The Consolation of Philosophy

This book inspired Dante and many others for centuries. Written in prison by a person of great intellect and fortune, until he met with treachery and died in AD 524, he questions his Fate. It is a Theodicy, but it is presented as a conversation between the prisoner and Lady Philosophy. Boethius questions everything, but finds all the answers. It is a shame that such a beautiful (and short) work of art, with such profound, clear thinking is not required in all colleges. Even high school! I had to wait until after I graduated to be exposed to such rich ideas, rich vocabulary, and profound thought. It is a shame. The analogy of the Wheel of Fortune was made popular by this book and there is so much wisdom in Lady Philosophy. I can't tell you how much I loved this book for challenging me to reflect on philosophy on many levels, to a degree that not many books force. The insight gained by understanding this book is immense and influences my thoughts today.

One of the most famous passages in Gibbon is his description of the imprisonment and assassination of Boethius. Simply put, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a scholar, translator and politician of the sixth century, consul to the then-emperor Theodoric. He was a scion of one of the most respected political families of the empire, universally thought to be a good and honest man, and was the author of philosophic and theological tracts. Despite the polish of his reputation, he ran afoul of Theodoric on two points: he accepted the doctrine of the Trinity, whereas Theodoric was a believer in Arianism; and in a political skirmish he defended the rights of the Roman Senate more vigorously than Theodoric was inclined to forgive. Boethius was condemned to prison and death but during his time in prison Theodoric allowed him paper and ink; he then composed The Consolation of Philosophy, considered one of the last breaths of Roman literature and a step into the canon and practice of medieval literature. At the end of his imprisonment, Gibbon tells us, “a strong cord was fastened around the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened until his eyes almost started from their sockets; and some mercy may be discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he expired.” (Some mercy, maybe; not a lot.) His remains were brought to the basilica of St. Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, in Pavia, where they rest in a handsome chest in the crypt; Dante, who revered Boethius, speaks of this in the Paradiso, Canto X: “The body…. / lies down there in Cieldauro, and he has risen / from martyrdom and exile to this peace.” With most literature we rely on the work gaining some existence independent of its author, but with the Consolation this is curiously not so. We cannot imagine it as a literary exercise; it is, it must be, the work of a man who knew he would soon be facing death by execution. Speaking first of the songs he sang in better times, he is given the vision of a lady, Philosophy, who proceeds, in the work’s five chapters, to strip her interlocutor from all hope in the temporary joys of life. Despite Boethius’s no doubt genuine Christianity, the Consolation is not a Christian work proper but a kind of Platonic, monotheistic work with Pauline echoes. It works, in the prose chapters that are interspersed with poems, with a rigorous logic to a final lesson: that all our worldly and temporary comforts must be abandoned; there is no truck between them and the greater, transcendent, final good. This lesson, especially granting its dramatic situation, is hard to refute, and yet some part of me feels the chill of this logic as well as its rigor, and that at some level the arguments fail. Like Lord Peter Wimsey, I am perfectly willing to say “I have not the philosophic mind.” Gibbon himself writes, “Such topics of consolation, so obvious, so vague, or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature.” Perhaps, but in Boethius there is the tempering throughout of a wide-spirited and accepting nature. His pleasures must end; but in engenders in him no sneering, no haughtiness, at the fragilities of the world. Helen Waddell expressed it most finely: “He is both mystic and stoic, but without the contempts of either; a lover of life and unafraid of death, but neither its shadow nor the light of the world to come has taken from the greenness of the grass. It was fortunate for the sanity of the Middle Ages that the man who taught them so much of their philosophy was of a temperament so humane and so serene; that ‘the mightiest observer of mighty things,’ who defined eternity with an exulting plenitude that no man has approached before or since, has gone to gather violets in a spring wood, and watched with a sore heart a bird in a cage that has caught a glimpse of waving trees and now grieved its heart out, scattering its seed with small impotent claws." Like Lucretius, Boethius has been singularly fortunate in his translators. King Alfred translated him into Old English (I know this has been questioned, but I couldn’t resist), Jean de Meung into Old French; Geoffrey Chaucer and Elizabeth I did versions. Henry Vaughan translated several of the poems, and Helen Waddell included several, with very fine translations, in her Medieval Latin Lyrics, which, yes, is a book you should read. A couple of the old Penguin translations of the Consolation can be found easily secondhand, and are not too bad, but David Slavitt in 2008 did a very fine new version published by Harvard; it’s an exceptionally handsome book.--From Glenn's Book Notes

I begin my comments with two disclaimers: (1) I would not presume to "review" Boethius, but I can offer a few superficial comments on this edition which may be of use to potential buyers; and (2) I do not know Latin, but can read Boethius only in translation.There were many passages in this translation that I recognized as being definitely idiomatically modern. Those passages felt anachronistic to me and made me doubt to some extent that I was reading "the real thing", at least as much as one can ever read "the real thing" in translation. On the whole, though, allowing for that one not insignificant complaint, I recommend this translation for its fine, clear style.The evident modernity of the translation made me want to read some other translation, so that when I was finished with this one, then just for something different, I chose Chaucer's Middle English translation, "Boece". I could not have successfully read "The Consolation of Philosophy" for the first time in Middle English, but I can read it in M.E. the second time. I am still chipping away at that, but so far Chaucer's translation seems distinctly more emotional to me than Slavitt's, and thus conveys a very different feeling. Maybe Chaucer and Slavitt have both impressed the emotional styles of their own ages onto the text? But how would I ever know? In any case, if the style of Slavitt's translation made me at once mostly happy, and yet needing to read another, then that is a sign of success for the translation.As for Lerer's introduction, and also the physical quality of the book, I second the favorable comments of another reviewer, Mr. Allen Shull; see his review.

As a first time reader of philosophical thought I found this book to be incredibly accessible and influential. With beautiful lines of poetry and prose Boethius proves that philosophy doesn't have to be complicated or dry. It changed my perspective and helped me to better understand human existence. Read it, learn it, love it; you won't be sorry.

Excellent condition (brand new) + Arrived fast (about 4 days). Thank you

Great read!The book is beautiful in itself. Considering the death sentence and imprisonment of Boethius when writing it, it is absolutely marvelous.

The work of Boethius is an interesting reflection that, in short, understands fortune as a misunderstood manifestation of divine providence. The author offers a rational argument for many of the problems that still affect theologians today.

It is an most great book to expand my mind.

A very accessible translation which facilitates the use of philosophy in everyday life. A book to have handy.