Plutarch Animine an corporis affectiones sint peiores 4

[4] As, therefore, the storm that prevents a sailor from putting into port is more dangerous than that which does not allow him to sail, so those storms of the soul are more serious which do not allow a man to compose or to calm his disturbed reason; but pilotless and without ballast, in confusion and aimless wandering, rushing headlong in oblique and reeling courses, he suffers a terrible shipwreck, as it were, and ruins his life. Consequently for this reason also it is worse to be sick in soul than in body; for men afflicted in body only suffer, but those afflicted in soul both suffer and do ill. ¹

But why need I recount the multitude of the soul’s maladies? The present occasion of itself brings them to mind. Do you see this vast and promiscuous crowd which jostles and surges in confusion here about the tribunal and the market-place? These persons have come together, not to sacrifice to their country’s gods, not to share in each other’s family rites, not bringing to Ascraean Zeus ² the first-fruits of Lydian harvests, ³ nor, in honour of Dionysus, to celebrate his mystic festival on sacred nights with common revellings, but, as it were, a mighty pestilence drives them together here with yearly visitations stirring up Asia, which must come for law-suits and litigation at certain stated times; and the overwhelming multitude, like streams flowing together, has inundated this one market-place and boils with fury and dashes together in a tumult ⁴ What fevers, what agues, have brought this about? What stoppages, or irruptions of blood, ⁵ or distemperature of heat, or overflow of humours, have caused this? If you examine every law-suit, as though it were a person, to discover what gave rise to it and whence it came, you will find that obstinate anger begat one, frantic ambition another, unjust desire a third...

[4] As therefore that storm which hinders a ship from entering into the port is more dangerous than that which suffers it not to sail; so the tempests of the soul are more difficult, which permit not a man to restrain himself, nor to settle his disturbed reason, so that, being without pilot or cables, he is through tumult and deceit hurried headlong by rash and pernicious courses, till he falls into some terrible shipwreck, where he casts away his life. So that also for these reasons it is worse to be sick in the soul than body; for to the one it happens only to suffer, but to the other both to suffer and do amiss. And what need is there to reckon up the greater number of our passions? This very nick of time is a sufficient remembrance. Do you see this vast and promiscuous multitude, here crowding and thrusting each other about the tribunal and forum? They are not assembled to sacrifice to their country Gods, nor to participate together in the sacred ceremonies. They are not come to offer up to Jupiter Ascraeus the first of the Lydian fruits, nor to celebrate the solemnities of Bacchus by the observance of festival nights and common revellings; but a mighty pestilence, as it were by yearly revolutions irritating Asia, drives them hither to manage their processes and suits at law; and a multitude of affairs, as it were of impetuous torrents, fall into one market-place, where they grow hot and are eagerly prosecuted both by those that destroy and by those that are destroyed. Of what fevers, of what agues, are these the effects? What lodgements, what irruptions, what distemperature of heat, what superfusion of humors produces them? Should you ask every suit at law as if it were a man, whence it had its original, whence it proceeded; you would find, that audacious anger generated one, furious obstinacy another, and unjust covetousness a third...