# Plutarch's Moralia (Holland)/Essay 5

OF MEEKNESS, OR HOW A MAN SHOULD REFRAIN CHOLER
A TREATISE IN MANNER OF A DIALOGUE
The persons that be the Speakers: Sylla and Fundanus
THE SUMMARY OF THE DIALOGUE
[After we are taught how to discern a flatterer from a friend, it seemeth that this treatise, as touching mildness and how we ought to bridle anger, was set here in his proper place. For like as we may soon err grossly in choice of those whom we are willing and well content to have about us, and in that respect are to be circumspect, and to stand upon our guard; so we have no less cause to consider how we should converse among our neighbours. Now of all those vices and imperfections which defame man's life, and cause the race and course thereof to be difficult and wondrous painful to pass, anger is one of those which are to be ranged in the first rank; in such sort that it booteth not to be provided of good friends, if this furious humour get the mastery over us: like as contrariwise flatterers and such other pestilent plagues have not so easy entrance into us, nor such ready means to be possessed of us, so long as we be accompanied with a certain wise and prudent mildness. In this discourse then, our author, doing the part of an expert physician, laboureth to purge our minds from all choler, and would train them to modesty and humanity, so far forth as philosophy moral is able to perform. And for to attain unto so great a benefit, he sheweth in the first place that we ought to procure our friends for to observe and mark our imperfections, that by long continuance of time we may accustom ourselves to hold in our judgment by the bit of reason. After certain proper similitudes serving for this purpose, and a description of the inconveniences and harms that come by wrath, he proveth that it is an easy matter to restrain and repress the same: to which purpose he setteth down divers means, upon which he discourseth after his usual manner, that is to say, with reasons and inductions, enriched with notable similitudes and examples: afterwards, having spoken of the time and manner of chastising and correcting those who are under our power and governance, he proposeth as well certain remedies to cure choler, as preservatives to keep us from relapse into it again: Which done, he representeth ire lively, as in a painted table, to the end that those who suffer themselves to be surprised therewith, may be abashed and ashamed of their unhappy state: and therewith he giveth five ​notable advertisements for to attain thereto, which be as it were preservatives: by means whereof we should not feel ourselves attaint any more with this malady.]
Sylla. It seemeth unto me (O Fundanus) that painters do very well and wisely to view and consider their works often and by times between, before they think them finished and let them go out of their hands: for that by setting them so out of their sight, and then afterwards having recourse thither again to judge thereof, they make their eyes (as it were) new judges, to spy and discern the least fault that is, which continual looking thereupon, and the ordinary view of one and the same thing doth cover and hide from them. But forasmuch as it is not possible that a man should depart from himself for a time, and after a certain space return again; nor that he should break, interrupt and discontinue his understanding and sense within (which is the cause that each man is a worse judge of himself than of others). A second means and remedy therefore in this case would be used: namely, to review his friends sundry times, and eftsoons likewise to yield himself to be seen and beheld by them; not so much to know thereby whether he aged apace and grow soon old; or whether the constitution of his body be better or worse than it was before, as to survey and consider his manners and behaviour, to wit, whether time hath added any good thing, or taken away ought that is bad and naught. For mine own part, this being now the second year since I came first to this city of Rome, and the fifth month of mine acquaintance with you, I think it no great wonder, that considering your towardness and the dexterity of your nature, those good parts which were already in you, have gotten so great an addition and be so much increased, as they are: but when I see how that vehement inclination and ardent motion of yours to anger, thereunto by nature you were given, is by the guidance of reason become so mild, so gentle and tractable, it cometh into my mind to say thereunto that which I read in Homer:
O what a wondrous change is here? Much milder are you than you were.
And verily this gentleness and meekness of yours is not turned into a certain sloth, and general dissolution of your vigour: but like as a piece of ground well tilled, lieth light and even, and besides more hollow than before, which maketh much for the fertility thereof; even so, your nature hath gotten instead of that violent disposition and sudden propension unto choler, a ​ certain equality and profundity, serving greatly to the management of affairs, whereby also it appeareth plainly that it is not long of the decaying strength of the body, by reason of declining age, neither yet of the own accord, that your hastiness and choleric passion is thus faded, but rather by means of good reasons and instructions well cured. And yet verily (for unto you I will be bold to say the truth) at the first I suspected and could not well believe Eros our familiar friend, when he made this report of you unto me; as doubting that he was ready to give this testimony of you in regard of affection and goodwill, bearing me in hand of those things which were not indeed in you, but ought to be in good and honest men: and yet (as you know well enough) he is not such a man, as for favour of any person, and for to please, can be easily persuaded and brought to say otherwise than he thinketh. But now as he is freed and acquit from the crime of bearing false witness: so you (since this journey and travel upon the way affordeth you good leisure) will (I doubt not) at my request, declare and recount unto us the order how you did this cure upon yourself; and namely what medicines and remedies you used, to make that choleric nature of yours so gentle, so tractable, so soft and supple, so obeisant (I say) and subject wholly to the rule of reason?
Fundanus. But why do you not yourself (O Sylla), my dearest and most affectionate friend, take heed, that for the amity and goodwill which you bear unto me, you be not deceived and see one thing in me for another? As for Eros, who for his own part hath not always his anger steadfastly stayed with the cable and anchor of Homer's Peisa (that is, obedient and abiding firm in one place), but otherwhiles much moved and out of quiet, for the hatred that he hath of vice and vicious men it may very well be, and like it is that unto him I seem more mild and gentle than before: like as we see in changing and altering the notes of prick-song, or the gamut in music, certain netce or notes which are the trebles in one 8 being compared with other netcB more high and small, become hypatce, that is, the bases.
Sylla. It is neither so nor so (O Fundanus), but of all loves, do as I desire you, for my sake.
Fundanus. Since it is so (Sylla), among many good advertisements of Musonius which come to my mind, this is one; That whosoever would live safe and in health, ought all their lifetime to look to themselves, and be as it were in continual physic. For I am not of this mind, neither do I think it convenient that like as elleborus, after it hath done the deed within a sick man's ​ body and wrought a cure, is cast up again together with the malady; so reason also should be sent out after the passion which it hath cured, but it ought to remain still in the mind for to keep and preserve the judgment. For why? reason is not to be compared with medicines and purgative drugs, but rather to wholesome and nourishing meats, engendering mildly in the minds of them unto whom it is made familiar, a good complexion and fast habit together with some perfect health: whereas admonitions and corrections applied or ministered unto passions when they swell and rage, and be in the height of their heat and inflammation, hardly and with much ado work any effect at all, and if they do, it is with much pain. Neither differ they in operation from those strong odours which well may raise out of a fit those who are fallen and be subject to the epilepsy or falling sickness; but they cure not the disease, nor secure the patient for falling again: True it is that all other passions of the mind, if they be taken in hand at the very point and instant when they are in their highest fury, do yield in some sort, and they admit reason coming from without into the mind for to lelp and succour, but anger not only, as Melanthius saith,
Commits lewd parts, and reason doth displace
Out of her seat and proper resting-place,
but also tumeth her clean out of house and home, shutteth and locketh her out of doors for altogether; nay, it fareth for all the world like to those who set the house on fire over their own heads, and burn themselves and it together: it filleth all within all of trouble, smoke, and confused noises, in such sort that it hath neither eye to see, nor ear to listen unto those that would and might assist and give aid: and therefore sooner will a ship abandoned of her master in the midst of the sea, and there hulling dangerously in a storm and tempest, receive a pilot from some other ship without, than a man tossed with the waves of fury and anger, admit the reason and remonstrance of a stranger; unless his own reason at home were beforehand well prepared: But like as they who look for no other but to have their city besieged, gather together and lay up safe their own store and provision, and all things that might serve their turn, not knowing nor expecting any aid or relief abroad during the siege; even so ought we to have our remedies ready and provided long before, and the same gathered out of all parts of philosophy and conveyed into the mind for to withstand the rage of choler: as being assured of this, that when need and ​ necessity requireth to use them, we shall not easily admit the same, and suffer them to have entrance into us. For surely at such a time of extremity, the soul heareth not a word that is said unto it without, for the trouble and confusion within, unless her own reason be assistant ready both to receive and understand quickly every commandment and precept, and also to prompt the same accordingly unto her. And say that she doth hear: look what is said unto her after a mild, calm, and gentle manner, that she despiseth; again, if any be more instant, and do urge her somewhat roughly, with those she is displeased, and the worse for their admonitions: for wrath being of the own nature proud, audacious, unruly, and hardly suffering itself to be handled or stirred by another, much like unto a tyrant attended with a strong guard about his person, ought to have something of the own which is domestical, familiar, and (as it were) inbred together with it, for to overthrow and dissolve the same.
