 |
Glyn Hughes'
Squashed Philosophers The
Condensed Edition of "The good are always strong" |
|
Glyn Hughes'
Squashed Philosophers The
Condensed Edition of "The good are always strong" |
INTRODUCTION
to Severinus Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy
Born of
Rome in AD 480 from a family of leading burghers, the
mathematician, musicologist and polymath Anicius Manlius
Severinus Boëthius became an advisor to the Theodoric the Great,
but, suspected of tipping-off the enemy Byzantines, was
imprisoned. It was in Ticinum (Modern Pavia) gaol that he wrote
what was to become one of the most influential books of the
Middle Ages, translated by both Chaucer and Alfred the Great- The
Consolation of Philosophy. The Chronicle of Valesii tells
that he was, 'tortured for a very long time by a cord that was
twisted round his forehead so that his eyes started from his
head. Then at last amidst his torments he was killed with a
club.' CS Lewis said of The Consolation, that
"Until about two hundred years ago it would, I think, have
been hard to find an educated man in any European country who did
not love it."
Although it is unclear whether he was a devoted Christian or not,
the brave and reflective way in which he faced death led the
Roman Church to accept popular devotion and acknowledge him as St
Severinus Boethius, his feast day is observed on October 12th.
THE
VERY SQUASHED VERSION
Brooding
over my sadness and old age, it seemed to me that I saw a woman
before me, plainly not of my time or age. She dried my eyes all
swimming with tears, my clouds of melancholy were broken, I saw
the clear sky and I beheld my nurse, Philosophy. "I desert
thee not, my child," said she, "Wisdom hath often been
assailed by peril, as Socrates found. Thou hast found out how
changeful is the face of the blind goddess fate. Come, reckon up
thy blessings! Thy wife with her gentleness and virtue, thy sons
and their consular dignity. As for riches, money is only precious
when it is given away, and it can only fall to one man's lot by
the impoverishment of others. And as for rank and power, these
have often fallen to the worst of men, and then did ever an Etna
work such mischief? True happiness is the perfect good;
therefore, true happiness must dwell in the supreme Deity. By the
will of God the good are always strong, the bad always weak and
impotent; that vices never go unpunished, nor virtues unrewarded.
The good must be happy, for because they are good." But I
was perplexed by the chance falls of fortune; "There is no
place for chance in this universe," she said "for
nothing can arise without a cause- but you have a free will
within that. Honour the God, for all things are as they should
be"
ABOUT
THIS SQUASHED VERSION
This
Squashed Edition is adapted from the 1902 translation by WV
Cooper and the earlier condensed version by Sir John Hammerton.
It reduces some 45,000 words to about 3,000
The
Consolation of Philosophy
by
Severinus Boethius, c520AD
Squashed
version edited by Glyn Hughes © 2005
I - THE SORROWS OF BOETHIUS
I WHO knew happy days, sat brooding over the sorrows which have
come on me in my old age, and I had written in sad verses some
complainings over my misfortunes, when it seemed to me that there
appeared above my head a woman of a countenance exceeding
venerable. Her eyes were of fiery glow, her complexion was
lively, her aspect was vigorous and she seemed plainly not of my
time or age.
Her stature was difficult to judge, for at one moment it exceeded
not the common height, at another her forehead seemed to strike
the sky; and when she raised her head higher, she began to pierce
the very heavens, and to baffle the eyes of those who looked upon
her. Her garments were of an imperishable fabric. On the
lowermost edge was interwoven the Greek letter II, which stands
for political life, the life of action. On the topmost edge was
the letter e, standing for the theoretical life, the life of
thought; and between the two were to be seen steps, like a
staircase, from the lower to the upper letter. The robe,
moreover, had been torn by the hands of violent persons, who had
each snatched away what he could clutch.
When she saw the muses of poesie standing by my bed, dictating
the words of my lamentations, she was moved to wrath, her eyes
flashed sternly and she addressed to them such words of
upbraiding that the whole band dolefully left the chamber. I,
dumbfounded, silently awaited what she might do next. Then,
drawing near my couch, she bewailed the disorder of my mind, but
presently declared that the occasion called rather for healing
than for lamentation; that the symptoms were of lethargy, the
usual sickness of deluded souls. Then, with a fold of her robe,
she dried my eyes all swimming with tears.
