske.

[675] Antisthenes wrote a book called "Hercules." See Diogenes Laertius, vi. 16.



ON RESTRAINING ANGER.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN SYLLA AND FUNDANUS.

Sec. 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 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, 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."

Now 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.

Sec. 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."

Sec. 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, 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 Otesiphon 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.

Sec. 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 disgusted[690] 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 side 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 foolish[691] 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 Achaean, 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,

"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 Paraetonium, 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.

Sec. 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 lictor of the Roman praetor 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 Lacedaemonians 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 and 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.

Sec. 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 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 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]

Good 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 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 passions and diseases of the soul, we cannot get rid of any of them by calling one prudence, and another liberality, and another piety.

Sec. 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 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 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.

Sec. 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 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 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.[710]

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

[677] Alluded to again "On the tranquillity of the mind," Sec. 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 Duebner.

[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] Duebner puts this sentence in brackets.

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

[699] Homer, "Iliad," xix. 138.

[700] Homer, "Odyssey," xx. 392.

[701] Or strigils.

[702] Anticyra was famous for its hellebore, which was prescribed in cases of madness. See Horace, "Satires," ii. 3. 82, 83.

[703] Homer, "Iliad," xxiv. 239, 240.

[704] A philosopher of Megara, and disciple of Socrates. Compare our author, "De Fraterno Amore," Sec. xviii.

[705] So Reiske. Duebner reads [Greek: phobou]. The MSS. have [Greek: phonou], which Wyttenbach retains, but is evidently not quite satisfied with the text. Can [Greek: phthonou]—[Greek: heteron] be an account of [Greek: epichairekakia]?

[706] Up in the clouds. Cf. [Greek: aerobateo].

[707] Horace, remembering these lines no doubt, says "De Arte Poetica," 191, 192,

"Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus Inciderit."

[708] It is quite likely that the delicious poet Robert Herrick borrowed hence his "To starve thy sin not bin, That is to keep thy Lent." For we know he was a student of the "Moralia" when at the University of Cambridge.

[709] See AEschylus, "Eumenides," 107. Sophocles, "Oedipus Colonaeus," 481. See also our author's "De Sanitate Praecepta," Sec. xix.

[710] Jeremy Taylor has closely imitated parts of this Dialogue in his "Holy Living," chapter iv. sect. viii., "Twelve remedies against anger, by way of exercise," "Thirteen remedies against anger, by way of consideration." Such a storehouse did he make of the "Moralia."



ON CONTENTEDNESS OF MIND.[711]

PLUTARCH SENDS GREETING TO PACCIUS.

Sec. I. It was late when I received your letter, asking me to write to you something on contentedness of mind, and on those things in the Timaeus that require an accurate explanation. And it so fell out that at that very time our friend Eros was obliged to set sail at once for Rome, having received a letter from the excellent Fundanus, urging haste according to his wont. And not having as much time as I could have wished to meet your request, and yet not thinking for one moment of letting my messenger go to you entirely empty-handed, I copied out the notes that I had chanced to make on contentedness of mind. For I thought that you did not desire this discourse merely to be treated to a subject handled in fine style, but for the real business of life. And I congratulate you that, though you have friendships with princes, and have as much forensic reputation as anybody, yet you are not in the same plight as the tragic Merops, nor have you like him by the felicitations of the multitude been induced to forget the sufferings of humanity; but you remember, what you have often heard, that a patrician's slipper[712] is no cure for the gout, nor a costly ring for a whitlow, nor a diadem for the headache. For how can riches, or fame, or power at court help us to ease of mind or a calm life, unless we enjoy them when present, but are not for ever pining after them when absent? And what else causes this but the long exercise and practice of reason, which, when the unreasoning and emotional part of the soul breaks out of bounds, curbs it quickly, and does not allow it to be carried away headlong from its actual position? And as Xenophon[713] advised that we should remember and honour the gods most especially in prosperity, that so, when we should be in any strait, we might confidently call upon them as already our well-wishers and friends; so sensible men would do well before trouble comes to meditate on remedies how to bear it, that they may be the more efficacious from being ready for use long before. For as savage dogs are excited at every sound, and are only soothed by a familiar voice, so also it is not easy to quiet the wild passions of the soul, unless familiar and well-known arguments be at hand to check its excitement.

