Boethius
Translated by Queen Elizabeth I, 1593
Boethius was born in Rome in the late fifth century AD at around the time the last Western emperor was deposed. A Christian, he also had a keen scholarly interest in paganism, particularly ancient Greek philosophy, which he cultivated in his work. Boethius saw Italy come under the sway of an Ostrogothic king named Theodoric, under whom he served as magister officiorum (Master of Offices) until he was arrested on suspicion of being implicated in treasonous acts. It was while he was in his cell that Boethius wrote his Consolation of Philosophy. The dialogue, in which Boethius converses with a personification of Philosophy, was especially popular in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Queen Elizabeth I produced the translation from which this extract comes in 1593 when she was sixty years old. Her decision to translate the text (provided here in a modern-spelling version) has sometimes been seen as a reflection of her anxieties and frustrations upon hearing that year of the conversion of King Henri IV of France to Catholicism. Boethius was ultimately tortured and executed.
[…]
The glory once of happy, greeny youth,
Now Fates of grunting age, my comfort all.
Unlooked-for Age, hied by mishaps, is come,
And Sorrow bids his time to add withal;
Unseasoned, hoary hairs upon my head are poured,
And loosèd skin in feeble body shakes.
Blessèd Death, that in sweetest years refrains,
But, oft called, comes to the woeful wights;
O with how deaf ear she from wretched, wries,
And wailing eyes, cruel, to shut denies.
While guileful Fortune with vading goods did cheer,
My life well nigh the doleful hour bereaved;
When her false look a cloud hath changed,
My wretched life, thankless abode protracts.
Why me so oft, my friends, have you happy called?
Who falleth down, in steady step yet never stood.
While of all this, alone in silence I bethought me, and tears-full
complaint in style’s office meant, over my head to stand a woman did
appear. Of stately face, with flaming eyes of insight above the
common worth of men; of fresh color and unwon strength, though
yet so old she were that of our age she seemed not be one. Her stature
such as scarce could be discerned, for somewhile she scanted her to
the common stature of men, straight she seemed with crown of head
the heavens to strike; and lifting up the same higher, the heavens
themselves she entered, beguiling the sight of lookers-on.
Her weeds they were of smallest threads, perfect for fine
workmanship and lasting substance as, after by herself I knew, was by
her hands all wrought. Whose form, as to smoky images is wont, a
certain dimness of despised antiquity overwhelmed. Of these weeds,
in the lowest skirts π, in the upper side a θ, was read, all woven.
And between both letters, ladder-wise, certain steps were marked, by
which, from lowest to highest element, ascent there was. Yet that self
garment the hands of violent men had torn and pieces such as get
they could, away they stole. Her right hand held a book, the left a
scepter.
Who, when she spied poets’ Muses standing by my bed, and to my
tears inditing words, somewhat moved, inflamed with gloating eyes:
“Who suffered,” quoth she, “these stage’s harlots approach this sick
man, which not only would not ease his sorrow with no remedies, but
with sweet venom nourish them? These they be, that with barren
affections’ thorns destroys the full ears of reason’s fruit, and men’s
minds with disease inures, not frees. But if of vain man, as vulgar
wonts, your allurements had deprived me, with less grief had I
borne it. For by such, our work had got no harm. But this man have
you touched, whom Stoic and Academic study brought out. Get you
away, Sirens, sweet till end be seen. To my Muses leave him for cure
and health.”
To this, the checked rabble, with look downcast with woe, with
blush confessing shame, doleful out of doors they went. But I, whose
sight, drowned in tears, was dimmed, could not know what she was,
of so imperious rule; and settling my eyes on ground, what she would
more do, in silence I attended. Then she, drawing near, on my bed’s
feet sat down. And viewing my look of heavy woe and with my dole
to the earth thrown down, in verses these, of my mind’s pain,
complaineth thus:
Oh, in how headlong depth the drowned mind is dimmed;
And, losing light, her own, to others’ darkness turns,
As oft as, driv’n with earthly flaws, the harmful care upward grows.
