instigation of which we see such contention as this between brothers:
Where was there ever impudence like thine?
Who on thy malice ever could refine?[1]
You know what follows: for abuses are thrown out by these brothers with great bitterness in every other verse; so that you may easily know them for the sons of Atreus, of that Atreus who invented a new punishment for his brother:
I who his cruel heart to gall am bent,
Some new, unheard-of torment must invent.
Now, what were these inventions? Hear Thyestes:
My impious brother fain would have me eat
My children, and thus serves them up for meat.
To what length now will not anger go? even as far as madness. Therefore we say, properly enough, that angry men have given up their power, that is, they are out of the power of advice, reason, and understanding; for these ought to have power over the whole mind. Now, you should put those out of the way whom they endeavor to attack till they have recollected themselves; but what does recollection here imply but getting together again the dispersed parts of their mind into their proper place? or else you must beg and entreat them, if they have the means of revenge, to defer it to another opportunity, till their anger cools. But the expression of cooling implies, certainly, that there was a heat raised in their minds in opposition to reason; from which consideration that saying of Archytas is commended, who being somewhat provoked at his steward, “How would I have treated you,” said he, “if I had not been in a passion?”
XXXVII. Where, then, are they who say that anger has its use? Can madness be of any use? But still it is natural. Can anything be natural that is against reason? or how is it, if anger is natural, that one person is more inclined to anger than another? or that the lust of revenge should cease before it has revenged itself? or that any one
- ↑ These verses are from the Atreus of Accius.
