they had once defeated the Lacedeemonians, whom they
had hitherto thought invincible, never lost a battle against
them again. I then felt confident that reason can win the
victory. I saw also that anger is not only appeased by the
sprinkling of cold water, as Aristotle attested, but is also
extinguished by the action of fear ; aye, and, as Homer tells
us, anger has been cured and has melted away in the case
of many by some sudden joy. So that I came to the con-
clusion that this passion is not incurable for those who
wish to be cured. For it does not arise from great and
important causes, but banter and joking, a laugh or a nod,
and similar trifles make many angry, as Helen by addressing
her niece,
" Electra, maiden now for no short time," ^
provoked her to reply,
" Your wisdom blossoms late, since formerly
You left your house in shame ; " '
and Callisthenes incensed Alexander, by saying, when a
huge cup was brought to him, " I will not drink to Alex-
ander till I shall require the help of -(:Esculapius."
§ IV. As then it is easy to put out a flame kindled in
the hair of hares and in wicks and rubbish, but if it once
gets hold of things solid and thick, it quickly destroys and
consumes them, " raging amidst the lofty work of the
Reading s? tavrou with Reiske. ^ Euripides, " Orestes," 72.
^ Euripides, " Orestes," 99.
ON EE STRAINING ANGER. 271
carpenters," as -ZEschjlus^ says ; so he that observes anger
in its rise, and sees it gradually smoking and bursting forth
into fire from some chatter or rubbishy scurrility, need
have no great trouble with it, but can frequently smother
it merely by silence and contemjDt. For as a person puts
out a fire by bringing no fuel to it, so with respect to
anger, he that does not in the beginning fan it, and
stir up its rage in himself, keeps it off and destroys it.
And so, though Hieronymus has given us many useful
sayings and precepts, I am not pleased with his remark
that there is no perception of anger in its birth, but
only in its actual developement, so quick is it. For
none of the passions when stirred up and set in motion
has so palpable a birth and growth as anger. As indeed
Homer skilfully shows us, where he represents Achilles as
seized at once with grief, when word was brought him of
Patroclus' death, in the line,
" Thus spake he, and grief's dark cloud covered him ;" ^
whereas he represents him as waxing angry with Agamem-
non slowly, and as inflamed by his many words, which if
either of them^ had abstained from, their quarrel would
not have attained such growth and magnitude. And so
Socrates, as often as he perceived any anger rising in him
against any of his friends, " setting himself like some ocean
promontory to break the violence of the waves," would
lower his voice, and put on a smiling countenance, and
give his eye a gentler expression, by inclining in the other
direction and running counter to his passion, thus keeping
himself from fall and defeat.
§ V. For the first way, my friend, to overcome anger,
like the putting down of some tyrant, is not to obey or
listen to it when it bids you speak loud, and look fierce,
and beat yourself, but to remain quiet, and not to make
the passion more intense, as one would a disease, by tossing
about and crying out. In love affairs indeed, such things
as revellings, and serenadings, and crowning the loved
1 Fragment 3G1. 2 Homer, " Iliad," xvii. 591.
3 The reading of the MSS. is avToJv.
272 Plutarch's morals.
one's door with garlands, may indeed bring some pleasant
and elegant relief.
" I went, but asked not who or whose she was,
I merely kissed her door-post. If that be
A crime, I do plead guilty to the same." ^
In. the case of monrners also giving np to weeping and
wailing takes away with the tears much of the grief. But
anger on the contrary is much more fanned by what angry
persons do and say. It is best therefore to be calm, or
to flee and hide ourselves and go to a haven of quiet, when
we feel the fit of temper coming upon us as an epileptic
fit, that we fall not, or rather fall not on others, for it is
our friends that we fall upon most and most frequently.
For we do not love all, nor envy all, nor fear all men ; but
nothing is untouched or unassailed by anger ; for we are
angry with friends and enemies, parents and children, aye,
and with the gods, and beasts, and even things inanimate,
as was Thamyris,
" Breaking his gold-bound horn, breaking the music
Of well-compacted lyre ;" ^
and Pandarus, who called down a curse upon himself, if
he did not burn his bow "after breaking it with his
hands. "^ And Xerxes inflicted stripes and blows on the
sea, and sent letters to Mount Athos, " Divine Athos,
whose top reaches heaven, put not in the way of my works
stones large and difficult to deal with, or else I will hew
thee down, and throw thee into the sea." For anger has
many formidable aspects, and many ridiculous ones, so that
of all the passions it is the most hated and despised. It
will be well to consider both aspects.