Now the continual custom of anger and the ordinary or often falling into a chafe, breedeth in the mind an ill habit called wrathfulness, which in the end groweth to this pass, that it maketh a man choleric and hasty, apt to be moved at everything; and besides, it engendereth a bitter humour of revenge, and a testiness implacable, or hardly to be appeased; namely, when the mind is exulcerate once, taking offence at every small occasion, quarrelling and complaining for toys and trifles, much like unto a thin or a fine edge that entereth with the least force that the graver putteth it to. But the judgment of reason opposing itself straightways against such motions and fits of choler, and ready to suppress and keep them down, is not only a remedy for the present mischief, but also for the time to come doth strengthen and fortify the mind, causing it to be more firm and strong to resist such passions when they arise.
And now to give some instance of myself: The same happened unto me after I had twice or thrice made head against choler, as befel sometimes to the Thebans; who having once repelled and put to flight the Lacedsemonians (warriors thought in those days invincible) were never in any one battle afterward defeated by them. For from that time forward I took heart and courage, as seeing full well that conquered it might be with the discourse of reason. I perceived, moreover, that anger would not only be quenched with cold water poured and cast upon it, as Aristotle hath reported unto us, but also that it would go out and be extinguished, were it never so light a fire before, by ​presenting near unto it some object of fear: nay (I assure you) by a sudden joy coming upon it unlooked for, in many a man, according as Homer saith, choler hath melted, dissolved and evaporated away. And therefore this resolution I made, that anger was a passion not incurable, if men were willing to be cured: for surely the occasions and beginnings thereof are not always great and forcible; but we see that a jest, a scoff, some sport, some laughter, a wink of the eye, or nod of the head, and such small matters, hath set many in a pelting chafe: even as Lady Helena saying no more but thus unto her niece or brother's daughter at their first meeting,
Electra, virgin, long time since I you saw, etc.,
drave her in such a fit of choler, that therewith she was provoked to break off her speech with this answer:
Wise now at last, though all too late, You are, I may well say, Who whilom left your husband's house, And ran with shame away.
Likewise Callisthenes mightily offended Alexander with one word, who when a great bowl of wine went round about the table, refused it as it came to his turn, saying: I will not (I trow) drink so to your health, Alexander, that I shall have need thereby of Æsculapius (i.e., a physician). A fire that newly hath caught aflame with hares' or conies' hair, dry leaves, hurds and light straw, stubble and rakings, it is an easy matter to put out and quench; but if it have once taken to sound fuel and such matter as hath solidity, substance and thickness in it, soon it burnetii and consumeth, as Æschylus saith:
By climbing up and mounting high The stately works of carpentry.
Semblably, he that will take heed unto choler at the beginning, when he seeth it once to smoke or flame out by occasion of some merry speech, flouting scoffs, and foolish words of no moment, needs not to strive much about the quenching of it: for many times if he do no more but hold his peace, or make small account or none at all of such matters, it is enough to extinguish and make it go out. For he that ministreth not fuel to fire, putteth it out; and whosoever feedeth not his anger at the first, and bloweth not the coals himself, doth cool and repress the same. And therefore Hieronymus the philosopher, although otherwise he have taught us many good lessons and instructions, yet in ​this point he hath not pleased and satisfied me, when he saith; That a man is not able to perceive in himself the breeding of anger (so quick and sudden it is), but only when it is bred, then it may be felt: for surely there is no vice or passion in us that giveth such warning, or hath either so evident a generation or so manifest an augment whiles it is stirred and moved, as anger, according as Homer himself right skilfully, and as a man of good experience, giveth us to understand, who bringeth in Achilles sore moved to sorrow and grief of heart, even with a word, and at the very instant, when he heard the speeches of Agamemnon: for thus reporteth the poet of him:
Out of the king his sovereign's mouth, The word no sooner past, But straight a black and misty cloud Of ire him overcast.
But of Agamemnon himself, he saith that it was long ere he was angry; namely, after he had been kindled with many hard speeches, that were dealt to and fro, which if any third person stepping between would have stayed or turned away, certes their quarrel and debate had not grown to such terms of extremity as it did. And therefore Socrates so often as he felt himself somewhat declining and more moved than he should against any one of his friends, and avoiding as it were a rock in the sea, before the tempest came and the billows arose, would let fall his voice, shew a smiling countenance, and compose his look and visage to mirth and lenity, and thus by bending and drawing another away to that whereunto his affection inclined, and opposing himself to a contrary passion, he kept upright on his feet, so that he fell not, nor was overthrown. For there is (my good friend) a ready means in the very beginning to break the force of choler, like as there is a way to dissolve a tyrannical rule and dominion, that is to say, not to obey at the first, not to give ear and be ruled by her commandment, when she shall bid thee to speak and cry out aloud, or to look with a terrible countenance, or to knock or beat thyself; but to be still and quiet, and not to reinforce and increase the passion, as men do exasperate a sickness with struggling, striving, tossing and roaring out aloud. For those things which ordinary lovers and amorous young men practise, that is to say, to go in a wanton and merry mask, to sing and dance at the doors of their sweethearts and mistresses, to bedeck their windows with coronets and flower-garlands, bring some ease and alleviation (such as it is) of their passions, and the same not altogether ​undecent and uncivil, according to that which we read in the poet:
And when I came, aloud I cried not, And asked who she was, or daughter whose? But kist my love full sweetly, that I wot: If this be sin? but sin I cannot choose.
Also that which we permit those to do who are in sorrow, namely, to mourn, to lament and weep for losses or mishaps; certainly with their sighs which they fetch, and tears that they shed, they do send out and discharge a good part of their grief and anguish. But it is not so with the passion of anger: for surely, the more that they stir and speak who are surprised therewith, the more hot it is, and the flame burneth out the rather; and therefore the best way is for a man to be quiet, to fly and keep him out of the way, or else to retire himself into some haven of surety and repose, when he perceiveth that there is a fit of anger toward, as if he felt an access of the falling evil coming. This (I say) we ought to do, for fear lest we fall down, or rather run and rush upon some one or other. But who be they that we run upon? Surely our very friends, for the greatest part, and those we wrong most. As for our affection of love, it standeth not to all things indifferently, neither do we hate nor yet fear we everything alike: But what is it that ire setteth not upon? nothing is there but it doth assail and lay hands on; we are angry with our enemies; we chafe with our friends; with children, with parents we are wrath; nay, the very gods themselves we forbear not in our choleric mood; we fly upon dumb and brute beasts; we spare not so much as our utensil vessels and implements, which have neither sense nor life at all, if they stand in our way, we fare like Thamyris the musician,
Who brake his cornet, finely bound And tipt with gold: his lute he hent, Well strung and tun'd to pleasant sound, And it anon to fitters rent.
