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Boethius, the Consolation of Philosophy (524) Boethius_0543 10/14/2005 05:14 PM THE ONLINE LIBRARY OF LIBERTY © Liberty Fund, Inc. 2005 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/index.php BOETHIUS, THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY (524) URL of this E-Book: http://oll.libertyfund.org/EBooks/Boethius_0543.pdf URL of original HTML file: http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0543 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Boethius was an important Neoplatonist philosopher who helped craft the theology and philosophy of the early medieval church. He served the Roman Empire both as a consul and as a senator, but his real love was philosophy. He was instrumental in healing a schism that had developed between Constantinople and Rome, but King Theodoric grew suspicious, had him arrested and executed in 524. During his detention Boethius wrote the work for which he is most remembered, De consolatione philosophiae (The consolation of philosophy), which argues that despite the seeming injustice of the world, there is, in Platonic fashion, a higher realm and that all else is subordinate to that divine Providence. ABOUT THE BOOK While under arrest and awaiting execution by King Theodoric for threatening his position by attempting to reconcile a schism between Rome and Constantinople in 524, Boethius wrote his best know work, The Consolation of Philosophy, in which he argues that despite the seeming injustice of the world, there is, in Platonic fashion, a higher realm and that all else is subordinate to that divine Providence. THE EDITION USED King Alfred’s Version of the Consolations of Boethius. Done into Modern English, with an Introduction by Walter John Sedgefield Litt.D. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900). http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/EBook.php?recordID=0543 Page 1 of 168 Boethius_0543 10/14/2005 05:14 PM (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900). COPYRIGHT INFORMATION The text of this edition is in the public domain. FAIR USE STATEMENT This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. _______________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION § 1. Wessex at Peace. Alfred’s Reforms. § 2. His Zeal for Learning. § 3. The De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius. § 4. Boethius and his Fate. § 5. Alfred’s Method of Translation. § 6. Manuscripts of the Old English Boethius. § 7. The Two Versions of the Lays of Boethius. § 8. A list of Alfred’s notable comments and additions may be here given: § 9. Later English Versions of the ‘Consolations.’ BO E T HIU S, Book iii, metr. 2. Book iv, prose 2. Book iii, metr. 2. Book iv, prose 2. Book iv, prose 2. Book iv, prose 2. Book iv, prose 2. Book iv, prose 2. Endnotes SUMMARY OF CONTENTS BOOK I CHA P T E RS I-VI http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/EBook.php?recordID=0543 Page 2 of 168 Boethius_0543 10/14/2005 05:14 PM BOOK II. CHA P T E RS VII-XXI BOOK III. CHA P T E RS XXII-XXXV BOOK IV. CHA P T E RS XXXVI-XL BOOK V. CHA P T E RS XL T O EN D. King Alfred’s Version of the Consolations of Boethius PROEM Boethius and Theodoric THE LAYS OF BOETHIUS PRELUDE (Not in BO E T HIU S.) LAYS I (Not in BO E T HIU S.) Cf. p. 1. II BO E T H. i. metr. 1. Cf. p. 2. III BO E T H. i. metr. 2. Cf. p. 4. IV BO E T H. i. metr. 5. Cf p. 5. V BO E T H. i. metr. 7. Cf. p. 10. VI BO E T H. ii. metr. 3. Cf. p. 18. VII BO E T H. ii. metr. 4. Cf. p. 25. VIII BO E T H. ii. metr. 5. Cf. p. 33. IX BO E T H. ii. metr. 6. Cf. p. 40. X BO E T H. ii. metr. 7. Cf. p. 47. XI BO E T H. ii. metr. 8. Cf. p. 50. XII BO E T H. iii. metr. 1. Cf. p. 54. XIII BO E T H. iii. metr. 2. Cf. p. 60. XIV BO E T H. iii. metr. 3. Cf. p. 65. XV BO E T H. iii. metr. 4. Cf. p. 69. XVI BO E T H. iii. metr. 5. Cf. p. 73. XVII BO E T H. iii. metr. 6. Cf. p. 75. XVIII BO E T H. iii. metr. 7. Cf. p. 77. XIX BO E T H. iii metr. 8. Cf p. 80. XX BO E T H. iii. metr. 9. Cf. p. 87. XXI BO E T H. iii. metr. 10. Cf. p. 100. XXII BO E T H. iii. metr. 11. Cf. p. 107. XXIII BO E T H. iii. metr. 12. Cf. p. 115. XXIV BO E T H. iv. metr. 1. Cf. p. 120. XXV BO E T H. iv. metr. 2. Cf. p. 128. XXVI BO E T H. iv. metr. 3. Cf. p. 127. XXVII BO E T H. iv. metr. 4. Cf. p. 