§ VI. To begin then, whether my process was wrong or
right I know not, but I began my cure of anger by noticing
its effects in others, as the Lacedssmonians study the
nature of drunkenness in the Helots. And in the first
place, as Hippocrates tells us that disease is most dangerous
in which the face of the patient is most unlike himself,
so observing that people beside themselves with anger
^ Lines of Callimachus. <p\it]v is the admirable emendation of Sal-
masius.
2 Sophocles, " Thamyras," Fragm. 232. * " Iliad," v. 214-216.
ON RESTRAINING ANGER. 273
change their face, colour, walk, and voice, I formed
an impression as it were of that aspect of passion, and was
very disgusted with myself if ever I should appear so
frightful and like one out of his mind to my friends and
wife and daughters, not only wild and unlike oneself in
appearance, but also with a voice savage and harsh, as I
had noticed in some ^ of my acquaintance, who could neither
preserve for anger their ordinary behaviour, or demea-
nour, or grace of language, or persuasiveness and gentle-
ness in conversation. Caius Gracchus, indeed, the orator,
whose character was harsh and style of oratory impassioned,
had a pitch-pipe made for him, such as musicians use to
heighten or lower their voices by degrees, and this, when
he was making a speech, a slave stood behind him and held,
and used to give him a mild and gentle note on it, whereby
he lowered his key, and removed from his voice the harsh
and passionate element, charming and laying the heat of
the orator,
" As shepherds' wax -joined reed sounds musically
With sleep provoking strain." ^
For myself if I had some elegant and sprightly companion,
I should not be vexed at his showing me a looking-glass
in my fits of anger, as they offer one to some after a bath
to little useful end. For to behold oneself unnaturally
distorted in countenance will condemn anger in no small
degree. The poets playfully tell us that Athene when play-
ing on the pipe was rebuked thus by a Satyr,
" That look no way becomes you, take your armour,
Lay down your pipes, and do compose your cheeks,"
and though she paid no attention to him, yet afterwards
when she saw her face in a river, she felt vexed and threw
her pipes away, although art had made melody a compen-
sation for her unsightliness. And Marsyas, it seems, by a
sort of mouthpiece forcibly repressed the violence of his
breath, and tricked up and hid the contortion of his face,
" Around his shaggy temples put bright gold,
And o'er his open mouth thongs tied behind."
^ Reading kvioiQ, as Wyttenbach suggests.
2 Aeschylus, " Prometheus," 574, 575.
T
274 Plutarch's morals.
Now anger, that puffs np and distends the face so as to
look ugly, utters a voice still more harsh and unpleasant,
" Moving the mind's chords undisturbed before,"
They say that the sea is cleansed when agitated by the
winds it throws up tangle and seaweed ; but the intem-
perate and bitter and vain words, which the mind throws
up when the soul is agitated, defile the speakers of them
first of all and fill them with infamy, as always having
those thoughts within their bosom and being defiled with
them, but only giving vent to them in anger. And so for
a word which is, as Plato styles it, "a very small matter,"
they incur a most heavy punishment, for they get reputed
to be enemies, and evil speakers, and malignant in dis-
position.
§ VII. Seeing and observing all this, it occurs to me to
take it as a matter of fact, and record it for my own
general use, that if it is good to keep the tongue soft and
smooth in a fever, it is better to keep it so in anger. For
if the tongue of people in a fever be unnatural, it is a bad
sign, but not the cause of their malady ; but the tongue of
angry people, being rough and foul, and breaking out into
unseemly speeches, produces insults that work irremediable
mischief, and argue deep-rooted malevolence within. For
wine drunk neat does not exhibit the soul in so ungovern-
able and hateful a condition as temper does : for the
outbreaks of the one smack of laughter and fun, while
those of the other are compounded with gall : and at a
drinking-bout he that is silent is burdensome to the
company and tiresome, whereas in anger nothing is more
highly thought of than silence, as Sappho advises,
" When anger's busy in the brain
Thy idly-barking tongue restrain."