Thus did Pandarus also, who cursed, and betook himself to all the fiends in hell, if he did not burst his bow and arrows with his own hands, and throw them into the fire when he had so done. As for Xerxes, he stuck not to whip, to lash and scourge the sea, and to the mountain Athos he sent his minatory letters in this form; Thou wretched and wicked Athos, that bear est up thy head aloft into the sky; see thou bring forth no great craggy stones, I advise thee, for my works, and such as be hard to be cut ​and wrought: otherwise, if thou do, I shall cut thee through and tumble thee into the main sea.
Many fearful and terrible things there be that are done in anger, and as many for them again as foolish and ridiculous, and therefore of all passions that trouble the mind, it is both hated and despised most. In which regards expedient it were to consider diligently as well of the one as the other: for mine own part, whether I did well or ill, I know not; but surely, when I began my cure of choler in myself, I did as in old time the Lacedaemonians were wont to do by their Ilotes, men of base and servile condition: For as they taught their children what a foul vice drunkenness was, by their example when they were drunk, so I learned by observing others what anger was, and what beastly effects it wrought. First and foremost, therefore, like as that malady, according to Hippocrates, is of all others worst and most dangerous wherein the visage of the sick person is most disfigured and made unlikest itself; so, I seeing those that were possessed of choler, and (as it were) beside themselves thereby, how their face was changed, their colour, their countenance, their gait and their voice quite altered, I imagined thereupon unto myself a certain form and image of this malady, as being mightily displeased in my mind, if haply at any time I should be seen of my friends, my wife and the little girls my daughters, so terrible and so far moved and transported beside myself: not only fearful and hideous to behold, and far otherwise than I was wont, but also unpleasant to be heard; my voice being rough, rude and churlish: like as it was my hap to see some of my familiar friends in that case, who by reason of anger could not retain and keep their ordinary fashions and behaviour, their form of visage, nor their grace in speech, nor yet that affability and pleasantness in company and talk as they were wont.
This was the reason that Caius Gracchus the orator, a man by nature blunt, rude in behaviour, and withal over-earnest and violent in his manner of pleading, had a little flute or pipe made for the nonce, such as musicians are wont to guide and rule the voice gently by little and little up and down, between base to treble, according to every note as they would themselves, teaching their scholars thereby to have a tunable voice. Now when Gracchus pleaded at the bar at any time, he had one of his servants standing with such a pipe behind him: who observing when his master was a little out of tune, would sound a more mild and pleasant note unto him, whereby he reclaimed ​and called him back from that loud exclaiming, and so taking down that rough and swelling accent of his voice,
Like as the neat-herds' pipes so shrill Made of the marish reeds so light; The joints whereof with wax they fill, Resound a tune for their delight: Which while the herd in field they keep, Brings them at length to pleasant sleep,
dulced and allayed the choleric passion of the orator. Certes myself, if I had a pretty page to attend upon me, who were diligent, necessary and handsome about me, would not be offended but very well content, that when he saw me angry he should by and by present a mirror or looking-glass unto me, such a one as they use to bring and shew unto some that newly are come out of the bain, although no good or profit at all they have thereby. But certainly for man to see himself at such a time, how disquieted he is, how far out of the way, and beside the course of nature, it were no small means to check this passion, and to set him in hatred therewith for ever after. They who are delighted in tales and fables, do report by way of merry speech and pastime, that once when Minerva was a piping, there came a satyr and admonished her that it was not for her to play upon a flute; but she for the time took no heed to that advertisement of his, notwithstanding he spake thus unto her:
This form of face becomes you not, Lay up your pipes, take arms in hand; But first this would not be forgot, Your cheeks to lay, that puft now stand.
But afterwards, when she had seen her face in a certain river, what a pair of cheeks she had gotten with her piping, she was displeased with herself and flung away her pipes: And yet this art and skill of playing well upon the pipe, yieldeth some comfort and maketh amends for the deformity of a disfigured visage, with the melodious tune and harmony that it affordeth; yea and afterwards, Marsyas the minstrel (as it is thought) devised first with a certain hood and muzzle fastened round about the mouth, as well to restrain and keep down the violence of the blast enclosed thus by force, as also to correct and hide the deformity and undecent inequality of the visage:
With glittering gold both cheeks as far As temples he did bind: The tender mouth with thongs likewise, Fast knit the neck behind.
​But anger contrariwise, as it doth puff up and stretch out the visage after an unseemly manner, so much more it sendeth out undecent and unpleasant voice:
And stirs the strings at secret root of heart. Which touched should not be, but lie apart.
The sea verily, when being troubled and disquieted with blustering winds, it casteth up moss, reits, and such-like weeds (they say), it is cleansed and purged thereby: but the dissolute, bitter, scurril, and foolish speeches, which anger sendeth out of the mind when it is turned upside down, first pollute and defile the speakers themselves, and fill them full of infamy, for that they be thought to have their hearts full of such ordure and filthiness at all times; but the same lurketh there, until that choler discovereth it: And therefore, they pay most dearly for their speech, the lightest matter of all others (as Plato saith), in that they suffer this heavy and grievous punishment to be held and reputed for malicious enemies, cursed speakers, and ill-conditioned persons. Which I seeing and observing well enough, it falleth out that I reason with myself, and always call to mind what a good thing it is in a fever, but much better in a fit of choler, to have a tongue fair, even and smooth: For in them that be sick of an ague, if the tongue be not such as naturally it ought to be, an ill sign it is, but not a cause of any harm or indisposition within. Howbeit, if their tongues who are angry be once rough, foul, and running dissolutely at random to absurd speeches, it casteth forth outrageous and contumelious language, the very mother and work-mistress of irreconcilable enmity, and bewrayeth an hidden and secret maliciousness. As for wine, if a man drink it of itself undelayed with water, it putteth forth no such wantonness, no disordinate and lewd speeches, like to those that proceed of ire. For drunken talk serveth to make mirth, and to procure laughter rather than anything else: but words of choler are tempered with bitter gall and rancour. Moreover, he that sitteth silent at the table when others drink merrily, is odious unto the company and a trouble: whereas in choler there is nothing more decent and beseeming gravity, than to be quiet and say nothing: according as Sappho doth admonish:
When furious choler once is up, Disperst and spread in breast, To keep the tongue then apt to bark, And let it lie at rest.
