The Consolation of Philosophy

by Boethius

This love of wisdom (or philosophy) is the illumination of the intelligent mind by that pure wisdom (defined as the self-sufficient living mind and sole primaeval reason of all things), and is a kind of return and recall to it, so that it seems at once the pursuit of wisdom, the pursuit of divinity and the friendship of that pure mind. So that this wisdom gives to the whole class of minds the reward of its own divinity and returns it to its proper constitution and purity of nature.

The scheme is undoubtedly Platonic. The turning of the gaze from what is false to what is true (III, 1) and the realization that God is the supreme good (III, 10) is based on the ascent of the soul in the famous allegory of the Cave in the seventh book of the Republic. The ascent or education of the soul is like the ascent of a man from a dark cave in which he has been chained since childhood, unable to see more than shadows on the wall. When he is freed he is brought step by step up into the light until he is eventually able to see the sun itself, the Idea of the Good.

The tender leaves the North wind stole The Spring West wind makes reappear; The seeds that Winter saw new sown The Summer burns as crops full-grown. All things obey their ancient law And all perform their proper tasks; All things thou holdest in strict bounds, – To human acts alone denied Thy fit control as Lord of all.

If you desire To look on truth And follow the path With unswerving course, Rid yourself Of joy and fear, Put hope to flight, And banish grief. The mind is clouded And bound in chains Where these hold sway.’

‘The careful man will wish To build a lasting home Unshakeable by winds That thunder from the East. He’ll shun the open sea That threatens with its waves, And choose no mountain peaks Which all the strength of winds Buffet and beat from the South; He’ll choose no thirsty sands That sink and melt away Beneath the building’s weight. He’ll flee the dangerous lot Of sites that please the eye, Secure on lowly rock. Though thunderous winds resound And churn the seething sea, Hidden away in peace And sure of your strong-built walls, You will lead a life serene And smile at the raging storm.’

‘It seems as if you feel a lack of any blessing of your own inside you, which is driving you to seek your blessings in things separate and external. And so when a being endowed with a godlike quality in virtue of his rational nature thinks that his only splendour lies in the possession of inanimate goods, it is the overthrow of the natural order. Other creatures are content with what is their own, but you, whose mind is made in the image of God, seek to adorn your superior nature with inferior objects, oblivious of the great wrong you do your Creator. It was His will that the human race should rule all earthly creatures, but you have degraded yourself to a position beneath the lowest of all. If every good is agreed to be more valuable than whatever it belongs to, then by your own judgement when you account the most worthless of objects as goods 6 of yours, you make yourself lower than those very things, and it is no less than you deserve. Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above the rest of creation so long as he recognizes his own nature, and when he forgets it, he sinks lower than the beasts. For other living things to be ignorant of themselves, is natural; but for man it is a defect.

But riches are unable to quench insatiable greed; power does not make a man master of himself if he is imprisoned by the indissoluble chains of wicked lusts; and when high office is bestowed on unworthy men, so far from making them worthy, it only betrays them and reveals their unworthiness.

For bad fortune, I think, is more use to a man than good fortune. Good fortune always seems to bring happiness, but deceives you with her smiles, whereas bad fortune is always truthful because by change she shows her true fickleness. Good fortune deceives, but bad fortune enlightens.

‘But it is said, when a man comes to high office, that makes him worthy of honour and respect. Surely such offices don’t have the power of planting virtue in the minds of those who hold them, do they? Or of removing vices? No: the opposite is true. More often than removing wickedness, high office brings it to light, and this is the reason why we are angry at seeing how often high office has devolved upon the most wicked of men

For as we said just now, if a thing has no beauty of its own, its dignity varies at different times according to the opinion of the people who use it.

‘Whoever wants to wield high power Must tame his passions fierce; His heart to evil must not cower Or bow to lust’s fell yoke.

If there is anything good in nobility, I think it is only this: that there is a necessary condition imposed upon the noble not to fall short of the virtue of their ancestors.

