BOETHIUS
Boethius, sixth-century Christian philosopher and martyr, met his tragic end after court favor turned against him. In 525, King Theodoric the Great suspected him of sympathizing with his political rival, Emperor Justin. Although Boethius never betrayed his king, he was imprisoned and beaten to death. While in prison, Boethius reflected on the fickle nature of Fortune, writing his great work The Consolation of Philosophy, which served as the primary text concerning matters of chance and free will for the next one thousand years. In this poem, Boethius counsels men not only to contrast the world around them to the perfect order of the stars, but to lift their souls heavenward, so that in conforming their souls to divine love, men may find peace—not in a perfectly ordered world, but in an ordered soul.
In what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small
Over wide earth’s teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl!
Some with elongated body sweep the ground, and, as they move,
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Trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous groove;
Some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide,
And through heaven’s ample spaces in free motion smoothly glide;
These earth’s solid surface pressing, with firm paces onward rove,
Ranging through the verdant meadows, crouching in the woodland grove.
Great and wondrous is their variance! Yet in all the head low-bent
Dulls the soul and blunts the senses, though their forms be different.
Man alone, erect, aspiring, lifts his forehead to the skies,
And in upright posture steadfast seems earth’s baseness to despise.
If with earth not all besotted, to this parable give ear,
Thou whose gaze is fixed on heaven, who thy face on high dost rear:
Lift thy soul, too, heavenward; haply lest it stain its heavenly worth,
And thine eyes alone look upward, while thy mind cleaves to the earth!