Sec. II. He then that said, that the man that wished to have an easy mind ought to have little to do either public or private, first of all makes ease of mind a very costly article for us, if it is to be bought at the price of doing nothing, as if he should advise every sick person,

"Lie still, poor wretch, in bed."[714]

And indeed stupor is a bad remedy for the body against despair,[715] nor is he any better physician of the soul who removes its trouble and anxiety by recommending a lazy and soft life and a leaving our friends and relations and country in the lurch. In the next place, it is false that those that have little to do are easy in mind. For then women would be easier in mind than men, since they mostly stay at home in inactivity, and even now-a-days it is as Hesiod says,[716]

"The North Wind comes not near a soft-skinned maiden;"

yet griefs and troubles and unrest, proceeding from jealousy or superstition or ambition or vanity, inundate the women's part of the house with unceasing flow. And Laertes, though he lived for twenty years a solitary life in the country,

"With an old woman to attend on him, Who duly set on board his meat and drink,"[717]

and fled from his country and house and kingdom, yet had sorrow and dejection[718] as a perpetual companion with leisure. And some have been often thrown into sad unrest merely from inaction, as the following,

"But fleet Achilles, Zeus-sprung, son of Peleus, Sat by the swiftly-sailing ships and fumed, Nor ever did frequent th' ennobling council, Nor ever join the war, but pined in heart, Though in his tent abiding, for the fray."[719]

And full of emotion and distress at this state of things he himself says,

"A useless burden to the earth I sit Beside the ships."[720]

So even Epicurus thinks that those who are desirous of honour and glory should not rust in inglorious ease, but use their natural talents in public life for the benefit of the community at large, seeing that they are by nature so constituted that they would be more likely to be troubled and afflicted at inaction, if they did not get what they desired. But he is absurd in that he does not urge men of ability to take part in public life, but only the restless. But we ought not to estimate ease or unrest of mind by our many or few actions, but by their fairness or foulness. For the omission of fair actions troubles and distresses us, as I have said before, quite as much as the actual doing of foul actions.

Sec. III. As for those who think that one kind of life is especially free from trouble, as some think that of farmers, others that of bachelors, others that of kings, Menander sufficiently exposes their error in the following lines:

"Phania, I thought those rich who need not borrow, Nor groan at nights, nor cry out 'Woe is me,' Kicked up and down in this untoward world, But sweet and gentle sleep they may enjoy."

He then goes on to remark that he saw the rich suffering the same as the poor,

"Trouble and life are truly near akin. With the luxurious or the glorious life Trouble consorts, and in the life of poverty Lasts with it to the end."

But just as people on the sea, timid and prone to sea-sickness, think they will suffer from it less on board a merchantman than on a boat, and for the same reason shift their quarters to a trireme, but do not attain anything by these changes, for they take with them their timidity and qualmishness, so changes of life do not remove the sorrows and troubles of the soul; which proceed from want of experience and reflection, and from inability or ignorance rightly to enjoy the present. These afflict the rich as well as the poor; these trouble the married as well as the unmarried; these make people shun the forum, but find no happiness in retirement; these make people eagerly desire introductions at court, though when got they straightway care no more about them.

"The sick are peevish in their straits and needs."[721]

For the wife bothers them, and they grumble at the doctor, and they find the bed uneasy, and, as Ion says,

"The friend that visits them tires their patience, And yet they do not like him to depart."