Once this man, free in open field, used the skies to view:
Of ros[y] sun the light beheld,
Of frosty moon the planets saw;
And what star else runs her wonted course,
Bending by many circles, this man had won
By number to know them all,
Yea, causes each: whence roaring winds the seas perturbs;
Acquainted with the spirit that rolls the steady world;
And why the star that falls to the Hesperia’s waters
From his reddy root doth raise herself;
Who that gives the spring’s mild hours their temper,
That with rosy flowers the earth be decked;
Who made the fertile autumn, at fullness of the year,
Abound with grape, all swoll’n with ripest fruits.
He, wonted to search and find sundry causes of hidden Nature,
Down lies, of mind’s light bereaved,
With bruisèd neck, by overheavy chains,
A-bowèd-low look, by weight-bearing
Driven, alas, the seely earth behold.
“But fitter time,” quoth she, “for medicine than complaint.” Then,
fixing on me her steady eyes: “Art thou the same,” quoth she, “who
once nourished with my milk, fed with our food, art grown to
strength of manly mind? On whom we bestowed such weapons as, if
thou hadst not cast away, had saved thee with invincible strength?
Dost thou me know? Why art thou dumb? Is it shame or wonder
makes thee silent?” But when she spied me not only still but
wordless and dumb, on my breast gently laid her hand. Said: “There
is no danger; he is entered in a lethargy, a common disease of mind
distract. He hath a little forgotten himself. Easily his memory will
return when first he hath remembered me. And, that he may, a little
let us wipe his eyes overdimmed with cloud of earthly things.” Thus
speaking, my eyes flowing with tears, folding her garment, she dried.
Then night o’erblown, the darkness left me,
And former strength unto my eyes returned.
As when the heav’ns astound with headlong wind,
And pole amidst the cloudy mists,
The sun is hid, and in the heav’ns appears no stars:
From high, the night on earth is spread.
The same if Boreas, sent from his Thracian den,
Doth strike and opens the hidden day.
Shines out, and with his sudden light, Phoebus, shaken,
With his beams strikes all lookers-on.
No otherwise, mists of my woe dissolved, to heaven I reached, and
raised my mind to know my curer’s face. Then, when on her I rolled
my eyes, and look I fixed, my nurse I saw, in whose retired rooms in
my youth I dwelt. “And how,” quoth I, “art thou come to the
solitariness of our exile, O pedagogue of all virtues? Fallen from the
highest step, shalt thou with me be tormented too with false
crimes?”
“Shall I,” quoth she, “O scholar mine, thee leave? And not to ease
thy burden, which, for my sake thou bearest, in easing thy labor with
fellowing of thy pain? It ill becomes Philosophy to leave alone an
innocent’s way. Shall I dread mine own blame, and, as if any
novelty had happed, shall I fear? Are you now to know how, among
wicked folks, Wisdom is assailed with many dangers? Have we not
wrestled with Folly’s rashness among the elder sort afore our Plato’s
age, and made therewith great battle? Yea, he alive, his master
Socrates unjustly claimed the victory of death when I was by. Whose
inheritance, when after the vulgar Epicurean and Stoic and all the
rest, each man for his part meant to bereave me, sundered (as, in part
of their prey) my garment, though I resisted and exclaimed: for, being
the workmanship of mine own hand, they, plucking some rags from it
(supposing they had all), departed from me. Among which, for that
some prints of my garment appeared, folly, supposing they were my
familiars, abused some of them with error of the vain multitude.
“Though thou hast not known Anaxagoras’s flight, nor Socrates’
venom, nor Zeno’s torment, because they are strange, yet Caniuses,
Senecas, Soranuses thou mayst know, for they are not cowards nor
of unhonored memory. Whom nothing else to their bane brought,
but that, instructed with our conditions, they seemed unlike the
wicked’s endeavors. Thou oughtest not, therefore, to wonder, if in the
sea of life we be tossed with many a tempest rising, whose purpose is
this, chiefest, to dislike the wickedest. Whose army, though it be
great, ought to be despised, as whom no guide rules, but hurled rashly
with a dim error. Which, if once setting battle against us, should
fortune to prevail, our guide will draw our troops to castle while they
be busy to raven unprofitable baggage. And we from high shall
scorn them while they spoil that is vile, sure from the furious tumult
and safe in such a trench whither these foolish raveners may never
attain.”