A delightful gentleman, subject to bouts of gout, was urged by his doctors to give up the use of salted meats. He responded to them pleasantly that he needed something to blame for the torments of the illness, and that by shouting and cursing at the sausage, the beef tongue and the ham, he felt lighter.
But if an arm is raised to strike, it weeps if the blow misses. And our sight, to make a pleasant view, must not be distracted by vague elements in the air. It must have some identifiable element nearby to sustain it.
As the wind loses its strength, unless dense with strength, Forests spread across empty space. (Lucan)
A shaken and agitated soul loses itself within itself. It needs an object upon which it can rest and act. Plutarch says, with regard to those who are fond of monkeys and small dogs, that the amorous part of us, for lack of a loved one, does not remain idle, it forges a false and frivolous bond in its place.
The soul in its passions plays itself, setting up a false and fantastic subjects, even against its own beliefs. Thus beasts are carried away by their rage to attack the stone and iron that have wounded them, and to take bitter revenge on themselves for the pain they feel,
The bear, fiercer than the Pannonian, was no different after the blow. When the small bridle of Lybia misled the dart, He turns towards the wound, and the arrow, having been received in anger, charges, and with it he circles the fleeing spear. (Lucan)
What causes do we invent for our misfortunes? What actions do we take to have something to blame? It was not those blond braids that you tore, nor the whiteness of that breast that, in spite of yourself, you so cruelly attacked, that lost this much loved brother to misfortune. Place the blame elsewhere.
Livy, speaking of the Roman army in Spain after the loss of two brothers, said of its great captains: Immediately all began to weep and beat their heads. It is a common practice. And the philosopher Bion, wasn’t it amusing for him to say about the king who plucked out his hair in despair: does he think that baldness relieves grief?
Who has not seen people chewing and swallowing cards, gorging themselves on a full pack of cards, to take revenge for losing their money? Xerxes crossed the Sea of Hellespont, put irons upon it and leveled a thousand insults on its waves, writing also a challenge to Mount Athos.
Cyrus amused an entire army for several days with rituals of revenge on the river Gyndus for the fear he had had in crossing it. Caligula ruined a very beautiful house, for the displeasure his mother had suffered there.
In my youth, the people said that a neighboring king, having received a beating from God, swore to take revenge, ordering that for ten years he should not be asked, nor spoken of, nor, as long as he was in power, should anyone believe in him. By which he wanted to depict not so much stupidity as the natural glory of the nation. Such actions are, in truth, a little more conceit than stupidity.
Augustus Caesar, having been defeated by storm at sea, rushed to challenge the god Neptune, and in the pomp of the Circus games had his image removed from the ring where it stood among the other gods, taking his revenge. In this he is even less excusable than the aforementioned, and less than he was later, when having lost a battle under Quintilius Varus in Germany, he broke into anger and despair, banging his head against the wall, crying out: “Varus, give me back my soldiers.”
There is no greater madness than to add impeity to folly, addressing God or fortune, as if either had ears subject to our bombardment. The Thracians, during a thunderstorm, shoot arrows against the sky with titanic vengeance, in hope of bringing God to reason, As this ancient poet says in Plutarch,
There is no need to get angry in business. They don’t care about it at all. (Author unknown)
But we will never proclaim adequate insults to the disorder of our minds.