The consideration of these things collected thus together. ​serveth not only to take heed always unto them that are subject to ire and therewith possessed, but also besides to know throughly the nature of anger: how it is neither generous or manful, nor yet hath anything in it that savoureth of wisdom and magnanimity. Howbeit the common people interpret the turbulent nature thereof to be active and meet for action: the threats and menaces thereof, hardiness and confidence, the peevish and froward unruliness to be fortitude and strength. Nay, some there be who would have the cruelty in it to be a disposition and dexterity to achieve great matters; the implacable malice thereof to be constancy and firm resolution: the morosity and difficulty to be pleased, to be hatred of sin and vice; howbeit, herein they do not well, but are much deceived, or surely the very actions, motions, gestures, and countenance of choleric persons do argue and bewray much baseness and imbecility: which we may perceive not only in these brain-sick fits that they fall upon little children, and them pluck, twitch, and misuse; fly upon poor silly women, and think that they ought to punish and beat their horses, hounds, and mules, like unto Ctesiphon, that famous wrestler and professed champion who stuck not to spurn and kick his mule; but also in their tyrannical and bloody murders, wherein their cruelty and bitterness, which declareth their pusillanimity and base mind; their actions, which shew their passions and their doing to others, bewraying a suffering in themselves, may be compared to the stings and bitings of those venomous serpents which be very angry, exceeding dolorous, and burn most themselves when they do inflict the greatest inflammation upon the patients, and put them to most pain: For like as swelling is a symptom or accident following upon a great wound or hurt in the flesh: even so it is in the tenderest and softest minds, the more they give place and yield unto dolour and passion, the more plenty of choler and anger they utter forth as proceeding from the greater weakness. By this you may see the reason why women ordinarily be more waspish, curst, and shrewd than men; sick folk more testy than those that are in health; old people more wayward and froward than those that be in the flower and vigour of their years; and finally, such as be in adversity and upon whom fortune frowneth, more prone to anger than those who prosper and have the world smiling upon them. The covetous miser and pinching penny-father is always most angry with his steward that layeth forth his money; the glutton is ever more displeased with his cook and caterer; the jealous husband ​quickly falleth out and brawleth with his wife; the vain-glorious fool is soonest offended with them that speak anything amiss of him; but the most bitter and intolerable of all others, are ambitious persons in a city, who lay for high places and dignities, such also as are the heads of a faction in a sedition; which is a trouble and mischief (as Pindarus saith) conspicuous and honourable. Lo, how from that part of the mind which is wounded, grieved, suffereth most and especially upon infirmity and weakness, ariseth anger, which passion resembleth not (as one would have it) the sinews of the soul, but is like rather to their stretching sprains and spasmatic convulsions, when it straineth and striveth overmuch in following revenge.
Well, the examples of evil things yield no pleasant sight at all, only they be necessary and profitable; and for mine own part, supposing the precedents given by those who have carried themselves gently and mildly in their occasions of anger, are most delectable, not only to behold, but also hear: I begin to contemn and despise those that say thus:
To man thou hast done wrong: be sure At man's hand wrong for to endure.
Likewise:
Down to the ground with him, spare not his coat, Spurn him and set thy foot upon his throat.
and other such words which serve to provoke wrath and whet choler; by which some go about to remove anger out of the nursery, and women's chamber into the hall where men do sit and keep; but herein they do not well: For prowess and fortitude according in all other things with justice, and going fellow-like with her, methinks is at strife and debate with her about meekness and mildness only, as if she rather became her, and by right appertained unto her: For otherwhiles it hath been known that the worst men have gone beyond and surmounted the better. But for a man to erect a trophy and set up a triumphal monument in his own soul against ire (with which, as Heraclitus saith, the conflict is hard and dangerous: for what a man would have he buyeth with his life) is an act of rare valour and victorious puissance, as having in truth the judgment of reason, for sinews, tendons, and muscles to encounter and resist passions. Which is the cause that I study, and am desirous always to read and gather the sayings and doings, not only of learned clerks and philosophers; who, as our sages and wise men say, have no gall in them, but also and much ​rather of kings, princes, tyrants, and potentates: As, for example, such as that was of Antigonus, who hearing his soldiers upon a time revile him behind his pavilion, thinking that he heard them not, put forth his staff from under the cloth unto them and said: A whoreson knaves, could you not go a little farther off, when you meant thus to rail upon us? Likewise when one Arcadian, an Argive or Achæan never gave over reviling of King Philip, and abusing him in most reproachful terms, yea, and to give him warning
So far to fly, until he thither came Where no man knew nor heard of Philip's name.
And afterwards the man was seen (I know not how) in Macedonia; the friends and courtiers of King Philip were in hand with him to have him punished, and that in any wise he should not let him go and escape: Philip, contrariwise, having him once in his hands, spake gently unto him, used him courteously, sending unto him in his lodging gifts and presents, and so sent him away. And after a certain time he commanded those courtiers of purpose to inquire what words he gave out of him unto the Greeks; but when every one made report again and testified that he was become another man, and ceased not to speak wonderful things in the praise of him; Lo (quoth Philip), then unto them: Am not I a better physician than all you, and can I not skill how to cure a foul-tongued fellow? Another time, at the great solemnity of the Olympian games, when the Greeks abused him with very bad language, his familiar friends about him said they deserved to be sharply chastised and punished for so miscalling and reviling him, who had been so good a benefactor of theirs: What would they do and say then (quoth he) if I should deal hardly by them and do them shrewd turns? Semblably, notable and excellent was the carriage of Pisistratus to Thrasibulus: of King Porsenna to Mutius, and of Magas to Philemon, who in a public and frequent theatre had mocked and scoffed at him in this manner:
Magas, there are some letters come Unto you from a king; But letter Magas none can read, i Nor write for anything.
Now it chanced afterwards that by a tempest at sea he was cast upon the port town Parætonium, whereof Magas was governor, and so fell into his hands, who did him no other harm, but commanded one of his guard or officers about him only with ​his naked sword to touch his bare neck, and so gently to go his ways and do no more to him: marry, afterwards, he sent unto him little bones for cockal, and a pretty ball to play withal, as if he had been a child that had no wit nor discretion, and so sent him home again in peace. King Ptolemæus, upon a time jesting and scoffing at a simple and unlearned grammarian, asked him who was the father of Peleus: I will answer you, sir (quoth he), if you tell me first who was the father of Lagus: This was a dry flout and touched King Ptolemæus very near, in regard of the mean parentage from whence he was descended: whereat all about the king were mightily offended, and thought it was too broad a jest and frump intolerable. But Ptolemæus, if it be not seemly for a king to take and put up a scorn, surely as little decent it is for his person to give a scorn
Alexander the Great was more bitter and cruel (than otherwise his ordinary manner was to others) towards Callisthenes and Clytus. But King Porus, being taken prisoner by him in a battle, besought that he would use him royally, or like a king. And when King Alexander demanded, moreover, what he had more to say, and what he would have else? No more (quoth he), for under this word royally is comprised all. And therefore I suppose it is that the Greeks call the king of the gods by the name of Milichiüs, that is to say, Mild and sweet as honey. And the Athenians named him Mumactes, which is as much as. Ready to help and succour: For to punish and torment pertaineth to devils and the furious fiends of hell: there is no celestial, divine, and heavenly thing in it. And like as one said 'of King Philip, when he had razed and destroyed the city Olynthus: Yea, marry, but he is not able to set up such another city in the place: even so, a man may well say unto anger. Thou canst overthrow, demolish, mar, and pull down; but to rear and erect again, to save, to pardon, and to endure, be the properties of meekness, clemency, mildness, patience and moderation: they be the parts (I say) of Camillus, Metellus, Aristides, and Socrates: whereas to stick close unto the flesh, to pinch, prick, and bite, are the qualities of pismires, flies, and mice.
