[Greek:
homôs de kai en toutois dialampei to kalon,
epeidan pherê tis eukolôs pollas kai megalas
atychias, mê di analgêsian, alla gennadas
ôn kai megalopsychos.]
Aristotle's 'Ethics,' I., xi. 12.
[Illustration: Diptych representing Narius Manlius Boethius, father of
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. The inscription in full would run
thus:--
NARIVS MANLIVS BOETHIVS VIR CLARISSIMVS ET INLVSTRIS
EXPRAEFECTVS PRAETORIO PRAEFECTVS VRBIS ET
COMES CONSVL ORDINARIVS ET PARTICIVS
(_For description vid. Preface, p. vi_)]
THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY OF BOETHIUS.
Translated into English Prose and Verse
by
H.R. JAMES, M.A., CH. CH. OXFORD.
Quantumlibet igitur sæviant mali, sapienti tamen corona non
decidet, non arescet.
Melioribus animum conformaveris, nihil opus est judice præmium
deferente, tu te ipse excellentioribus addidisti; studium ad pejora
deflexeris, extra ne quæsieris ultorem, tu te ipse in deteriora
trusisti.
LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1897.
PREFACE.
The book called 'The Consolation of Philosophy' was throughout the
Middle Ages, and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the
sixteenth century, the scholar's familiar companion. Few books have
exercised a wider influence in their time. It has been translated into
every European tongue, and into English nearly a dozen times, from King
Alfred's paraphrase to the translations of Lord Preston, Causton,
Ridpath, and Duncan, in the eighteenth century. The belief that what
once pleased so widely must still have some charm is my excuse for
attempting the present translation. The great work of Boethius, with its
alternate prose and verse, skilfully fitted together like dialogue and
chorus in a Greek play, is unique in literature, and has a pathetic
interest from the time and circumstances of its composition. It ought
not to be forgotten. Those who can go to the original will find their
reward. There may be room also for a new translation in English after an
interval of close on a hundred years.
Some of the editions contain a reproduction of a bust purporting to
represent Boethius. Lord Preston's translation, for example, has such a
portrait, which it refers to an original in marble at Rome. This I have
been unable to trace, and suspect that it is apocryphal. The Hope
Collection at Oxford contains a completely different portrait in a
print, which gives no authority. I have ventured to use as a
frontispiece a reproduction from a plaster-cast in the Ashmolean Museum,
taken from an ivory diptych preserved in the Bibliotheca Quiriniana at
Brescia, which represents Narius Manlius Boethius, the father of the
philosopher. Portraiture of this period is so rare that it seemed that,
failing a likeness of the author himself, this authentic representation
of his father might have interest, as giving the consular dress and
insignia of the time, and also as illustrating the decadence of
contemporary art. The consul wears a richly-embroidered cloak; his right
hand holds a staff surmounted by the Roman eagle, his left the _mappa
circensis,_ or napkin used for starting the races in the circus; at his
feet are palms and bags of money--prizes for the victors in the games.
For permission to use this cast my thanks are due to the authorities of
the Ashmolean Museum, as also to Mr. T.W. Jackson, Curator of the Hope
Collection, who first called my attention to its existence.
I have to thank my brother, Mr. L. James, of Radley College, for much
valuable help and for correcting the proof-sheets of the translation.
The text used is that of Peiper, Leipsic, 1874.
PROEM.
Anicus Manlius Severinus Boethius lived in the last quarter of the fifth
century A.D., and the first quarter of the sixth. He was growing to
manhood, when Theodoric, the famous Ostrogoth, crossed the Alps and made
himself master of Italy. Boethius belonged to an ancient family, which
boasted a connection with the legendary glories of the Republic, and was
still among the foremost in wealth and dignity in the days of Rome's
abasement. His parents dying early, he was brought up by Symmachus, whom
the age agreed to regard as of almost saintly character, and afterwards
became his son-in-law. His varied gifts, aided by an excellent
education, won for him the reputation of the most accomplished man of
his time. He was orator, poet, musician, philosopher. It is his peculiar
distinction to have handed on to the Middle Ages the tradition of Greek
philosophy by his Latin translations of the works of Aristotle. Called
early to a public career, the highest honours of the State came to him
unsought. He was sole Consul in 510 A.D., and was ultimately raised by
Theodoric to the dignity of Magister Officiorum, or head of the whole
civil administration. He was no less happy in his domestic life, in the
virtues of his wife, Rusticiana, and the fair promise of his two sons,
Symmachus and Boethius; happy also in the society of a refined circle of
friends. Noble, wealthy, accomplished, universally esteemed for his
virtues, high in the favour of the Gothic King, he appeared to all men a
signal example of the union of merit and good fortune. His felicity
seemed to culminate in the year 522 A.D., when, by special and
extraordinary favour, his two sons, young as they were for so exalted an
honour, were created joint Consuls and rode to the senate-house
attended by a throng of senators, and the acclamations of the multitude.
Boethius himself, amid the general applause, delivered the public speech
in the King's honour usual on such occasions. Within a year he was a
solitary prisoner at Pavia, stripped of honours, wealth, and friends,
with death hanging over him, and a terror worse than death, in the fear
lest those dearest to him should be involved in the worst results of his
downfall. It is in this situation that the opening of the 'Consolation
of Philosophy' brings Boethius before us. He represents himself as
seated in his prison distraught with grief, indignant at the injustice
of his misfortunes, and seeking relief for his melancholy in writing
verses descriptive of his condition. Suddenly there appears to him the
Divine figure of Philosophy, in the guise of a woman of superhuman
dignity and beauty, who by a succession of discourses convinces him of
the vanity of regret for the lost gifts of fortune, raises his mind once
more to the contemplation of the true good, and makes clear to him the
mystery of the world's moral government.
INDEX
OF
VERSE INTERLUDES.
BOOK I.
THE SORROWS OF BOETHIUS.
SONG PAGE
I. BOETHIUS' COMPLAINT 3
II. HIS DESPONDENCY 9
III. THE MISTS DISPELLED 12
IV. NOTHING CAN SUBDUE VIRTUE 16
V. BOETHIUS' PRAYER 27
VI. ALL THINGS HAVE THEIR NEEDFUL ORDER 33
VII. THE PERTURBATIONS OF PASSION 38