As one who'd try to lay down rules by which
Men should go mad.[102]
Now is not this inconstancy and mutability of mind enough to deter any one by its own deformity? We are to demonstrate, as was said of every perturbation, that there are no such feelings which do not consist entirely of opinion and judgment, and are not owing to ourselves. For if love were natural, all would be in love, and always so, and all love the same object; nor would one be deterred by shame, another by reflection, another by satiety.
XXXVI. Anger, too, when it disturbs the mind any time, leaves no room to doubt its being madness: by the instigation of which, we see such contention as this between brothers:
Where was there ever impudence like thine?
Who on thy malice ever could refine?[103]
You know what follows: for abuses are thrown out by these brothers, with great bitterness, in every other verse: so that you may easily know them for the sons of Atreus, of that Atreus who invented a new punishment for his brother:
I who his cruel heart to gall am bent,
Some new, unheard-of torment must invent.
Now what were these inventions? Hear Thyestes.