Moreover and besides, when I look unto revenge, and the manner thereof, I find for the most part, that if men proceed by way of choler, they miss of their purpose: for commonly all the heat and desire of revenge is spent in biting of lips, gnashing and grating of teeth, vain running to and fro, in railing words ​with foolish threats and menaces among, that savour of no wit at all: By which means it fareth with them afterwards as with little children in running of a race, who for feebleness being not able to hold out, fall down before they come unto the goal, whereunto they made such ridiculous and foolish haste. And therefore in my conceit, it was not an improper answer which a certain Rhodian made unto one of the lictors and officers of a Roman general or lord praetor, who with wide mouth bawled at him, and made a glorious bragging and boasting. I pass not (quoth he) one whit what thou sayst; I care rather for that which he thinketh there, that saith nothing. In like manner Sophocles, when he had brought in Eurypylus and Neoptolemus all armed, speaketh bravely in their commendation thus:
They dealt no threats in vain, no taunts They made, nor boasting words; But to 't they went, and on their shields They laid on load with swords.
And verily, some barbarous nations there are who use to poison their swords and other weapons of iron; but valour hath no need at all of the venom of choler, for dipped it is in reason and judgment; whereas whatsoever is corrupted with ire and fury is brittle, rotten, and easy to be broken into pieces. Which is the reason that the Lacedaemonians do allay the choler of their soldiers, when they are fighting, with the melodious sound of flutes and pipes; whose manner is also, before they go to battle, to sacrifice unto the Muses, to the end that their reason and right wits may remain in them still, and that they may have use thereof: yea, and when they have put their enemies to flight, they never pursue after nor follow the chase, but reclaim and hold their furious anger within compass, which they are able to wield and manage as they list; no less than these daggers or cutlasses, which are of a mean size and reasonable length.
Contrariwise, anger hath been the cause that many thousands have come short of the execution of vengeance, and miscarried by the way. As, for example, Cyrus and Pelopidas the Theban among the rest. But Agathocles endured patiently to hear himself reproached and reviled by those whom he besieged: and when one of them said: You potter there! Hear you? Where will you have silver to pay your mercenary soldiers and strangers their wages? He laughed again and made answer; Even out of this city when I have once forced it. Some there ​were also that mocked and scorned Antigonus from the very walls, and twitted him with his deformity and evil-favoured face. But he said no more than thus, Why! And I took myself before to have been very fair and well favoured. Now when he had won the town he sold in open port-sale those that had so flouted him, protesting withal unto them, that if from that time forward they mocked him any more, he would tell their masters of them and call them to account.
Moreover, I do see that hunters, yea, and orators also, commit many faults in their choler. And Aristotle doth report, that the friends of Satyrus the orator, in one cause that he had to plead for them, stopped his ears with wax, for fear lest that he, when he heard his adversaries to rail upon him in their pleas, should mar all in his anger. And do not (I pray you) we ourselves many times miss of punishing our servants by this means, when they have done some faults: for when they hear us to threaten, and give out in our anger, that we will do thus and thus unto them, they be so frighted that they run away far enough off from us. Like as nurses, therefore, are wont to say unto their little children: Cry not, and you shall have this or that; so we shall do very well to speak unto our choler in this wise; Make no such haste, soft and fair, keep not such a crying, make not so loud a noise, be not so eager and urgent upon the point: so shall you see everything that you would have, sooner done and much better. And thus a father, when he seeth his child going about to cut or cleave anything with a knife or edge tool, taketh the tool or knife out of his hand, and doth it himself; even so he that doth take revenge out of the hands of choler, punisheth not himself, but him that deserveth it: and thus he doth surely, putting his own person in no danger, without damage and loss, nay, with great profit and commodity.
Now, whereas all passions whatsoever of the mind had need of use and custom, to tame (as it were) and vanquish by exercise that which in them is unruly, rebellious and disobedient to reason: certes, in no one point besides had we need to be more exercised (I mean as touching those dealings that we have with our household servants) than in anger: for there is no envy and emulation that ariseth in us toward them, there is no fear that we need to have of them, neither any ambition that troubleth or pricketh us against them; but ordinary and continual fits of anger we have every day with them, which breed much offence and many errors, causing us to tread awry, to slip and do amiss sundry ways, by reason of that licentious liberty unto which we ​give ourselves, all the whiles that there is none to control, none to stay, none to forbid and hinder us: and therefore, being in so ticklish a place, and none to sustain and hold us up, soon we catch a fall, and come down at once. And a hard matter it is (I may say to you) when we are not bound to render an account to any one, in such a passion as this, to keep ourselves upright, and not to offend; unless we take order beforehand to restrain and empale (as it were) round about so great a liberty with meekness and clemency, unless (I say) we be well inured and acquainted to bear and endure many shrewd and unhappy words of our wives, much unkind language of friends and familiars, who many times do challenge us for being too remiss, over-gentle, yea, and altogether careless and negligent in this behalf. And this in truth hath been the principal cause that I have been quick and sharp unto my servants, for fear lest they might prove the worse for not being chastised. But at the last, though late it were, I perceived; First, that better it was by long sufferance and indulgence, to make them somewhat worse, than in seeking to reform and amend others, to disorder and spoil myself with bitterness and choler: Secondly, when I saw many of them oftentimes, even because they were not so punished, fear and shame to do evil, and how pardon and forgiveness was the beginning of their repentance and conversion, rather than rigour and punishment; and that I assure you, they would serve some more willingly with a nod or wink of the eye, and without a word spoken, than others with all their beating and whipping: I was at last persuaded in my mind and resolved, that reason was more worthy to command and rule as a master, than ire and wrath. For true it is not that the poet saith:
Wherever is fear, Shame also is there:
but clean contrary: Look who are bashful and ashamed; in them there is imprinted a certain fear that holdeth them in good order: whereas continual beating and laying on without mercy, breedeth not repentance in servants for evil doing, but rather a kind of forecast and providence how they should not be spied nor taken in their evil doing. Thirdly, calling to remembrance, and considering evermore with myself, that he who taught us to shoot forbade us not to draw a bow or to shoot an arrow, but to miss the mark: no more will this be any let or hindrance, but that we may chastise and punish our servants, if we be taught to do it in time and place, with moderation and measure, ​profitably, and decently as it appertaineth. And verily I do enforce myself, and strive to master my choler and subdue it principally, nor denying unto them who are to be punished, the liberty and means to justify themselves, but in hearing them to speak what they can for their excuse. For as time and space doth in the meantime find the passion occupied another way, and withal bring a certain delay, which doth slack and let down (as it were) the vehemency and violence thereof; so judgment of reason all the while meeteth both with a decent manner and also with a convenient mean and measure of doing punishment accordingly. And besides, this course and manner of proceeding, leaveth him that is punished no cause, occasion, or pretence at all to resist and strive again, considering that he is chastised and corrected not in choler and anger, but being first convinced that he had well deserved his correction: and (which were yet worse than all the rest) the servant shall not have vantage to speak more justly and to better reason than his master.
