For my own part, had I a careful and pleasant companion who would show me my angry face in a glass, I should not at all take it ill. In like manner, some are wont to have a looking-glass held to them after they have bathed, though to little purpose; but to behold one’s self unnaturally disguised and disordered will conduce not a little to the impeachment of anger. For those who delight in pleasant fables tell us, that Minerva herself, playing on a pipe was thus admonished by a satyr:— That look becomes you not, lay down your pipes, And take your arms, and set your cheeks to rights; but would not regard it; yet, when by chance she beheld the mien of her countenance in a river, she was moved with indignation, and cast her pipes away; and yet here art had the delight of melody to comfort her for the deformity. And Marsyas, as it seems, did with a kind of muzzle and mouth-piece restrain by force the too horrible eruption of his breath when he played, and so corrected and concealed the distortion of his visage:— With shining gold he girt his temples rough, And his wide mouth with thongs that tied behind. Now anger doth swell and puff up the countenance very indecently, and sends forth a yet more indecent and unpleasant voice,— Moving the heart-strings, which should be at rest. For when the sea is tossed and troubled with winds, and casts up moss and sea-weed, they say it is purged; but those impure, bitter, and vain words which anger throws up when the soul has become a kind of whirlpool, defile the speakers, in the first place, and fill them with dishonor, arguing them to have always had such things in them and to be full of them, only now they are discovered to have them by their anger. So for a mere word, the lightest of things (as Plato says), they undergo the heaviest of punishments, being ever after accounted enemies, evil speakers, and of a malignant disposition. 7. While now I see all this and bear it in mind, the thought occurs to me, and I naturally consider by myself, that as it is good for one in a fever, so much better is it for one in anger, to have his tongue soft and smooth. For if the tongue in a fever be unnaturally affected, it is indeed an evil symptom, but not a cause of harm; but when the tongue of angry men becomes rough and foul, and breaks out into absurd speeches, it produces insults which work irreconcilable hatred, and proves that a poisonous malevolence lies festering within. For wine does not make men vent any thing so impure and odious as anger doth; and, besides, what proceeds from wine is matter for jest and laughter, but that from anger is mixed with gall and bitterness. And he that is silent in his cups is counted a burthen, and a bore to the company, whereas in anger there is nothing more commended than peace and silence; as Sappho adviseth,—- When anger once is spread within thy breast, Shut up thy tongue, that vainly barking beast.