Part 9

Our translator evidently took note of various readings, for on p. 31 he notes a variation of the original. On p. 51 he uses armurers (= armures) to render arma, though most copies agree in reading arva.

There are numerous glosses and explanations of particular passages, which seem to be interpolated by Chaucer himself. Thus he explains what is meant by the heritage of Socrates (p. 10, 11); he gives the meaning of coemption (p. 15); of Euripus (p. 33); of the porch (p. 166).[I-11] Some of his definitions are very quaint; as, for instance, that of Tragedy--‘a dité of a prosperité for a tyme þat endiþ in wrechednesse’ (p. 35). One would think that the following definition of Tragedian would be rather superfluous after this,--‘a maker of dites þat hyȝten (are called) tregedies’ (p. 77).

Melliflui . . . oris Homerus

is thus quaintly Englished: Homer wiþ þe hony mouþe, þat is to seyn. homer wiþ þe swete dites (p. 153).

* * * * *

The present translation of the De Consolatione is taken from Additional MS. 10,340, which is supposed to be the oldest manuscript that exists in our public libraries. After it was all copied out and ready for press, Mr Bradshaw was kind enough to procure me, for the purpose of collation, the loan of the Camb. University MS. Ii. 3. 21, from which the various readings at the foot of the pages are taken.

Had I had an opportunity of examining the Cambridge MS. carefully throughout before the work was so far advanced, I should certainly have selected it in preference to the text now given to the reader. Though not so ancient as the British Museum MS., it is far more correct in its grammatical inflexions, and is no doubt a copy of an older and very accurate text.

The Additional MS. is written by a scribe who was unacquainted with the force of the final -e. Thus he adds it to the preterites of strong verbs, which do not require it; he omits it in the preterites of weak verbs where it is wanted, and attaches it to passive participles (of weak verbs), where it is superfluous. The scribe of the Cambridge MS. is careful to preserve the final -e where it is a sign (1) of the definite declension of the adjective; (2) of the plural adjective; (3) of the infinitive mood; (4) of the preterite of weak verbs; (5) of present participles;[I-12] (6) of the 2nd pers. pret. indic. of strong verbs; (7) of adverbs; (8) of an older vowel ending.

The Addit. MS. has frequently thilk (singular and plural), and -nes (in wrechednes, &c.), when the Camb. MS. has thilke[I-13] and -nesse.

For further differences the reader may consult the numerous collations at the foot of the page.

If the Chaucer Society obtains that amount of patronage from the literary public which it deserves, but unfortunately has yet not succeeded in getting, so that it may be enabled to go on with the great work which has been so successfully commenced, then the time may come when I shall have the opportunity of editing the Camb. MS. of Chaucer’s Boethius for that Society, and lovers of Early English Literature will have two texts instead of one.

APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

The last of the ancients, and one who forms a link between the classical period of literature and that of the middle ages, in which he was a favourite author, is Boethius, a man of fine genius, and interesting both from his character and his death. It is well known that after filling the dignities of Consul and Senator in the court of Theodoric, he fell a victim to the jealousy of a sovereign, from whose memory, in many respects glorious, the stain of that blood has never been effaced. The Consolation of Philosophy, the chief work of Boethius, was written in his prison. Few books are more striking from the circumstances of their production. Last of the classic writers, in style not impure, though displaying too lavishly that poetic exuberance which had distinguished the two or three preceding centuries, in elevation of sentiment equal to any of the philosophers, and mingling a Christian sanctity with their lessons, he speaks from his prison in the swan-like tones of dying eloquence. The philosophy that consoled him in bonds, was soon required in the sufferings of a cruel death. Quenched in his blood, the lamp he had trimmed with a skilful hand gave no more light; the language of Tully and Virgil soon ceased to be spoken; and many ages were to pass away, before learned diligence restored its purity, and the union of genius with imitation taught a few modern writers to surpass in eloquence the Latinity of Boethius. --(Hallam’s Literature of Europe, i. 2, 4th ed. 1854.)