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. Lifting up my eyes 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, 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? Thinkest thou that
now, for the first time in an evil age, Wisdom hath been assailed
by peril? The stories of the fate of Socrates, of Anaxagoras, of
Zeno, of Arrius, of Seneca, of Soranus are not unknown to thee.
These men were brought to destruction for no other reason than
that, settled as they were in my principles, their lives were a
manifest contrast to the ways of the wicked. Dost thou
understand, or art thou dull as an ass to the sound of my lyre?
Why dost thou weep?"
Then I, gathering what strength I could, began, "Is there
any need of telling? Is not the cruelty of fortune against me
plain enough, and all because I have faithfuily followed thy
precepts? Thou has enjoined by Plato's mouth the maxim that
states would be happy, either if philosophers ruled them, or if
it should so befall that their rulers should turn philosophers. I
have tried to apply in the business of public administration the
principles I learnt from thee. For this cause I have become
involved in bitter and irreconcilable feuds. By baulking
Conigastus in his assaults on the weak, and by thwarting the vile
schemes of Trigguilla, and by rescuing the consul Paulinus from
the gaping jaws of the court bloodhounds, and by saving Albinus
from the penalties of a prejudged charge, I have laid up for
myself a great store of enmities. And now that by lying informers
I have been struck down, what is thy counsel, O, my
mistress?"
II - THE VANITY OF FORTUNE'S GIFTS
PHILOSOPHY, after an interval of silence, thus began.
"If I have thoroughly ascertained the pining with regretful
longing for thy former fortune. But thou thinkest that the siren
called Fortune hath changed her ways towards thee. But rather in
her very mutability hath she preserved towards thee her true
constancy. Thou hast found out how changeful is the face of the
blind goddess. If thou likest her, take her as she is and do not
complain. If thou abhorrest her perfidy, turn from her in disdain
and renounce her!"
"Thine admonishings are true," said I. "But in
adverse fortune the worst sting of misery assuredly is to have
been happy."
"Well," said she, "if thou art paying the penalty
of a mistaken belief, thou canst not rightly impute the fault to
circumstances. Come, reckon up how rich thou art in thy
blessings! Thy wife yet lives with her gentleness and virtue.
Think of thy sons and their consular dignity. Think how many
other men are lacking in such blessings as are preserved to thee.
As for riches, what are they but mere gold and heaps of money?
Money is only precious when it is given away, and it can only
fall to one man's lot by the impoverishment of others. And as for
rank and power, these have often fallen to the worst of men, and
then did ever an Etna work such mischief?"
"Thou knowest," I answered, "that ambition for
worldly success hath but little swayed me. Yet I have desired
opportunity for action, lest virtue, in default of exercise,
should languish away."
Then said she: "This is that last infirmity which is able to
allure noble minds. But how poor and unsubstantial a thing is
glory. The whole of this earth's globe is as compared with the
expanse of heaven no bigger than a point, and of this
insignificant world only a fourth part is inhabited by living
creatures, and vast portions of that part are usurped by sea,
marsh and desert, so that little space is left for human beings.
And of this how narrow is the area for human fame! Why, in
Cicero's days, the fame of the Roman Republic had not yet crossed
the Caucasus. Can the fame of a single Roman penetrate where the
glory of the Roman name fails to pass? Moreover, what concern
have choice spirits - for it is of such men we speak, men who
seek glory by virtue - what concern have these with fame after
the dissolution of the body in death?"
III - TRUE HAPPINESS AND FALSE
FOR a little space Philosophy was silent, and then she thus began
again.
"I would now lead thee to felicity. The supreme good which
men seek is happiness; at this they aim in various ways. Some
seek it through wealth. Now, wealth cannot make its possessor
independent and free from all want; yet this is what it seems to
promise. Every day the stronger wrest it from the weaker without
his consent. So the wealth which a man thought would make him
independent, actually puts him in need of further protection.
