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“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.”[685]

In the case of mourners also giving up 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;”[686]

and Pandarus, who called down a curse upon himself, if he did not burn his bow “after breaking it with his hands.”[687] 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.

Sec. 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 Lacedaemonians 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 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[688] of my acquaintance, who could neither preserve for anger their ordinary behaviour, or demeanour, or grace of language, or persuasiveness and gentleness 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.”[689]

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 playing 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 compensation 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,