The Senator Boethius is the last of the Romans whom Cato or Tully could have acknowledged for their countryman. As a wealthy orphan, he inherited the patrimony and honours of the Anician family, a name ambitiously assumed by the kings and emperors of the age; and the appellation of Manlius asserted his genuine or fabulous descent from a race of consuls and dictators, who had repulsed the Gauls from the Capitol, and sacrificed their sons to the discipline of the Republic. In the youth of Boethius the studies of Rome were not totally abandoned; a Virgil is now extant, corrected by the hand of a consul; and the professors of grammar, rhetoric, and jurisprudence, were maintained in their privileges and pensions by the liberality of the Goths. But the erudition of the Latin language was insufficient to satiate his ardent curiosity; and Boethius is said to have employed eighteen laborious years in the schools of Athens, which were supported by the zeal, the learning, and the diligence of Proclus and his disciples. The reason and piety of their Roman pupil were fortunately saved from the contagion of mystery and magic, which polluted the groves of the Academy, but he imbibed the spirit, and imitated the method, of his dead and living masters, who attempted to reconcile the strong and subtle sense of Aristotle with the devout contemplation and sublime fancy of Plato. After his return to Rome, and his marriage with the daughter of his friend, the patrician Symmachus, Boethius still continued, in a palace of ivory and [glass] to prosecute the same studies. The Church was edified by his profound defence of the orthodox creed against the Arian, the Eutychian, and the Nestorian heresies; and the Catholic unity was explained or exposed in a formal treatise by the indifference of three distinct though consubstantial persons. For the benefit of his Latin readers, his genius submitted to teach the first elements of the arts and sciences of Greece. The geometry of Euclid, the music of Pythagoras, the arithmetic of Nicomachus, the mechanics of Archimedes, the astronomy of Ptolemy, the theology of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle, with the commentary of Porphyry, were translated and illustrated by the indefatigable pen of the Roman senator. And he alone was esteemed capable of describing the wonders of art, a sun-dial, a water-clock, or a sphere which represented the motions of the planets. From these abstruse speculations, Boethius stooped, or, to speak more truly, he rose to the social duties of public and private life: the indigent were relieved by his liberality; and his eloquence, which flattery might compare to the voice of Demosthenes or Cicero, was uniformly exerted in the cause of innocence and humanity. Such conspicuous merit was felt and rewarded by a discerning prince: the dignity of Boethius was adorned with the titles of consul and patrician, and his talents were usefully employed in the important station of master of the offices. Notwithstanding the equal claims of the East and West, his two sons were created, in their tender youth, the consuls of the same year. On the memorable day of their inauguration, they proceeded in solemn pomp from their palace to the forum amidst the applause of the senate and people; and their joyful father, the true Consul of Rome, after pronouncing an oration in the praise of his royal benefactor, distributed a triumphal largess in the games of the circus. Prosperous in his fame and fortunes, in his public honours and private alliances, in the cultivation of science and the consciousness of virtue, Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.

A philosopher, liberal of his wealth and parsimonious of his time, might be insensible to the common allurements of ambition, the thirst of gold and employment. And some credit may be due to the asseveration of Boethius, that he had reluctantly obeyed the divine Plato, who enjoins every virtuous citizen to rescue the state from the usurpation of vice and ignorance. For the integrity of his public conduct he appeals to the memory of his country. His authority had restrained the pride and oppression of the royal officers, and his eloquence had delivered Paulianus from the dogs of the palace. He had always pitied, and often relieved, the distress of the provincials, whose fortunes were exhausted by public and private rapine; and Boethius alone had courage to oppose the tyranny of the Barbarians, elated by conquest, excited by avarice, and, as he complains, encouraged by impunity. In these honourable contests his spirit soared above the consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence; and we may learn from the example of Cato, that a character of pure and inflexible virtue is the most apt to be misled by prejudice, to be heated by enthusiasm, and to confound private enmities with public justice. The disciple of Plato might exaggerate the infirmities of nature, and the imperfections of society; and the mildest form of a Gothic kingdom, even the weight of allegiance and gratitude, must be insupportable to the free spirit of a Roman patriot. But the favour and fidelity of Boethius declined in just proportion with the public happiness; and an unworthy colleague was imposed to divide and control the power of the master of the offices. In the last gloomy season of Theodoric, he indignantly felt that he was a slave; but as his master had only power over his life, he stood without arms and without fear against the face of an angry Barbarian, who had been provoked to believe that the safety of the senate was incompatible with his own. The Senator Albinus was accused and already convicted on the presumption of hoping, as it was said, the liberty of Rome.