"Other men imagine that they can secure felicity by means of
rank, for official dignity clothes him to whom it comes with
honour and reverence. Have, then, offices of state such power as
to plant virtue in the minds of their possessors and to drive out
vice? Nay, they are rather wont to signalise iniquity than to
chase it away. Thus, Catullus calls Nonius 'an ulcer-spot,'
though 'sitting in the curule chair.' And even where high office
brings dignity, does their repute last? Why, the prefecture,
which was once a great power, is now but an empty name - a burden
merely on the senator's fortune. The commissioner of the public
corn was once a personage - now what is more contemptible than
this office?
"But you may ask, Boethius, if the happiness of kings does
not last? Well, antiquity is full of examples, as are these days
also, of kings whose happiness has turned to calamity. There must
needs be a balance of wretchedness in the lot of a king. The
tyrant Damocles, who had made trial of the perils of his
condition, figured the fears that haunt a throne under the image
of a sword hanging over a man's head."
"Indeed," said I, "I see clearly enough that
neither is independence to be found in wealth, not power in
sovereignity, nor reverence in dignities, nor true joy in
pleasures."
"Having set forth the form of false happiness, the next step
is to show what true happiness is," said she. "That
which is simple and indivisible by nature, human error separates,
and transforms from the true and perfect to the false and
imperfect. Happiness must not be sought in these things which
severally are believed to afford only some of the blessings most
to be desired. That is the true and perfect happiness which
crowns one with the union of independence, power, reverence,
renown and joy. It now remains that thou shouldst learn from what
source this true happiness is to be sought. Since, as Plato
maintains in the Timaeus, we ought, even in the most trivial
matters, to implore the divine protection, what thinkest thou
should we now do in order to deserve to find the seat of that
highest good?"
"We must invoke the Father of all," said I, "for
without this no enterprise sets out from a right beginning."
"THOU sayest well," said she. "Next, to consider
where the dwelling-place of this happiness may be. The common
belief of all mankind agrees that God, the supreme of all things,
is good. Wherefore, lest we fall into an infinite regression, we
must acknowledge the supreme God to be full of supreme and
perfect good. But we have determined that true happiness is the
perfect good; therefore, true happiness must dwell in the supreme
Deity. Remember this, that the good is the sum and source of all
desirable things, and that the essence of absolute good and of
happiness is one and the same. But we have seen that God and true
happiness are one and the same. Then we can safely conclude that
God's essence is seated in absolute good, and nowhere else."
IV - GOOD AND ILL FORTUNE
AT this point I mentioned to Philosophy that herein lay the
chiefest cause of my grief, that, while there exists a good ruler
of the universe, it is possible that there should be evil at all,
still more that it should go unpunished, that wickedness should
reign and flourish, and that virtue not only lacks its reward,
but is even thrust down and trampled under the feet of the wicked
and suffers punishment in place of crime.
Then said she, "It would indeed be infinitely astounding and
of all monstrous things most horrible if, as thou esteemest, in
the well-ordered home of so great a householder, the base vessels
should be held in honour and the precious left to neglect. But it
is not so. Thou shalt learn that by the will of God the good are
always strong, the bad always weak and impotent; that vices never
go unpunished, nor virtues unrewarded; that good fortune ever
befalls the good and ill fortune the bad. For since, as I have
already insisted, the absolute good is happiness, the good must
be happy, for the very reason that they are good.
"In like manner, wickness itself is the reward of the
unrighteous. Unrighteousness degrades the wicked below man's
level. Thou canst not consider him human whom thou seest
transformed by vice. The covetous man surely resembles a wolf. A
restless, wrangling spirit is like some yelping cur. The secret
fraudulent schemer is own brother to the fox. The passionate man,
frenzied with rage, we might believe to be animated with the soul
of a lion. The coward may be likened to the timid deer. He who is
sunk in ignorance and stupidity lives like a dull ass. He who
wallows in foul lusts is sunk in the pleasures of a hog."
Then said I, "This is very true. But inasmuch as the vicious
vent their rage in the destruction of the good, I would this
licence were not permitted them."
"Nor is it," said she. "Yet if that licence which
thou believest to be permitted them were taken away, the
punishment of the wicked would in great part be remitted. For
verily, incredible as it may seem to some, it needs must be that
the bad are more unfortunate when they have accomplished their
desires than if they are unable to get them fulfilled."
