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FUNDANUS. For the first way, my friend, to dethrone temper as you would a tyrant, is not to oey or hearken when it bids us cry aloud and look fierce and beat our breasts, but to keep quiet and not intensify the passion, as we would a disease, by tossing about and making a clamour. It is quite true that lovers’ practices, such as serenading in concert or alone and crowning the beloved’s door with garlands, do in some way or other bring an alleviation that is not without charm or grace: I came, but did not shout your name or race; I merely kissed the door. If this be sin, Then I have sinned.Callimachus, Epigram 43 (42), vv. 5, 6 (Anth. Pal., xii. 118). Cf. Propertius, ii. 30. 24: Hoc si crimen erit, crimen amoris erit. So too the surrender of mourners to weeping and wailing carries away much of their grief together with their tears. But temper is the more readily fanned into flame by what people in that state do and say.
