The Consolation of Philosophy | Page 5

moved awhile to wrath,
and her eyes flashed sternly. 'Who,' said she, 'has allowed yon
play-acting wantons to approach this sick man--these who, so far from
giving medicine to heal his malady, even feed it with sweet poison?
These it is who kill the rich crop of reason with the barren thorns of
passion, who accustom men's minds to disease, instead of setting them
free. Now, were it some common man whom your allurements were
seducing, as is usually your way, I should be less indignant. On such a
one I should not have spent my pains for naught. But this is one
nurtured in the Eleatic and Academic philosophies. Nay, get ye gone,
ye sirens, whose sweetness lasteth not; leave him for my muses to tend
and heal!' At these words of upbraiding, the whole band, in deepened
sadness, with downcast eyes, and blushes that confessed their shame,
dolefully left the chamber.
But I, because my sight was dimmed with much weeping, and I could
not tell who was this woman of authority so commanding--I was
dumfoundered, and, with my gaze fastened on the earth, continued
silently to await what she might do next. Then she drew near me and
sat on the edge of my couch, and, looking into my face all heavy with

grief and fixed in sadness on the ground, she bewailed in these words
the disorder of my mind:
FOOTNOTES:
[A] [Greek: P] (P) stands for the Political life, the life of action; [Greek:
Th] (Th) for the Theoretical life, the life of thought.
[B] The Stoic, Epicurean, and other philosophical sects, which
Boethius regards as heterodox. See also below, ch. iii., p. 14.
SONG II.
HIS DESPONDENCY.
Alas! in what abyss his mind
Is plunged, how wildly tossed!
Still,
still towards the outer night
She sinks, her true light lost,
As oft as,
lashed tumultuously
By earth-born blasts, care's waves rise high.
Yet once he ranged the open heavens,
The sun's bright pathway
tracked;
Watched how the cold moon waxed and waned;
Nor rested,
till there lacked
To his wide ken no star that steers
Amid the maze
of circling spheres.
The causes why the blusterous winds
Vex ocean's tranquil face,

Whose hand doth turn the stable globe,
Or why his even race
From
out the ruddy east the sun
Unto the western waves doth run:
What is it tempers cunningly
The placid hours of spring,
So that it
blossoms with the rose
For earth's engarlanding:
Who loads the
year's maturer prime
With clustered grapes in autumn time:
All this he knew--thus ever strove
Deep Nature's lore to guess.
Now,
reft of reason's light, he lies,
And bonds his neck oppress;
While by
the heavy load constrained,
His eyes to this dull earth are chained.
II.

'But the time,' said she, 'calls rather for healing than for lamentation.'
Then, with her eyes bent full upon me, 'Art thou that man,' she cries,
'who, erstwhile fed with the milk and reared upon the nourishment
which is mine to give, had grown up to the full vigour of a manly spirit?
And yet I had bestowed such armour on thee as would have proved an
invincible defence, hadst thou not first cast it away. Dost thou know me?
Why art thou silent? Is it shame or amazement that hath struck thee
dumb? Would it were shame; but, as I see, a stupor hath seized upon
thee.' Then, when she saw me not only answering nothing, but mute
and utterly incapable of speech, she gently touched my breast with her
hand, and said: 'There is no danger; these are the symptoms of lethargy,
the usual sickness of deluded minds. For awhile he has forgotten
himself; he will easily recover his memory, if only he first recognises
me. And that he may do so, let me now wipe his eyes that are clouded
with a mist of mortal things.' Thereat, with a fold of her robe, she dried
my eyes all swimming with tears.
SONG III.
THE MISTS DISPELLED.
Then the gloom of night was scattered,
Sight returned unto mine eyes.

So, when haply rainy Caurus
Rolls the storm-clouds through the
skies,
Hidden is the sun; all heaven
Is obscured in starless night.

But if, in wild onset sweeping,
Boreas frees day's prisoned light,
All
suddenly the radiant god outstreams,
And strikes our dazzled eyesight
with his beams.
III.
Even so the clouds of my melancholy were broken up. I saw the clear
sky, and regained the power to recognise the face of my physician.
Accordingly, when I had lifted my eyes and fixed my gaze upon her, I
beheld my nurse, Philosophy, whose halls I had frequented from my
youth up.
'Ah! why,' I cried, 'mistress of all excellence, hast thou come down

from on high, and entered the solitude of this my exile? Is it that thou,
too, even as I, mayst be persecuted with false accusations?'
'Could I desert thee, child,' said she, 'and not lighten the burden which
thou hast taken