Well, then, like as Phocion after the death of Alexander the Great, having a care not to suffer the Athenians to rise oversoon, or make any insurrection before due time, nor yet to give credit rashly unto the news of his death: My masters of Athens (quoth he), if he be dead to-day, he will be dead to-morrow also, and three days hence too; even so should a man (in mine opinion) who, by the impulsion and instigation of anger, maketh haste to take punishment, thus suggest and secretly say to himself: If this servant of mine hath made a fault to-day, it will be as true to-morrow, and the next day after, that he hath done a fault; neither will there be any harm or danger at all come of it, if he chance to be punished with the latest; but believe me, if he be punished over-soon, it will be always thought that he had wrong, and did not offend: a thing that I have known to happen full often. For which of us all is so curst and cruel, as to punish and scourge a servant for burning the roast five or ten days ago? or for that so long before he chanced to overthrow the table? or was somewhat with the slowest in making answer to his master; or did his errand or other business not so soon as he should? and yet we see these and such-like be the ordinary causes for which (whiles they be fresh and new done) we take on, we stamp and stare, we chafe, we frown, we are implacable and will hear of no pardon: And no marvel, for like as any bodies seem bigger through a mist, even so everything appeareth greater than it is through anger.
​And therefore at these and such-like faults, we should wink for the time, and make as though we saw them not, and yet think upon them nevertheless, and bear them in mind. But afterwards, when the storm is well overblown, we are without passion, and do not suspect ourselves, then we may do well to consider thereof: and then, if upon mature deliberation, when our mind is staid and our senses settled, the thing appear to be naught, we are to hate and abhor it, and in no wise either to forlet and put off, or altogether to omit and forbear correction, like as they refuse meats who have no stomach nor appetite to eat. For certainly it is not a thing so much to be blamed for to punish one in anger, as not to punish when anger is past and allayed, and so to be retchless and dissolute: doing as idle mariners, who so long as the sea is calm and the weather fair, loiter within the harbour or haven, but afterwards, when a tempest is up, spread sails and put themselves into danger. For even so we, condemning and neglecting the remissness and calmness of reason in case of punishment, make haste to execute the same during the heat of choler, which no doubt is a blustering and turbulent wind. As for meat, he calleth for it indeed, and taketh it naturally who is a-hungry: but surely he executeth punishment best who neither hungereth nor thirsteth after it: neither hath he need to use choler as a sauce or dainty dish for to get him a stomach and appetite to correct: but even when he is farthest off from desire of revenge, then of necessity he is to make use of reason and wisdom to direct him: for we ought not to do, as Aristotle writeth in his time the manner was in Tuscany; To whip servants with sound of flutes and hautboys; namely, to make a sport and pastime of punishing men, and to solace ourselves with their punishment for pleasure's sake, and then afterwards, when we have done, repent us of it: for as the one is brutish and beastlike, so the other is as womanish and unmanly: but without grief and pleasure both, at what time as reason and judgment is in force, we ought to let justice take punishment, and leave none occasion at all for choler to get advantage.
But peradventure some one will say, that this is not properly the way to remedy or cure anger; but rather a putting by or precaution that we should not commit any of those faults which ordinarily follow that passion: Unto whom I answer thus; That the swelling of the spleen is not the cause but a symptom or accident of a fever: howbeit, if the said humour be fallen and the pain mitigated, the fever also will be much eased, ​according as Hieronymus saith. Also, when I consider by what means choler is engendered: I see that one falleth into it upon this cause, another upon that: but in all of them it seemeth this general opinion there is, that they think themselves to be despised and naught set by. And therefore we ought to meet with such as seem to defend and maintain themselves, as being angry for just cause, and to cure them after this manner; namely, by diverting and removing from them, as far as ever we can, all suspicion of contempt and contumacy in those that have offended them and moved their anger; in laying the fault upon inconsiderate folly, necessity, sickness, infirmity and misery, as Sophocles did in these verses:
For those, my lords, whose state is in distress. Have not their spirits and wits as heretofore: As fortune frowns, they waxen ever less, Nay, gone are quite, though fresh they were before.
And Agamemnon, albeit he laid the taking away of Briseis from Achilles upon Ate (that is to say) some fatal infortunity, yet
He willing was and prest, him to content. And unto him rich gifts for to present.
For to beseech and intreat are signs of a man that despiseth not, and when the party who hath given offence becometh humble and lowly, he removeth all the opinion that might be conceived of contempt. But he that is in a fit of choler must not attend and wait until he see that, but rather help himself with the answer of Diogenes. These fellows here said one unto him. Do deride thee, Diogenes; but I (quoth he again) do not find that I am derided; even so ought a man who is angry not to be persuaded that he is contemned of another, but rather that himself hath just cause to contemn him, and to think that the fault committed did proceed of infirmity, error, heady-rashness, sloth and idleness, a base and illiberal mind, age or youth.
And as for our servants and friends, we must by all means quit them hereof, or pardon them at leastwise: For surely they cannot be thought to contemn us, in regard that they think us unable to be revenged, or men of no execution if we went about it: but it is either by reason of our remissness and mildness, or else of our love and affection, that we seem to be smally regarded by them, whiles our servants presume of our tractable nature, easy to be pacified, and our friends of our exceeding love that cannot be soon shaken off. But now we are provoked ​to anger, not only against our wives, or servitors and friends, as being contemned by them; but also many times in our choler we fall upon inn-keepers, mariners and muleteers, when they be drunk, supposing that they despise us. And that which more is, we are offended with dogs when they bay or bark at us; and with asses if they chance to fling out and kick us. Like unto him who lifted up his hand to strike and beat him that did drive an ass; and when the man cried that he was an Athenian: But thou, I am sure, art no Athenian (quoth he) to the ass, and laid upon the poor beast as hard as he could, and gave him many a blow with his cudgel. But that which chiefly causeth us to be angry, and breedeth a continual disposition thereto in our minds, causing us so often to break out into fits of choler, which by little and little was engendered and gathered there before, is the love of our own selves, and a kind of froward surliness hardly to be pleased, together with a certain daintiness and delicacy, which all concurring in one, breed and bring forth a swarm (as it were) of bees, or rather a wasps' nest in us. And therefore there cannot be a better means for to carry ourselves mildly and kindly, towards our wives, our servants, familiars and friends, than a contented mind, and a singleness or simplicity of heart, when a man resteth satisfied with whatsoever is present at hand, and requireth neither things superfluous nor exquisite:
But he that never is content With rost or sod, but cook is shent: However he be serv'd, I mean With more, with less, or in a mean: He is not pleas'd, nor one good word Can give of viands set on board. Without some snow who drinks no draught, Nor eateth bread in market bought. Who tastes no meat, b' it never so good, Serv'd up in dish of earth or wood: And thinks no bed nor pillow soft, Unless with down like sea aloft Stirr'd from beneath, it strut and swell; For otherwise he sleeps not well;
who with rods and whips plieth and hasteneth the servitors at the table, making them to run until they sweat again, crying and bawling at them to come away apace, as if they were not carrying dishes of meat, but plasters and cataplasms for some inflammation or painful impostume: subjecting himself after a slavish manner to a servile kind of diet and life, full of discontentment, quarrels and complaints: little knoweth such an one how by a continual cough, or many concussions and distemperatures, he hath brought his soul to an ulcerous and rheumatic ​disposition about the seat and place of anger. And therefore we must use the body by frugality to take up and learn to be content with a competent mean (forasmuch as they who desire but a little, can never be disappointed nor frustrate of much), finding no fault, nor keeping any stir at the beginning about meat, but standing satisfied without saying a word, with that which God sendeth whatsoever it be, not fretting, vexing and tormenting ourselves at the table about everything, and in so doing, serving both ourselves and our company about us of friends, with the most unsavoury mess of meat, that is to wit, choler:
A supper worse than this I do not see How possibly one can devised be.
