Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-98594-159-9
Verlag: Phoemixx Classics Ebooks
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 177 Seiten

The Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius - Born in the late 5th century AD, Boethius was a Roman statesman and philosopher who would come into the service of the Ostrogothic ruler of Italy, Theodoric the Great. Ultimately he would rise to the position of magister officiorum, the head of all the government and court services. In 523 AD he would find himself accused of treasonous correspondence with Justin I, a charge that would land him in prison and ultimately lead to his execution. During Boethiuss year-long imprisonment leading up to his execution he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy, a work that would become regarded as one of the most important and influential works from medieval times. The Consolation of Philosophy is a classical exposition of human nature as Boethius reflects on the treacherous betrayal that led to his fall from favor with his lord. In it he ponders the universal question of Theodicy, or why a benevolent and all powerful God allows evil to manifest in the world, and on the transitory nature of fortune. Meant to provide himself with some solace in the face of his fated execution, Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy is a work that has provided spiritual guidance to those in despair ever since its first appearance. This edition includes a biographical afterword.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius, commonly called Boethius (bow-EE-thee-us; ca. 480524 or 525 AD) was a philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born in Rome to an ancient and prominent family which included emperors Petronius Maximus and Olybrius and many consuls. His father, Flavius Manlius Boethius, was consul in 487 after Odoacer deposed the last Western Roman Emperor. Boethius, of the noble Anicia family, entered public life at a young age and was already a senator by the age of 25. Boethius himself was consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. In 522 he saw his two sons become consuls. Boethius was imprisoned and eventually executed by King Theodoric the Great, who suspected him of conspiring with the Eastern Empire. While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of Philosophy, a philosophical treatise on fortune, death, and other issues. The Consolation became one of the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages. A link between Boethius and a mathematical boardgame Rithmomachia has been made.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boethius

Leseproben

BOOK I.

SONG I.
Boethius' Complaint.

Who wrought my studious numbers

Smoothly once in happier days,

Now perforce in tears and sadness

Learn a mournful strain to raise.

Lo, the Muses, grief-dishevelled,

Guide my pen and voice my woe;

Down their cheeks unfeigned the tear drops

To my sad complainings flow!

These alone in danger's hour

Faithful found, have dared attend

On the footsteps of the exile

To his lonely journey's end.

These that were the pride and pleasure

Of my youth and high estate

Still remain the only solace

Of the old man's mournful fate.

Old? Ah yes; swift, ere I knew it,

By these sorrows on me pressed

Age hath come; lo, Grief hath bid me

Wear the garb that fits her best.

O'er my head untimely sprinkled

These white hairs my woes proclaim,

And the skin hangs loose and shrivelled

On this sorrow-shrunken frame.

Blest is death that intervenes not

In the sweet, sweet years of peace,

But unto the broken-hearted,

When they call him, brings release!

Yet Death passes by the wretched,

Shuts his ear and slumbers deep;

Will not heed the cry of anguish,

Will not close the eyes that weep.

For, while yet inconstant Fortune

Poured her gifts and all was bright,

Death's dark hour had all but whelmed me

In the gloom of endless night.

Now, because misfortune's shadow

Hath o'erclouded that false face,

Cruel Life still halts and lingers,

Though I loathe his weary race.

Friends, why did ye once so lightly

Vaunt me happy among men?

Surely he who so hath fallen

Was not firmly founded then.

I.

While I was thus mutely pondering within myself, and recording my sorrowful complainings with my pen, it seemed to me that there appeared above my head a woman of a countenance exceeding venerable. Her eyes were bright as fire, and of a more than human keenness; her complexion was lively, her vigour showed no trace of enfeeblement; and yet her years were right full, and she plainly seemed not of our age and time. Her stature was difficult to judge. At one moment it exceeded not the common height, at another her forehead seemed to strike the sky; and whenever she raised her head higher, she began to pierce within the very heavens, and to baffle the eyes of them that looked upon her. Her garments were of an imperishable fabric, wrought with the finest threads and of the most delicate workmanship; and these, as her own lips afterwards assured me, she had herself woven with her own hands. The beauty of this vesture had been somewhat tarnished by age and neglect, and wore that dingy look which marble contracts from exposure. On the lower-most edge was inwoven the Greek letter ? [Greek: P], on the topmost the letter ? [Greek: Th],[A] and between the two were to be seen steps, like a staircase, from the lower to the upper letter. This robe, moreover, had been torn by the hands of violent persons, who had each snatched away what he could clutch.[B] Her right hand held a note-book; in her left she bore a staff. And when she saw the Muses of Poesie standing by my bedside, dictating the words of my lamentations, she was 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] ? (P) stands for the Political life, the life of action; ? (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 upon thee through the hatred of my name, by sharing this trouble? Even forgetting that it were not lawful for Philosophy to leave companionless the way of the innocent, should I, thinkest thou, fear to incur reproach, or shrink from it, as though some strange new thing had befallen? Thinkest thou that now, for the first time in an evil age, Wisdom hath been assailed by peril? Did I not often in days of old, before my servant Plato lived, wage stern warfare with the rashness of folly? In his lifetime, too, Socrates, his master, won with my aid the victory of an unjust death. And when, one after the other, the Epicurean herd, the Stoic, and the rest, each of them as far as in them lay, went about to seize the heritage he left, and were dragging me off protesting and resisting, as their booty, they tore in pieces the garment which I had woven with my own hands, and, clutching the torn pieces, went off, believing that the whole of me had passed into their possession. And some of them, because some traces of my vesture were seen upon them, were destroyed through the mistake of the lewd multitude, who falsely deemed them to be my disciples. It may be thou knowest not of the banishment of Anaxagoras, of the poison draught of Socrates, nor of Zeno's torturing,...