§ VIII. And not only does the consideration of all this
naturally arise from observing ourselves in the moments of
anger, but we cannot help seeing also the other properties
of rage, how ignoble it is, how unmanly, how devoid of
dignity and greatness of mind ! And yet to most people
its noise seems vigour, its threatening confidence, and its
obstinacy force of character ; some even not wisely entitle
its savageness magnanimity, and its implacability firmness,
ON RESTRAINING ANGER. 275
and its morositj hatred of what is bad. For their actions
and motions and whole demeanour argue great littleness
and meanness, not only when they are fierce with little
boys, and peevish with women, and think it right to treat
dogs and horses and mules with harshness, as Ctesiphon
the pancratiast thought fit to kick back a mule that had
kicked him, but even in the butcheries that tyrants commit
their littleness of soul is apparent in their savageness, and
their suffering in their action, so that they are like the
bites of serpents, that, when they are burnt and smart with
pain, violently thrust their venom on those that have hurt
them. For as a swelling is produced in the flesh by a
heavy blow, so in softest souls the inclination to hurt
others gets its greater strength from greater weakness.
Thus women are more prone to anger than men, and people
ill than people well, and old men than men in their prime,
and the unfortunate than the prosperous ; the miser is
most prone to anger with his steward, the glutton with his
cook, the jealous man with his wife, the vain man when he
is spoken ill of ; and worst of all are those " men who are
too eager in states for office, or to head a faction, a manifest
sorrow," to borrow Pindar's words. So from the very
great pain and suffering of the soul there arises mainly from
weakness anger, which is not like the nerves of the soul,
as some one defined it, but like its strainings and convul-
sions when it is excessively vehement in its thirst for
revenge.
§ IX. Such bad examples as these were not pleasant to
look at but necessary, but I shall now proceed to describe
people who have been mild and easy in dealing with anger,
conduct gratifying either to see or hear about, being utterly
disgusted ^ with people who use such language as,
" You have a man wi'onged : shall a man stand this ? "
and,
" Put your heel upon his neck, and dash his head against the ground,"
and other provoking expressions such as these, by which
some not well have transferred anger from the woman's
' It will be seen I adopt the reading and punctuation of Xylander.
276
PLUTARCH S MORALS.
side of the house to the man's. For manliness in all other
respects seems to resemble justice, and to differ from it
only in respect to gentleness, with which it has more
affinities. For it sometimes happens to worse men to
govern better ones, but to erect a trophy in the soul against
anger (which Heraclitus says it is difficult to contend
against, for whatever it wishes is bought at the price of the
soul), is a proof of power so great and victorious as to be
able to apply the judgement as if it were nerves and sinews
to the passions. So I always try to collect and peruse the
remarks on this subject not only of the philosophers, who
foolish ^ people say had no gall in their composition, but
still more of kings and tyrants. Such was the remark of
Antigonus to his soldiers, when they were abusing him
near his tent as if he were not listening, so he put his staff
out, and said, " What's to do ? can you not go rather
farther off to run me down ? " And when Arcadio the
Achsean, who was always railing against Philip, and ad-
vising people to flee
" Unto a country wliere they knew not Philip,"
visited Macedonia afterwards on some chance or other,
the king's friends thought he ought to be punished and the
matter not looked over ; but Philip treated him kindly,
snd sent him presents and gifts, and afterwards bade inquiry
to be made as to what sort of account of him Arcadio now
gave to the Greeks ; and when all testified that the fellow
had become a wonderful praiser of the king, Philip said,
" You see I knew how to cure him better than all of you."
And at the Olympian games when there was defamation,
of Philip, and some of his suite said to him, that the
Greeks ought to smart for it, because they railed against
him when they were treated well by him, he replied,
" What will they do then if they are treated badly by me ?"
Excellent also was the behaviour of Pisistratus to Thrasy-
bulus, and of Porsena to Mucins, and of Magas to Philemon.
As to Magas, after he had been publicly jeered at by
Philemon in one of his comedies at the theatre in the
following words,
^ This is the reading of Keiske and Diibner.
