Concerning the cure of anger: a dialogue (3)

FUNDANUS.Now the continuance of anger and frequent fits of it produce an evil habit in the soul called wrathfulness, or a propensity to be angry, which oft-times ends in choleric temper, bitterness, and moroseness. Then the mind becomes ulcerated, peevish, and querulous, and like a thin, weak plate of iron, receives impression and is wounded by even the least occurrence; but when the judgment presently seizes upon wrathful ebullitions and suppresses them, it not only works a cure for the present, but renders the soul firm and not so liable to such impressions for the future. And truly, when I myself had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedaemonians, that before that time had held themselves invincible, never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them. For I became fully assured in my mind, that anger might be overcome by the use of reason. And I perceived that it might not only be quieted by the sprinkling of cold water, as Aristotle relates, but also be extinguished by putting one into a flight. Yea, according to Homer, many men have had their anger melted and dissipated by sudden surprise of joy. So that I came to this firm resolution, that this passion is not altogether incurable to such as are but willing to be cured; since the beginnings and occasions of it are not always great or forcible; but a scoff, or a jest, or the laughing at one, or a nod only, or some other matter of no great importance, will put many men into a passion. Thus Helen, by addressing her niece in the words beginning,—

O my Electra, now a virgin stale,

provoked her to make this nipping return:—

Thou’rt wise too late, thou shouldst have kept at home.

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And so did Callisthenes provoke Alexander by saying, when the great bowl was going round, I will not drink so deep in honor of Alexander, as to make work for Aesculapius.