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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.
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FUNDANUS.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.
