Boethius! model of all weal and worth,
Unjustly from thy country driven forth,
Thy fame, unfamed at last, yet one shall praise,
One voice the cry of approbation raise;
What life denied, through death kind heaven giveth;
Thine honour in thy wife's for ever liveth.
[177] This epigram was found by Barth in a Merseburg codex, and first
printed in his _Adversaria_ (1624). If genuine (and the faithful
reproduction the error SYMMACHIVS for SYMMACHI VS or VR, i.e. VERSVS, is in
its favour), the author may be either the son or the father-in-law of
Boethius. Some readers may prefer to rank this poem with the epitaph on
Elpis, the supposititious first wife of Boethius, on whom see Obbarius, _De
cons._ p. xii. At any rate it is as old as the times of Hrabanus Maurus,
who imitated it in a poem also first published by Barth. See Peiper,
_Cons._ p. xxxviiii.