133. http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/EBook.php?recordID=0543 Page 3 of 168 Boethius_0543 10/14/2005 05:14 PM XXVIII BO E T H. iv. metr. 5. Cf. p. 139. XXIX BO E T H. iv. metr. 6. Cf. p. 142 XXX BO E T H. v. metr. 2. Cf. p. 159. XXXI BO E T H. v. metr. 5. Cf. p. 161. NOTES _______________________________________________________ BOETHIUS, THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY (524) TO THE REV. PROFESSOR W. W. SKEAT LIT T .D., D.C .L., LL.D., P H.D. T HIS BO O K IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED PREFACE THE preparations for adequately commemorating the forthcoming millenary of King Alfred’s death have set going a fresh wave of popular interest in that hero. Lectures have been given, committees formed, subscriptions paid and promised, and an excellent book of essays by eminent specialists has been written about Alfred considered under quite a number of aspects. That great King has himself told us that he was not indifferent to the opinion of those that should come after him, and he earnestly desired that that opinion should be a high one. We have by no means forgotten him, it is true, but yet to very many intelligent people he is, to use a paradox, a distinctly nebulous character of history. His most undying attributes in the memory of the people are not unconnected with singed cakes and romantic visits in disguise to the Danish camp. It is therefore difficult for many to realize that Alfred wrote books, copies of which, written during his lifetime, are now lying in some of our great libraries. Of these books all are interesting to us from the personal character impressed on them by the King—the Pastoral Care, for instance, for its admirable preface containing Alfred’s observations on the state of learning in the England of his day, and the Orosius for the valuable geographical contributions which he inserted in his version of the once famous historian. But there is one of his books that more than the others is instinct with a certain anonymously personal note such as we look for in vain in English literature for hundreds of years after. This book is his version of the Consolations of Philosophy of Boethius, the making of which was to Alfred a love’s labour. It satisfied his intellectual cravings and stimulated his uncultured but vigorous mind, and he resolved to give his still more unlettered lieges a share in the treat. So he turned it into his own tongue, as the King of the West Saxons might be expected to do, in a large and royal way, scattering up and down the work such notes and comments as he judged needful. His Boethius heads the roll of English philosophical writings; it likewise heads the roll of English http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/EBook.php?recordID=0543 Page 4 of 168 Boethius_0543 10/14/2005 05:14 PM Boethius heads the roll of English philosophical writings; it likewise heads the roll of English translations. It is hoped that the modern English dress here given to the King’s best book will help to make him less an unsubstantial shadow for Englishmen of to-day, and more a real man, practical, right-feeling, and earnest beyond his generation. A few words on the method and aim of this modern version may be said here rather than in the Introduction. The Anglo-Saxon text followed is that edited by the translator for the Oxford University Press last year. The prose part is rendered quite literally, generally ‘word by word,’ as the King says of parts of his own version. Thus the simplicity and directness of the original Old English are kept. In the version of the alliterating verses, printed together after the prose, the metre of the original Old English has been retained as far as is allowed by the limitations of modern English, but literalness has not been thereby sacrificed. The result, I may hope, will give a fair idea of the original, which itself is far from echoing the hammer-and-anvil lines of the best Old English song-smiths, as we see them at work in the Beowulf. The Introduction is intended to give the general reader what he may like to know about Alfred’s Boethius and his literary method in general, and the student of English literature will perhaps find interest in the selections from later English translations of the Consolations.
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