But afterwards, when the illness is over, and a sounder condition supervenes, health returns and makes all things pleasant and acceptable. He that yesterday loathed eggs and cakes of finest meal and purest bread will to-day eat eagerly and with appetite coarsest bread with a few olives and cress.

Sec. IV. Such contentedness and change of view in regard to every kind of life does the infusion of reason bring about. When Alexander heard from Anaxarchus of the infinite number of worlds, he wept, and when his friends asked him what was the matter, he replied, "Is it not a matter for tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, I have not conquered one?" But Crates, who had only a wallet and threadbare cloak, passed all his life jesting and laughing as if at a festival. Agamemnon was troubled with his rule over so many subjects,

"You look on Agamemnon, Atreus' son, Whom Zeus has plunged for ever in a mass Of never-ending cares."[722]

But Diogenes when he was being sold sat down and kept jeering at the auctioneer, and would not stand up when he bade him, but said joking and laughing, "Would you tell a fish you were selling to stand up?" And Socrates in prison played the philosopher and discoursed with his friends. But Phaeethon,[723] when he got up to heaven, wept because nobody gave to him his father's horses and chariot. As therefore the shoe is shaped by the foot, and not the foot by the shoe, so does the disposition make the life similar to itself. For it is not, as one said, custom that makes the best life seem sweet to those that choose it, but it is sense that makes that very life at once the best and sweetest. Let us cleanse therefore the fountain of contentedness, which is within us, that so external things may turn out for our good, through our putting the best face on them.

"Events will take their course, it is no good Our being angry at them, he is happiest Who wisely turns them to the best account."[724]

Sec. V. Plato compared human life to a game at dice, wherein we ought to throw according to our requirements, and, having thrown, to make the best use of whatever turns up. It is not in our power indeed to determine what the throw will be, but it is our part, if we are wise, to accept in a right spirit whatever fortune sends, and so to contrive matters that what we wish should do us most good, and what we do not wish should do us least harm. For those who live at random and without judgement, like those sickly people who can stand neither heat nor cold, are unduly elated by prosperity, and cast down by adversity; and in either case suffer from unrest, but 'tis their own fault, and perhaps they suffer most in what are called good circumstances. Theodorus, who was surnamed the Atheist, used to say that he held out arguments with his right hand, but his hearers received them with their left; so awkward people frequently take in a clumsy manner the favours of fortune; but men of sense, as bees extract honey from thyme which is the strongest and driest of herbs,[725] so from the least auspicious circumstances frequently derive advantage and profit.

Sec. VI. We ought then to cultivate such a habit as this, like the man who threw a stone at his dog, and missed it, but hit his step-mother, and cried out, "Not so bad." Thus we may often turn the edge of fortune when things turn not out as we wish. Diogenes was driven into exile; "not so bad;" for his exile made him turn philosopher. And Zeno of Cittium,[726] when he heard that the only merchantman he had was wrecked, cargo and all, said, "Fortune, you treat me handsomely, since you reduce me to my threadbare cloak and piazza."[727] What prevents our imitating such men as these? Have you failed to get some office? You will be able to live in the country henceforth, and manage your own affairs. Did you court the friendship of some great man, and meet with a rebuff? You will live free from danger and cares. Have you again had matters to deal with that required labour and thought? "Warm water will not so much make the limbs soft by soaking," to quote Pindar,[728] as glory and honour and power make "labour sweet, and toil to be no toil."[729] Or has any bad luck or contumely fallen on you in consequence of some calumny or from envy? The breeze is favourable that will waft you to the Muses and the Academy, as it did Plato when his friendship with Dionysius came to an end. It does indeed greatly conduce to contentedness of mind to see how famous men have borne the same troubles with an unruffled mind. For example, does childlessness trouble you? Consider those kings of the Romans, none of whom left his kingdom to a son. Are you distressed at the pinch of poverty? Who of the Boeotians would you rather prefer to be than Epaminondas, or of the Romans than Fabricius? Has your wife been seduced? Have you never read that inscription at Delphi,