“If Albinus be criminal,” exclaimed the orator, “the senate and myself are all guilty of the same crime. If we are innocent, Albinus is equally entitled to the protection of the laws.” These laws might not have punished the simple and barren wish of an unattainable blessing; but they would have shown less indulgence to the rash confession of Boethius, that, had he known of a conspiracy, the tyrant never should. The advocate of Albinus was soon involved in the danger and perhaps the guilt of his client; their signature (which they denied as a forgery) was affixed to the original address, inviting the emperor to deliver Italy from the Goths; and three witnesses of honourable rank, perhaps of infamous reputation, attested the treasonable designs of the Roman patrician. Yet his innocence must be presumed, since he was deprived by Theodoric of the means of justification, and rigorously confined in the tower of Pavia, while the senate, at the distance of five hundred miles, pronounced a sentence of confiscation and death against the most illustrious of its members. At the command of the Barbarians, the occult science of a philosopher was stigmatized with the names of sacrilege and magic. A devout and dutiful attachment to the senate was condemned as criminal by the trembling voices of the senators themselves; and their ingratitude deserved the wish or prediction of Boethius, that, after him, none should be found guilty of the same offence.

While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the sentence or the stroke of death, he composed in the tower of Pavia the Consolation of Philosophy; a golden volume not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author. The celestial guide, whom he had so long invoked at Rome and Athens, now condescended to illumine his dungeon, to revive his courage, and to pour into his wounds her salutary balm. She taught him to compare his long prosperity and his recent distress, and to conceive new hopes from the inconstancy of fortune. Reason had informed him of the precarious condition of her gifts; experience had satisfied him of their real value; he had enjoyed them without guilt; he might resign them without a sigh, and calmly disdain the impotent malice of his enemies, who had left him happiness, since they had left him virtue. From the earth, Boethius ascended to heaven in search of the SUPREME GOOD; explored the metaphysical labyrinth of chance and destiny, of prescience and free-will, of time and eternity; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical government. Such topics of consolation, so obvious, so vague, or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labour of thought; and the sage who could artfully combine in the same work the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, must already have possessed the intrepid calmness which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at length determined by the ministers of death, who executed, and perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord was fastened round the head of Boethius, and forcibly tightened till 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. But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of knowledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world; the writings of the philosopher were translated by the most glorious of the English kings, and the third emperor of the name of Otho removed to a more honourable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint, who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honours of martyrdom and the fame of miracles. In the last hours of Boethius, he derived some comfort from the safety of his two sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the venerable Symmachus. But the grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps disrespectful; he had presumed to lament, he might dare to revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in chains from Rome to the palace of Ravenna; and the suspicions of Theodoric could only be appeased by the blood of an innocent and aged senator.--Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, 1838, vol. vii. p. 45-52 (without the notes).

INDEX

(Giving the first line of each Metre, the first words of each Prose, and the corresponding page of the translation).