ON RESTRAINING ANGER. 277
" Magas, the king hath written thee a letter,
Unhappy Magas, since thou can'st not read,"
after having taken Philemon, who had been cast on shore
by a storm at Parsetonium, he commanded one of his
soldiers only to touch his neck with the naked sword and
then to go away quietly, and dismissed him, after sending
him a ball and some dice as if he were a silly boy. And
Ptolemy on one occasion, flouting a grammarian for his
ignorance, asked him who was the father of Peleus, and he
answered, " I will tell you, if you tell me first who was the
father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure birth of
the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it as an
unpardonable liberty ; but Ptolemy said, " If it is not
kingly to take a flout, neither is it kingly to give one." And
Alexander was more savage than usual in his behaviour to
Callisthenes and Clitus. So Porus, when he was taken
captive, begged Alexander to use him as a king. And on
his inquiring, " What, nothing more ? " he replied " No.
For everything is included in being used as a king." So
they call the king of the gods Milichius,^ while they call
Ares Maimactes ; ''^ and punishment and torture they assign
to the Erinnyes and to demons, not to the gods or Olympus.
§ X. As then a certain person passed the following re-
mark on Philip when he had razed Olynthus to the ground,
" He certainly could not build such another city," so we
may say to anger, " You can root up, and destroy, and
throw down, but to raise up and save and spare and tolerate
is the work of mildness and moderation, the work of a
Camillus, a Metellus, an Aristides, a Socrates ; but to
sting and bite is to resemble the ant and horse-fly. For,
indeed, when I consider revenge, I find its angry method
to be for the most part ineffectual, since it spends itself in
biting the lips and gnashing the teeth, and in vain attacks,
and in railings coupled with foolish threats, and eventually
resembles children running races, who from feebleness
ridiculously tumble down before they reach the goal they
are hastening to. So that speech of the Rhodian to a
^ That is mild. Zeus is so called, Pausanias, i. 37 ; ii. 9, 20.
^ That is, fierce, furious. It will be seen I adopt the suggestion of
Reiske.
278 Plutarch's morals.
lictor of the Roman preetor who was shouting and talking
insolently was not inapt, " It is no matter to me what you
say, but what your master thinks." ^ And Sophocles, when
he had introduced Neoptolemus and Eurypylus as armed
for the battle, gives them this high commendation,^
" They rushed into the midst of armed warriors."
Some barbarians indeed poison their steel, but bravery has
no need of gall, being dipped in reason, but rage and fury
are not invincible but rotten. And so the Lacedemonians
by their pipes turn away the anger of their warriors, and
sacrifice to the Muses before commencing battle, that
reason may abide with them, and when they have routed
a foe do not follow up the victory,^ but relax their rage,
which like small daggers they can easily take back. But
anger kills myriads before it is glutted with revenge, as
happened in the case of Cyrus and Pelopidas the Theban.
But Agathocles bore mildly the revilings of those he was
besieging, and when one of them cried out, " Potter, how
are you going to get money to pay your mercenaries?"
he replied laughingly, " Out of your town if I take it."
And when some of those on the wall threw his ugliness
into the teeth of Antigonus, he said to them, " I thought I
was rather a handsome fellow." But after he had taken
the town, he sold for slaves those that had flouted him, pro-
testing that, if they insulted him again, he would bring
the matter before their masters. I have noticed also that
hunters and orators are very unsuccessful when they give
way to anger."* And Aristotle tells us that the friends of
Satyrus stopped up his ears with wax when he was to plead
a cause, that he might not make any confusion in the case
through rage at the abuse of his enemies. And does
it not frequently happen with ourselves that a slave who
has offended escapes punishment, because they abscond in
fear of our threats and harsh words ? What nurses then
say to children, " Give up crying, and you shall have it,"
may usefully be applied to anger, thus, " Do not be in a
hurry, or bawl out, or be vehement, and you will sooner
^ Literally " is silent about." It is like the saying about Von Moltke
that he can be silent in six or seven languages.
^ Adopting Eeiske's reading. ^ Compare Pausanias, iv. 8.
* Diibner puts this sentence in brackets.
ON RESTRAINING ANGER. 279
and better get what you. want." For a father, seeing his
boj trying to cut or cleave something with a knife, takes
the knife from him and does it himself : and similarly a
person, taking revenge out of the hand of passion, does
himself safely and usefully and without harm punish the
person who deserves punishment, and not himself instead,
as anger often does.
