The Consolation of Philosophy | Page 8

in the charge of treason brought against Albinus, with what indifference to my own peril I maintained the innocence of its members, one and all. Thou knowest that what I say is the truth, and that I have never boasted of my good deeds in a spirit of self-praise. For whenever a man by proclaiming his good deeds receives the recompense of fame, he diminishes in a measure the secret reward of a good conscience. What issues have overtaken my innocency thou seest. Instead of reaping the rewards of true virtue, I undergo the penalties of a guilt falsely laid to my charge--nay, more than this; never did an open confession of guilt cause such unanimous severity among the assessors, but that some consideration, either of the mere frailty of human nature, or of fortune's universal instability, availed to soften the verdict of some few. Had I been accused of a design to fire the temples, to slaughter the priests with impious sword, of plotting the massacre of all honest men, I should yet have been produced in court, and only punished on due confession or conviction. Now for my too great zeal towards the senate I have been condemned to outlawry and death, unheard and undefended, at a distance of near five hundred miles away.[C] Oh, my judges, well do ye deserve that no one should hereafter be convicted of a fault like mine!
'Yet even my very accusers saw how honourable was the charge they brought against me, and, in order to overlay it with some shadow of guilt, they falsely asserted that in the pursuit of my ambition I had stained my conscience with sacrilegious acts. And yet thy spirit, indwelling in me, had driven from the chamber of my soul all lust of earthly success, and with thine eye ever upon me, there could be no place left for sacrilege. For thou didst daily repeat in my ear and instil into my mind the Pythagorean maxim, "Follow after God." It was not likely, then, that I should covet the assistance of the vilest spirits, when thou wert moulding me to such an excellence as should conform me to the likeness of God. Again, the innocency of the inner sanctuary of my home, the company of friends of the highest probity, a father-in-law revered at once for his pure character and his active beneficence, shield me from the very suspicion of sacrilege. Yet--atrocious as it is--they even draw credence for this charge from _thee_; I am like to be thought implicated in wickedness on this very account, that I am imbued with _thy_ teachings and stablished in _thy_ ways. So it is not enough that my devotion to thee should profit me nothing, but thou also must be assailed by reason of the odium which I have incurred. Verily this is the very crown of my misfortunes, that men's opinions for the most part look not to real merit, but to the event; and only recognise foresight where Fortune has crowned the issue with her approval. Whereby it comes to pass that reputation is the first of all things to abandon the unfortunate. I remember with chagrin how perverse is popular report, how various and discordant men's judgments. This only will I say, that the most crushing of misfortune's burdens is, that as soon as a charge is fastened upon the unhappy, they are believed to have deserved their sufferings. I, for my part, who have been banished from all life's blessings, stripped of my honours, stained in repute, am punished for well-doing.
'And now methinks I see the villainous dens of the wicked surging with joy and gladness, all the most recklessly unscrupulous threatening a new crop of lying informations, the good prostrate with terror at my danger, every ruffian incited by impunity to new daring and to success by the profits of audacity, the guiltless not only robbed of their peace of mind, but even of all means of defence. Wherefore I would fain cry out:
FOOTNOTES:
[C] The distance from Rome to Pavia, the place of Boethius' imprisonment, is 455 Roman miles.
SONG V.
BOETHIUS' PRAYER.
'Builder of yon starry dome,?Thou that whirlest, throned eternal,?Heaven's swift globe, and, as they roam,?Guid'st the stars by laws supernal:?So in full-sphered splendour dight?Cynthia dims the lamps of night,?But unto the orb fraternal?Closer drawn,[D] doth lose her light.
'Who at fall of eventide,?Hesper, his cold radiance showeth,?Lucifer his beams doth hide,?Paling as the sun's light groweth,?Brief, while winter's frost holds sway,?By thy will the space of day;?Swift, when summer's fervour gloweth,?Speed the hours of night away.
'Thou dost rule the changing year:?When rude Boreas oppresses,?Fall the leaves; they reappear,?Wooed by Zephyr's soft caresses.?Fields that Sirius burns deep grown?By Arcturus' watch were sown:?Each the reign of law confesses,?Keeps the place that is his own.
'Sovereign Ruler, Lord of all!?Can