Namely, whiles the servants be beaten, the wife chidden and reviled for the meat burnt, for smoke in the parlour, for want of salt, or for the bread over-stale and dry. But Arcesilaus upon a time with other friends of his, feasted certain strangers and hosts of his abroad, whose guest he had been; and after the supper was come in, and meat set upon the board, there wanted bread, by reason that his servants had forgotten and neglected to buy any: for such a fault as this, which of us here would not have cried out that the walls should have burst withal, and been ready to have thrown the house out of the window? And he laughing at the matter: He had need be a wise man (quoth he), I see well, that would make a feast and set it out as it should be. Socrates also upon a time, when he came from the wrestling school, took Euthydemus home with him to supper: but Xantippe, his wife, fell a-chiding and scolding with him at the board, reviling him with most bitter terms, so long, until at last in an anger down went table and all that was upon it: Whereupon Euthydemus arose, and was about to depart; but Socrates: Will you be gone? (quoth he). Why, do you not remember that the other day as we sat at supper in your house, there flew up to the board a hen and did as much for you? and yet were not we offended nor angry for the matter. And in very truth, we must entertain our friends and guests with courtesy, mirth, a smiling countenance, and affectionate love: and not to brow-beat them, nor yet put the servitors in a fright, and make them quake and tremble with our frowning looks. Also we ought so to accustom ourselves that we may be content to be served with any kind of vessels whatsoever, and not upon a daintiness to have a mind to this rather than to that, but to like all indifferently. And yet there be some so divers, that ​although there be many cups and goblets standing upon the board, choose one from the rest, and cannot drink forsooth but out of that one: according as the stories do report of Marius, who loved one mazar, and could drink out of no other. Thus they do by their oil cruets and currying combs or rubbers, when they are at the bains or stouphs, taking a fancy and affection to some one above the rest: but if it chance that one of them be cracked, broken, or be lost and miscarry any way, then they are exceeding angry and fall to beating of their servants.
Such men, therefore, as find themselves to be choleric, should do well to forbear all rare and exquisite things, to wit, pots, cups, seal rings of excellent workmanship and precious stones. For that such costly jewels, if they be marred or lost, breed more anger and set men out of order, more than those which be ordinary and easy to be come by. And therefore, when Nero the emperor had caused to be made a certain pavilion or tabernacle eight square, which was both for the beauty and cost exceeding fair and sumptuous, and indeed an admirable piece of work. In this tabernacle (quoth Seneca) unto him, you have bewrayed, Caesar, that you are but a poor man: for if you lose this once, you shall never be able to recover and get the like again. And so it fell out indeed, for the ship wherein the same tabernacle was, chanced to be cast away upon the sea, and all was drowned. But Nero, calling to mind the words of Seneca, took the loss more patiently.
Moreover, this contentment of mind, and easiness to be pleased with anything in the house, causeth a man also to be more gentle, mild, and better contented with his servants and people about him: now if it work this effect in us toward our household servants, evident it is that we shall be likewise affected to our friends and those that be under our government. We see also, that slaves new bought are inquisitive as touching him who hath bought them; not whether he be superstitious and envious; but whether he be choleric and hasty or no. And to be brief, neither can husbands endure the pudicity and honesty of their wives; nor wives the love of their husbands; nor yet friends the mutual conversation one with another, if there do an angry and choleric humour go withal. Thus we see that neither marriage nor amity be tolerable with choler. Contrariwise, if anger be away, even drunkenness itself is tolerable and we can easily abide it: for the very ferula of god Bacchus is a sufficient punishment of drunkenness, if so be there be not choler therewith, which may cause Bacchus, that is. Strong ​wine, instead of Lyæus and Chorius, that is to say, The Looser of cares and Leader of dances (which are his surnames), to be called Omestes and Mœnoles, which signify Cruel and Furious. As for simple madness of itself alone, the ellebore growing in Antycira is sufficient to cure: but if it be mingled with choler it causeth tragical fits, and those so strange, that a man would repute them for mere fables.
And therefore we must not give place to anger, neither in sport and pastime; for in lieu of goodwill it breedeth enmity: nor in conference and disputations; for it tumeth the love and desire of knowledge into debate and contention: nor in deciding and judging causes; because to authority it addeth violence and insolency: nor in the teaching and instruction of our children; for it maketh them desperate and haters of learning: nor in prosperity; for it encreaseth the envy and grudge of men: nor yet in adversity, because it taketh away pity and compassion, when they who are fallen into any misfortune, shew themselves testy, froward and quarrelous to those who come to moan and mourn with them. This did Priamus, as we read in Homer:
Avaunt (quoth he), you chiding guests. You odious mates, be gone; Have you no sorrows of your own. But you come me to moan?
On the other side, fair conditions and mild behaviour yieldeth succour and help in some cases; composeth and ordereth matters aright in others; dulceth and allay eth that which is tart and sour: and in one word, by reason of that kind, meek and gentle quality, it overcometh anger and all wayward testiness whatsoever. Thus it is reported of Euclides in a quarrel or variance between him and his brother: For when his brother had contested and said unto him; I would I might die, if I be not revenged of thee: he inferred again; Nay, let me die for it, if I persuade thee not otherwise before I have done; by which one word he presently won his brother's heart, so that he changed his mind, and they parted friends. Polemon likewise, at a certain time, when one who loved precious stones, and was sick for fair and costly rings and such-like curious jewels, did rail at him outrageously, answered not a word again, but looked very wistly upon one of the signets that the other had, and well considered the fashion and workmanship thereof: which, when the party perceived, taking as it should seem no small contentment, and being very well pleased that he so perused his jewel; Not so, Polemon (quoth he again), but look ​upon it thus, between you and the light, and then you will think it much more beautiful. Aristippus fell out upon a time (I know not how) with Æschines, and was in a great choler and fit of anger: How now, Aristippus (quoth one who heard him so high and at such hot words), where is your amity and friendship all this while? Marry, asleep (quoth he), but I will waken it anon. With that he stept close to Æschines, and said: Think you me so unhappy every way and incurable, that I deserved not one admonishment at your hands? No marvel (quoth Æschines again) if I thought you (who for natural wit in all things else excel me) to see better in this case also than I, what is meet and expedient to be done. For true it is that the poet saith:
The boar so wild, whose neck with bristles strong Is thick beset, the tender hand and soft Of woman nice, yea, and of infant young, By stroking fair, shall bend and turn (full oft) Much sooner far, and that with greater ease Than wrestlers strong with all their force and peise.
And we ourselves can skill how to tame wild beasts, we know how to make young wolves gentle, yea, and lions' whelps otherwhiles we carry about with us in our arms: but see, how we again afterwards, in a raging fit of choler, be ready to fling from us and cast out of our sight our own children, our friends and familiars, and all our household servants, our fellow-citizens and neighbours, we let loose our ire like some savage and furious beast, and this rage of ours we disguise and cloak forsooth with a colourable and false name, calling it hatred of vice. But herein (I suppose) we do no otherwise than in the rest of our passions and diseases of the mind; terming one, providence and forecast; another, liberality; and a third, piety and religion: and yet for all these pretences of goodly names, we cannot be cured of the vices which they palliate; to wit, timorousness, prodigality and superstition.