"Yet," said I, "I earnestly wish they might
speedily be quit of this misfortune by losing the ability to
accomplish crime."
"They will lose it." said she, "sooner than
perchance thou wishest or they themselves think likely. Their
great expectation, the lofty fabric of their crimes, is oft
overthrown by a sudden and unlooked-for ending, and this but sets
a limit to their misery. And here is a further consideration. If
baseness of its own nature makes men wretched, as it does, it is
plain that a wrong involves the misery of the doer, not of the
sufferer."
On this I said, "I see how there is a happiness and misery
founded on the actual deserts of the righteous and wicked.
Nevertheless, I wonder in myself whether there is not some good
and evil in fortune as the vulgar understand it. Surely no
sensible man would rather be exiled, poor and disgraced, than
dwell prosperously in his own country, powerful, wealthy and held
in high honour. But now my belief in God's governance doth add
amazement to amazement - for, seeing that He sometimes assigns
fair fortune to the good and harsh fortune to the bad, and then
again deals harshly with the good, and grants to the bad their
hearts' desire, how does this differ from chance, unless some
reason is discovered for it all?"
She answered, "This is what that extra-ordinary mystery of
the order of destiny comes to - that something is done by One who
knows, whereat the ignorant are astonished. It is the divine
power alone to which things evil are also good, in that, by
putting them to suitable use, it bringeth them to the end to some
other good issue; for order in some way or other embraces all
things, so that even that which has departed from the appointed
laws of order, nevertheless falleth within an order, though
another order, that nothing in the realm of Providence may be
left to haphazard.
"Let us be content to apprehend this only, that God, the
Creator of universal nature, likewise disposeth all things and
guides them to good; and while He studies to preserve in likeness
to Himself all that He has created, He banishes all evil from the
borders of His commonweal through the links of fatal necessity.
Whereby it comes to pass that, if thou look to disposing
Providence, thou wilt nowhere find the evils which are supposed
so to abound on earth."
V - FREE WILL AND GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE
SHE was about to pass on to other matters, when I broke in,
saying, "I am even now experiencing one of the many
difficulties which beset the question of Providence. I want to
know whether thou deemest that there is any such thing as chance,
and, if so, what it is?"
She made answer, "If chance be defined as a result produced
by random movement without any link of casual connexion, I
roundly affirm that there is no such thing as chance at all. What
place can be left for random action when God constraineth all
things to order? For ex nihilo nihil is sound doctrine which none
of the ancients gainsaid. Now, if a thing arise without causes,
it will appear to have arisen from nothing. With our good
Aristotle, we may define what men commonly call chance as being
an unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes where
several factors had a definite end. But the meeting and
concurrence of these causes arise from that inevitable chain of
order which disposes all things in their due time and
place."
"I agree that it is as thou sayest. But in this series of
linked causes is there any freedom left to our will, or does the
chain of Fate bind also the very motions of our souls?"
"There is freedom," said she; "nor, indeed can any
creature be rational unless he be endowed with free will. For
that which has the natural use of reason, of itself distinguishes
what is to be shunned or desired. Now, everyone seeks what he
judges desirable and avoids what he thinks should be shunned.
Wherefore, beings endowed with reason possess also the faculty of
free choice and refusal."
Then I said, "But now I am perplexed by a problem yet more
difficult. If God foresees everything and can in no wise be
deceived, that which He foresees to be about to happen must come
to pass."
She answered, "Without doubt all things will come to pass
which God foreknows as about to happen, but of these certain
proceed of free will. The freedom of men's will stands unshaken
and laws are not unrighteous, since their rewards and punishments
are held forth to wills unbound by any necessity. God, Who
foreknoweth all things, still looks down from above, and the
ever-present eternity of His vision concurs with the future
character of all our acts, and dispenses to the good, rewards, to
the bad, punishments. Our hopes and prayers also are not fixed on
God in vain. Therefore, withstand vice, practice virtue, lift up
your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to Heaven. Great
is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you if ye will not
hide it from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done
before the eyes of a Judge who seeth all."
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
474-525AD
The remains of
Boethius are probably in the church of San Pietro Ciel d'Oro in
Pavia.