On the Control of Anger (3-4)

FUNDANUS. To be sure, when anger persists and its outbursts are frequent, there is created in the soul an evil state which is called irascibility,[*] and this usually results in sudden outbursts of rage, moroseness, and peevishness when the temper becomes ulcerated, easily offended, and liable to find fault for even trivial offences, like a weak, thin piece of iron which is always getting scratched. But if judgement at once opposes the fits of anger and represses them, it not only cures them for the present, but for the future also it renders the soul firm and difficult for passion to attack. In my own case, at any rate, when I had opposed anger two or three times, it came about that I experienced what the Thebans did, who, when they had for the first time[*] repulsed the Spartans, who had the reputation of being invincible, were never thereafter defeated by them in any battle; for I acquired the proud consciousness that it is possible for reason to conquer. Not only did I see that anger ceases when cold water is sprinkled on it, as Aristotle[*] says, but that it is also extinguished when a poultice of fear is applied to it. And, by Heaven, if joy comes on the scene, in the case of many the temper has been quickly warmed, as Homer[*] says, or dissipated. Consequently I came to the opinion that this passion is not altogether incurable, for those, at least, who wish to cure it.

FUNDANUS. For anger does not always have great and powerful beginnings; on the contrary, even a jest, a playful word, a burst of laughter or a nod on the part of somebody, and many things of the kind, rouse many persons to anger; just as Helen, by thus addressing her niece,

Electra, virgin for so long a time,

provoked her to reply,

Too late you’re wise; but once you left your home

Disgraced.[*]

And so was Alexander provoked by Callisthenes,[*] who said, when the great bowl was going its rounds, I do not care to have a drink of Alexander and then have to call in Asclepius. [*]

FUNDANUS. And so, just as it is an easy matter to check a flame which is being kindled in hare’s fur[*] or candlewicks or rubbish, but if it ever takes hold of solid bodies having depth, it quickly destroys and consumes

With youthful vigour lofty craftsmen’s work,[*]

as Aeschylus has it; so the man who at the beginning gives heed to his temper and observes it while it is still smoking and catching flame little by little from some gossip or rubbishy scurrility need have no great concern about it; on the contrary, he has often succeeded in extinguishing it merely by keeping silent and ignoring it. For he who gives no fuel to fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it. I was therefore not satisfied with what Hieronymus[*] says - although he contributes other useful remarks and advice - in the passage where he declares that we have no perception of anger when it comes into being, but only when it has already come into being and exists, the reason being the swiftness with which it acts. For the truth is that none of the emotions, at the time when they are gathering and beginning to move, has a birth and increase so easy to perceive.[*] Indeed Homer also skilfully teaches us this lesson when he causes Achilles to be suddenly overwhelmed by grief on receiving the report,[*] in the passage where the poet says:

He spoke, and a black cloud of grief closed round Achilles;

but Homer portrays Achilles as being slow to lose his temper with Agamemnon[*] and as becoming inflamed only when many words had been spoken. Yet if either one of the men had held back their words at the beginning and prevented their utterance, the quarrel would not have had so great a growth or have reached such magnitude. That is the reason why Socrates,[*] as often as he perceived himself being moved to too great harshness against any of his friends, betaking himself to coast

Before the storm along some promontory,[*]

would lower his voice, cause a smile to spread over his face, and make the expression of his eyes more gentle, preserving himself from fault and defeat by setting up within himself an influence to counteract his passion.