And verily, like as our natural seed (as Zeno said) is a certain mixture and composition derived and extracted from all the powers and faculties of the soul; even so, in mine opinion, a man may say that choler is a miscellany seed (as it were) and a dreg, made of all the passions of the mind: for plucked it is from pain, pleasure and insolent violence: Of envy it hath this quality, to joy in the harms of other men: it standeth much upon murder, but worse it is simply than murder: for the wrathful person striveth and laboureth not to defend and save himself from taking harm; but so he may mischief and ​overthrow another, he careth not to come by a hurt and shrewd turn himself. It holdeth likewise of concupiscence and lust, and taketh of it the worse and more unpleasant part, in case it be (as it is indeed) a desire and appetite to grieve, vex, and harm another. And therefore, when we approach and come near to the houses of luxurious and riotous persons, we hear betimes in the morning a minstrel-wench sounding and playing the morrow-watch by break of day: we see the muddy-grounds and dregs (as one was wont to say) of the wine, to wit, the vomits of those who cast up their stomachs: we behold the pieces and fragments of broken garlands and chaplets: and at the door we find the lackeys and pages of them who ate within, drunken and heavy in the head with tippling strong wine.
But the signs that tell where hasty, choleric, and angry persons dwell, appear in the faces of their servants, in the marks and wales remaining after their whipping, and in their clogs, irons, and fetters about their feet. For in the houses of hasty and angry men, a man shall never hear but one kind of music; that is to say, the heavy note of wailing groans and piteous plaints; whiles either the stewards within are whipped and scourged, or the maidens racked and put to torture, in such sort that you would pity to see the dolours and pains of ire which she suffereth in those things that she lusteth after and taketh pleasure in. And yet as many of us as happen to be truly and justly surprised with choler oftentimes, for the hatred and detestation that we have of vices, ought to cut off that which is excessive therein and beyond measure, together with our over-light belief and credulity of reports concerning such as converse with us: For this is one of the causes that most of all doth engender and augment choler, when either he whom we took for an honest man proveth dishonest, and is detected for some naughtiness, or whom we reputed our friend is fallen into some quarrel and variance with us: as for myself, you know my nature and disposition, what small occasions make me both to love men effectually, and also to trust them confidently; and therefore (just as it falleth out with them who go over a false floor where the ground is not fast, but hollow under their feet) where I lean most and put my greatest trust for the love that I bear, there I offend most and soonest catch a fall: there (I say) am I grieved most also, when I see how I was deceived: As for that exceeding inclination and forwardness of mind, thus to love and affect a man, could I never yet to this day wean myself from, so inbred it is and settled in me: marry, to stay myself from giving credit ​over-hastily and too much, I may peradventure use that bridle which Plato speaketh of, to wit, wary circumspection: For in recommending the mathematician Helicon, I praise him (quoth he) for a man, that is as much to say, as a creature by nature mutable and apt to change. And even those who have been well brought up in a city, to wit, in Athens, he saith that he is afraid likewise of them, lest being men, and coming from the seed of man, they do not one time or other bewray the weakness and infirmity of human nature: and Sophocles, when he speaketh thus:
Who list to search through all deeds of mankind More bad than good he shall be sure to find,
seemeth to clip our wings, and disable us wonderfully. Howbeit, this difficulty and caution in judging of men and pleasing ourselves in the choice of friends, will cause us to be more tractable and moderate in our anger: for whatsoever cometh suddenly and unexpected, the same soon transporteth us beside ourselves. We ought, moreover, as Panatius teacheth us in one place, to practise the example of Anaxagoras, and like as he said, when news came of his son's death; I know well (quoth he) that I begat him a mortal man; so in every fault of our servants or others that shall whetten our choler, each one of us may sing this note to himself: I knew well that when I bought this slave he was not a wise philosopher: I wist also that I had gotten for my friend not one altogether void of affections and passions: neither was I ignorant when I took a wife that I wedded a woman.
Now if withal a man would evermore, when he seeth others do amiss, add this more unto the ditty as Plato teacheth us, and sing thus: Am not I also such another? turning the discursion of his judgment from things abroad to those which are within himself, and among his complaints and reprehensions of other men, come in with a certain caveat of his own, and fear to be reproved himself in the like; he would not haply be so quick and forward in the hatred and detestation of other men's vices, seeing that himself hath so much need of pardon. But on the contrary side, every one of us, when he is in the heat of choler and punisheth another, hath these words of severe Aristides and precise Cato ready enough in his mouth: Steal not, sirrah: Make no more lies: Why art thou so idle then? etc. To conclude (that which of all others is most unseemly and absurd), we reprove in anger others for being angry; and ​such faults as were committed in choler, those ourselves will punish in choler; not verily as the physicians use to do, who
A bitter medicine into the body pour. When bitter choler they mean to purge and scour.
But we rather do increase the same with our bitterness, and make more trouble than was before.
And therefore, when I think and discourse with myself of these matters, I endeavour withal and assay to cut off somewhat from needless curiosity. For surely this narrow searching and streight looking into everything, for to spy and find out a fault; as for example, to sift thy servant and call him into question for all his idle hours; to pry into every action of thy friend; to see where about thy son goeth, and how he spendeth all his time; to listen what whispering there is between thy wife and another, be the very means to breed much anger, daily brawls, and continual jars, which grow in the end to the height of curstness and frowardness, hard to be pleased with anything whatsoever. For according as Euripides saith in one place, we ought in some sort to do:
All great affairs God ay himself directeth, But matters small, to fortune he committeth.
For mine own part, I do not think it good to commit any business to fortune; neither would I have a man of understanding to be retchless in his own occasions: But with some things to put his wife in trust; others to make over unto servants, and in some matters to use his friends. Herein to bear himself like a prince and great commander, having under him his deputies, governors, receivers, auditors, and procurators; reserving unto himself and to the disposition of his own judgment, the principal affairs and those of greatest importance. For like as little letters or a small print do more offend and trouble the eyes than greater, for that the eyes be very intentive upon them; even so, small matters do quickly move choler, which thereupon soon getteth an ill custom in weightier matters. But above all, I ever reckon that saying of Empedocles to be a divine precept and heavenly oracle, which admonisheth us To fast from sin. I commended also these points and observations, as being right honest, commendable, and beseeming him that maketh profession of wisdom and philosophy, which we use to vow unto the gods in our prayers: Namely, To forbear both wine and women, and so to live sober and chaste a whole year together, ​and in the meanwhile to serve God with a pure and undefiled heart: Also, to limit and set out a certain time, wherein we would not make a lie, observing precisely not to speak any vain and idle word, either in earnest or in bourd.
With these and such-like observations also I acquainted and furnished my soul, as being no less affected to religion and godliness than studious of learning and philosophy: Namely, first enjoined myself to pass a certain few holy-days without being angry or offended upon any occasion whatsoever; no less than I would have vowed to forbear drunkenness, and abstain altogether from wine, as if I sacrificed at the feast Nephalia [wherein no wine was spent], or celebrated the solemnity Melisponda [in which honey only was used.] Thus, having made an entrance; I tried afterwards a month or two by little and little what I could do, and ever I gained more and more time, exercising myself still to forbear sin with all my power and might. Thus I proceeded and went forward daily, blessing myself with good words and striving to be mild, quiet and void of malice, pure and clean from evil speeches and lewd deeds: but principally from that passion which for a little pleasure and the same not very lovely, bringeth with it great troubles and shameful repentance in the end. Thus with the grace of God assisting me somewhat (as I take it) in this good resolution and course of mine, experience itself approved and confirmed my first intent and judgment, whereby I was taught, That this mildness, clemency and debonair humanity is to none of our familiars who live and converse daily with us, so sweet, so pleasant and agreeable as to ourselves who have these virtues and good qualities within us.