Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/150

128 another, he careth not to come by a hurt and shrewd turn himself. It holdeth likewise of concupiscence and lust, and taketh of it the worse and more unpleasant part, in case it be (as it is indeed) a desire and appetite to grieve, vex, and harm another. And therefore, when we approach and come near to the houses of luxurious and riotous persons, we hear betimes in the morning a minstrel-wench sounding and playing the morrow-watch by break of day: we see the muddy-grounds and dregs (as one was wont to say) of the wine, to wit, the vomits of those who cast up their stomachs: we behold the pieces and fragments of broken garlands and chaplets: and at the door we find the lackeys and pages of them who ate within, drunken and heavy in the head with tippling strong wine.

But the signs that tell where hasty, choleric, and angry persons dwell, appear in the faces of their servants, in the marks and wales remaining after their whipping, and in their clogs, irons, and fetters about their feet. For in the houses of hasty and angry men, a man shall never hear but one kind of music; that is to say, the heavy note of wailing groans and piteous plaints; whiles either the stewards within are whipped and scourged, or the maidens racked and put to torture, in such sort that you would pity to see the dolours and pains of ire which she suffereth in those things that she lusteth after and taketh pleasure in. And yet as many of us as happen to be truly and justly surprised with choler oftentimes, for the hatred and detestation that we have of vices, ought to cut off that which is excessive therein and beyond measure, together with our over-light belief and credulity of reports concerning such as converse with us: For this is one of the causes that most of all doth engender and augment choler, when either he whom we took for an honest man proveth dishonest, and is detected for some naughtiness, or whom we reputed our friend is fallen into some quarrel and variance with us: as for myself, you know my nature and disposition, what small occasions make me both to love men effectually, and also to trust them confidently; and therefore (just as it falleth out with them who go over a false floor where the ground is not fast, but hollow under their feet) where I lean most and put my greatest trust for the love that I bear, there I offend most and soonest catch a fall: there (I say) am I grieved most also, when I see how I was deceived: As for that exceeding inclination and forwardness of mind, thus to love and affect a man, could I never yet to this day wean myself from, so inbred it is and settled in me: marry, to stay myself from giving credit