Book Metre Prose Page

I 1 -- Carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi 4 „ -- 1 Hæc dum mecum tacitus ipse reputarem 5 „ 2 -- Heu, quam præcipiti mersa profundo 7 „ -- 2 Sed medicinæ, inquit, potius tempus est 8 „ 3 -- Tunc me discussa liquerunt nocte tenebræ 9 „ -- 3 Haud aliter tristitiæ nebulis dissolutis, hausi cœlum 10 „ 4 -- Quisquis composito serenus ævo 12 „ -- 4 Sentisne, inquit, hæc, atque animo illabuntur tuo? 13 „ 5 -- O stelliferi conditor orbis 21 „ -- 5 Hæc ubi continuato dolore delatravi 23 „ 6 -- Cum Phœbi radiis grave 25 „ -- 6 Primum igitur paterisne me pauculis rogationibus 26 „ 7 -- Nubibus atris 29 II -- 1 Posthæc paulisper obticuit 29 „ 1 -- Hæc cum superba verterit vices dextra 33 „ -- 2 Vellem autem pauca tecum fortunæ ipsius 33 „ 2 -- Si quantas rapidis flatibus incitus 35 „ -- 3 His igitur si pro se tecum fortuna loqueretur 36 „ 3 -- Cum polo Phœbus roseis quadrigis 39 „ -- 4 Tum ego, Vera, inquam, commemoras 39 „ 4 -- Quisquis volet perennem 44 „ -- 5 Sed quoniam rationum jam in te mearum fomenta 45 „ 5 -- Felix nimium prior ætas 50 „ -- 6 Quid autem de dignitatibus, potentiaque disseram 51 „ 6 -- Novimus quantas dederit ruinas 55 „ -- 7 Tum ego, Scis, inquam, ipsa 56 „ 7 -- Quicumque solam mente præcipiti petit 60 „ -- 8 Sed ne me inexorabile contra fortunam 61 „ 8 -- Quod mundus stabili fide 62 III -- 1 Jam cantum illa finierat 63 „ 1 -- Qui serere ingenuum volet agrum 64 „ -- 2 Tum defixo paululum visu 64 „ 2 -- Quantas rerum flectat habenas 68 „ -- 3 Vos quoque, o terrena animalia 69 „ 3 -- Quamvis fluente dives auri gurgite 71 „ -- 4 Sed dignitates honorabilem reverendumque 72 „ 4 -- Quamvis se Tyrio superbus ostro 74 „ -- 5 An vero regna regumque familiaritas efficere potentem valent? 75 „ 5 -- Qui se volet esse potentem 77 „ -- 6 Gloria vero quam fallax sæpe, quam turpis est! 77 „ 6 -- Omne hominum genus in terris 78 „ -- 7 Quid autem de corporis voluptatibus loquar? 79 „ 7 -- Habet omnis hoc voluptas 80 „ -- 8 Nihil igitur dubium est, quin 80 „ 8 -- Eheu, quam miseros tramite devio 81 „ -- 9 Hactenus mendacis formam felicitatis ostendisse 82 „ 9 -- O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas 87 „ -- 10 Quoniam igitur quæ sit imperfecti 88 „ 10 -- Huc omnes pariter venite capti 94 „ -- 11 Assentior, inquam. 95 „ 11 -- Quisquis profunda mente vestigat verum 100 „ -- 12 Tum ego, Platoni, inquam, vehementer assentior 101 „ 12 -- Felix qui potuit boni 106 IV -- 1 Hæc cum Philosophia, dignitate 108 „ 1 -- Sunt etenim pennæ volucres mihi 110 „ -- 2 Tum ego, Papæ, inquam, ut magna promittis! 112 „ 2 -- Quos vides sedere celso 118 „ -- 3 Videsne igitur quanto in cœno probra volvantur 119 „ 3 -- Vela Neritii ducis 122 „ -- 4 Tum ego, Fateor, inquam, nec injuria dici video 123 „ 4 -- Quid tantos juvat excitare motus 130 „ -- 5 Hic ego, Video, inquam, quæ sit vel felicitas 131 „ 5 -- Si quis Arcturi sidera nescit 132 „ -- 6 Ita est, inquam. 133 „ 6 -- Si vis celsi jura tonantis 143 „ -- 7 Jamne igitur vides, quid hæc omnia quæ diximus, consequatur? 144 „ 7 -- Bella bis quinis operatus annis 147 V -- 1 Dixerat, orationisque cursum ad alia quædam 149 „ 1 -- Rupis Achæmeniæ scopulis, ubi versa sequentum 151 „ -- 2 Animadverto, inquam, idque uti tu dicis, ita esse consentio. 152 „ 2 -- Puro clarum lumine Phœbum 153 „ -- 3 Tum ego, En, inquam, difficiliori rursus ambiguitate confundor. 154 „ 3 -- Quænam discors fœdera rerum 159 „ -- 4 Tum illa, Vetus, inquit, hæc est de Providentia querela 161 „ 4 -- Quondam porticus attulit 166 „ -- 5 Quod si in corporibus sentiendis, quamvis 168 „ 5 -- Quam variis terras animalia permeant figuris! 170 „ -- 6 Quoniam igitur, uti paulo ante monstratum est 171

Appendix.--Ætas Prima 180 „ Balades de Vilage sanz Peinture 182

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

++NCIPIT TABULA LIBRI BOICII DE CONSOLAC{I}O{N}E PHILOSOPHIE.

LIBER PRIMUS.

1 Carmina qui quondam studio flore{n}te p{er}egi. 2 Hic dum mecum tacitus. 3 Heu q{ua}m precipiti. 4 Set medicine inquit tempus. 5 Tunc me discussa. 6 Haut[C-1] aliter tristicie. 7 Quisquis composito. 8 Sentis ne inquit. 9 O stelliferi conditor orbis. 10 Hic ubi continuato dolore. 11 Cum phebi radijs. 12 Primu{m} igit{ur} pateris rogac{i}o{n}ib{us}. 13 Nubib{us} atris condita.

EXPLICIT LIBER PRIMUS.

LIBER SECUNDUS.