§ XI. Now though all the passions need such discipline
as by exercise shall tame and subdue their unreasoning
and disobedient elements, yet there is none which we ought
to keep under by such discipline so much as the exhibition
of anger to our servants. For neither envy, nor fear, nor
rivalry come into play between them and us ; but our fre-
quent displays of anger to them, creating many offences
and faults, make us to slip as if on slippery ground owing
to our autocracy with our servants, which no one resists or
prevents. For it is impossible to check irresponsible power
so as never to break out under the influence of passion,
unless one wields power with much meekness, and refuses
to listen to the frequent complaints of one's wife and
friends charging one with being too easy and lax with one's
servants. And by nothing have I been more exasperated
against them, as if they were being ruined for want of
correction . At last, though late, I got to see that in the first
place it is better to make them worse by forbearance, than by
bitterness and anger to distort oneself for the correction
of others. In the next place I observed that many for the
very reason that they were not corrected were frequently
ashamed to be bad, and made pardon rather than punish-
ment the commencement of their reformation, aye, and
made better slaves to some merely at their nod silently
and cheerfully than to others with all their beatings and
brandings, and so I came to the conclusion that reason
gets better obeyed than temper, for it is not as the poet said,
" Where there is fear, there too is self-respect,"
but it is just the other way about, for self-respect begets that
kind of fear that corrects the behaviour. But perpetual
and pitiless beating produces not so much repentance for
wrong-doing as contrivances to continue in it without
detection. In the third place, ever remembering and re-
280
PLUTARCH S MORALS.
fleeting within myself that, just as he that teaches us the
use of the bow does not forbid us to shoot but only to miss
the mark, so it will not prevent punishment altogether to
teach people to do it in season, and with moderation,
utility, and decorum, I strive to remove anger most espe-
cially by not forbidding those who are to be corrected to
speak in their defence, but by listening to them. For
the interval of time gives a pause to passion, and a delay
that mitigates it, and so judgement finds out both the fit
manner and adequate amount of punishment. Moreover
he that is punished has nothing to allege against his cor-
rection, if he is punished not in anger but only after his
guilt is brought home to him. And the greatest disgrace
will not be incurred, which is when the servant seems to
speak more justly than the master. As then Phocion, after
the death of Alexander, to stop the Athenians from revolt-
ing and believing the news too soon, said to them, " Men
of Athens, if he is dead to-day, he will certainly also be
dead to-morrow and the next day," so I think the man
who is in a hurry to punish anyone in his rage ought to
consider with himself, " If this person has wronged you
to-day, he will also have wronged you to-morrow and the
next day ; and there will be no harm done if he shall
be punished somewhat late ; whereas if he shall be pun-
ished at once, he will always seem to you to have been
innocent, as has often happened before now." For which
of us is so savage as to chastise and scourge a slave
because five or ten days before he over-roasted the meat,
or upset the table, or was somewhat tardy on some errand ?
And yet these are the very things for which we put ourselves
out and are harsh and implacable, immediately after they
have happened and are recent. For as bodies seem greater in
a mist, so do little matters in a rage. We ought therefore
to consider such arguments as these at once, and if, when
there is no trace of passion left, the matter appear bad to
calm and clear reason, then it ought to be taken in hand, and
the punishment ought not to be neglected or abandoned, as
we leave food when we have lost our appetites. For
nothing causes people to punish so much when their anger
is fierce, as that when it is appeased they do not punish at
all, but forget the matter entirely, and resemble lazy rowers.
ON RESTRAINING ANGER. 281
who lie in harbour when the sea is calm, and then sail ont
to their peril when the wind gets up. So we, condemning
reason for slackness and mildness in punishing, are in a
hurry to punish, borne along bj passion as by a dangerous
gale. He that is hungry takes his food as nature dictates,
but he that punishes should have no hunger or thirst for
it, nor require anger as a sauce to stimulate him to it, but
should punish when he is as far as possible from having
any desire for it, and has to compel his reason to it. For
we ought not, as Aristotle tells us slaves in his time were
scourged in Etruria to the music of the flute, to go head-
long into punishing with a desire and zest for it, and to
delight in punishing, and then afterwards to be sorry at it
— for the first is savage, and the last womanish — but we
should without either sorrow or pleasure chastise at the
dictates of reason, giving anger no opportunity to interfere.
§ XII. But this perhaps will not appear a cure of anger
so much as a patting away and avoiding such faults as men