‘Of bodily pleasure I can think of little to say. Its pursuit is full of anxiety and its fulfilment full of remorse. Frequently, like a kind of reward for wickedness, it causes great illness and unbearable pain for those who make it their source of enjoyment.

Yet the heavens are less wonderful for their foundation and speed than for the order that rules them.

‘The sleek looks of beauty are fleeting and transitory, more ephemeral than the blossom in spring.

But in their blindness they do not know Where lies the good they seek: That which is higher than the sky On earth below they seek.

That which is one and undivided is mistakenly subdivided and removed by men from the state of truth and perfection to a state of falseness and imperfection.

‘O Thou who dost by everlasting reason rule, Creator of the planets and the sky, who time From timelessness dost bring, unchanging Mover, No cause drove Thee to mould unstable matter, but (5) The form benign of highest good within Thee set. All things Thou bringest forth from Thy high archetype: Thou, height of beauty, in Thy mind the beauteous world Dost bear, and in that ideal likeness shaping it, Dost order perfect parts a perfect whole to frame. (10) The elements by harmony Thou dost constrain, That hot to cold and wet to dry are equal made, That fire grow not too light, or earth too fraught with weight. The bridge of threefold nature mad’st Thou soul, which spreads Through nature’s limbs harmonious and all things moves. (15) The soul once cut, in circles two its motion joins, Goes round and to itself returns encircling mind, And turns in pattern similar the firmament. From causes like Thou bringst forth souls and lesser lives,

Which from above in chariots swift Thou dost disperse (20) Through sky and earth, and by Thy law benign they turn And back to Thee they come through fire that brings them home. Grant, Father, that our minds Thy august seat may scan, Grant us the sight of true good’s source, and grant us light That we may fix on Thee our mind’s unblinded eye. (25) Disperse the clouds of earthly matter’s cloying weight; Shine out in all Thy glory; for Thou art rest and peace To those who worship Thee; to see Thee is our end, Who art our source and maker, lord and path and goal.’

‘The result is, therefore, that there is justice in the belief that goodness is the chief point upon which the pursuit of everything hinges and by which it is motivated. What seems most to be desired is the thing that motivates the pursuit of something, as, for example, if a man wants to go riding for the sake of health; it is not so much the motion of horse-riding he desires as the resultant good health. Since, therefore, all things are desired for the sake of the good in them, no one desires them as much as the good itself. But we are agreed that the reason for desiring things is happiness. So that it is patently obvious that the good itself and happiness are identical.’

‘Whoever deeply searches out the truth And will not be decoyed down false by-ways, Shall turn unto himself his inward gaze, Shall bring his wandering thoughts in circle home (5) And teach his heart that what it seeks abroad It holds in its own treasuries within. What error’s gloomy clouds have veiled before Will then shine clearer than the sun himself. Not all its light is banished from the mind (10) By body’s matter which makes men forget. The seed of truth lies hidden deep within, And teaching fans the spark to take new life; Why else unaided can man answer true, Unless deep in the heart the touchwood burns? (15) And if the muse of Plato speaks the truth, Man but recalls what once he knew and lost.’

‘It is true,’ she said. ‘Their eyes are used to the dark and they cannot raise them to the shining light of truth. They are like birds whose sight is sharpened by night and blinded by day. So long as they look only at their own desires and not the order of creation, they think of freedom to commit crimes and the absence of punishment as happy things. But let us see what is decreed by everlasting law: if you have turned your mind to higher things, there is no need of a judge to award a prize; it is you yourself who have brought yourself to a more excellent state: but if you have directed your zeal towards lower things, do not look for punishment from without; it is you yourself who have plunged yourself into the worse condition

Human souls are of necessity more free when they continue in the contemplation of the mind of God and less free when they descend to bodies, and less still when they are imprisoned in earthly flesh and blood. They reach an extremity of enslavement when they give themselves up to wickedness and lose possession of their proper reason.

Once they have turned their eyes away from the light of truth above to things on a lower and dimmer level, they are soon darkened by the mists of ignorance. Destructive passions torment them, and by yielding and giving in to them, they only aid the slavery they have brought upon themselves and become in a manner prisoners of their own freedom.