[15]
FUNDANUS.
And as Zeno has said that the seed was a mixture drawn from all the powers of the soul, in like manner anger seems to be a kind of universal seed extracted from all the passions. For it is taken from grief and pleasure and insolence; and then from envy it hath the evil property of rejoicing at another’s adversity; and it is even worse than murder itself, for it doth not strive to free itself from suffering, but to bring mischief to itself, if it may thereby but do another man an evil turn. And it hath the most odious kind of desire inbred in it, if the appetite for grieving and hurting another may be called a desire.
Wherefore, when we go to the houses of drunkards, we may hear a wench playing the flute betimes in the morning, and behold there, as one said, the muddy dregs of wine, and scattered fragments of garlands, and servants drunk at the door; and the marks of angry and surly men may be read in the faces, brands, and fetters of the servants.
But lamentation is the only bard that is always to be heard beneath the roof of the angry man, while his stewards are beaten and his maid-servants tormented; so that the spectators, in the midst of their mirth and delight, cannot but pity those sad effects of anger.
De cohibenda ira. Plutarch. ed. William W. Goodwin. Boston. 1874.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.