with my gifts, and I brought you up all too kindly with my favouring care, wherefore now you cannot bear with me, and I surrounded you with glory and all the abundance that was mine to give.Now it pleases me to withdraw my hand: be thankful, as though you had lived upon my loans.You have no just cause of complaint, as though you had really lost what was once your own.Why do you rail against me? I have wrought no violence towards you.Wealth, honours, and all such are within my rights.They are my handmaids;they know their mistress; they come with me and go when I depart.Boldly will I say that if these, of whose loss you complain, were ever yours, you would never have lost them at all.Am I alone to be stayed from using my rightful power? The heavens may grant bright sunlit days, and hide the same beneath the shade of night.The year may deck the earth's countenance with flowers and fruits, and again wrap it with chilling clouds.The sea may charm with its smoothed surface, but no less justly it may soon bristle in storms with rough waves.Is the insatiate discontent of man to bind me to a constancy which belongs not to my ways? Herein lies my very strength;this is my unchanging sport.I turn my wheel that spins its circle fairly;I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom.
Come you to the top if you will, but on this condition, that you think it no unfairness to sink when the rule of my game demands it.Do Page 30you not know my ways? Have you not heard how Croesus, 1 king of Lydia, who filled even Cyrus with fear but a little earlier, was miserably put upon a pyre of burning faggots, but was saved by rain sent down from heaven? Have you forgotten how Paulus shed tears of respect for the miseries of his captive, King Perses? 2 For what else is the crying and the weeping in tragedies but for the happiness of kings overturned by the random blow of fortune? Have you never learnt in your youth the ancient allegory that in the threshold of Jove's hall there stand two vessels, one full of evil, and one of good? What if you have received more richly of the good? What if I have not ever withheld myself from you? What if my changing nature is itself a reason that you should-hope for better things?
In any way, let not your spirit eat itself away: you are set in the sphere that is common to all, let your desire therefore be to live with your own lot of life, a subject of the kingdom of the world.
"'If Plenty with o'erflowing horn scatter her wealth abroad, abundantly, as in the storm-tossed sea the sand is cast around, or so beyond all measure as the stars shine forth upon the studded sky in cloudless nights; though she 30:1 -- The proverbially rich and happy king;defeated and condemned to death by Cyrus, king of Media, in 546 B.C., but spared by him.
30:2 -- The last king of Macedonia, defeated at Pydna, 168.c., by L.?milius Paulus.Page 31never stay her hand, yet will the race of men Met II.still weep and wail.Though God accept their prayers freely and give gold with ungrudging hand, and deck with honours those who deserve them, yet when they are gotten, these gifts seem naught.Wild greed swallows what it has sought, and still gapes wide for more.What bit or bridle will hold within its course this headlong lust, when, whetted by abundance of rich gifts, the thirst for possession burns? Never call we that man rich who is ever trembling in haste and groaning for that he thinks he lack 'If Fortune should thus defend herself to you,' said Philosophy,'
you would have naught, I think, to utter on the other part.But if you have any just defence for your complaining, you must put it forward.We will grant you the opportunity of speaking.'
Then I answered,' Those arguments have a fair form and are clothed with all the sweetness of speech and of song.When a man listens to them, they delight him; but only so long.The wretched have a deeper feeling of their misfortunes.Wherefore when these pleasing sounds fall no longer upon the ear, this deep-rooted misery again weighs down the spirit.'
'It is so,' she said.' For these are not the remedies for your sickness, but in some sort are the applications for your grief which chafes against its cure.When the time comes, I will apply those which are to penetrate deeply.with Boethius Page 32But that you may not be content to think yourself wretched, remember how many and how great have been the occasions of your good fortune.Iwill not describe how, when you lost your father, men of the highest rank received you into their care: how you were chosen by the chief men in the state to be allied to them by marriage; 1 and you were dear to them before you were ever closely related; which is the most valuable of all relationships.Who hesitated to pronounce you most fortunate for the greatness of your wives' families, for their virtues, and for your blessings in your sons too? I need not speak of those things that are familiar, so I pass over the honours which are denied to most old men, but were granted to you when yet young.I choose to come to the unrivalled crown of your good fortune.If the enjoyment of anything mortal can weigh at all in the balance of good fortune, can your memory of one great day ever be extinguished by any mass of accumulated ills? I mean that day when you saw your two sons proceed forth from your house as consuls together, amid the crowding senators, the eager and applauding populace: when they sat down in the seats of honour and you delivered the speech of congratulation to the king, gaining 32:1 -- Boethius's first wife was Elpis, daughter of Festus: his second was Rusticiana, daughter of Symmachus, a senator and consul, A.D.485.His second wife was the mother of the two sons mentioned below.(See Appendix, p.169.) Page 33thereby glory for your talent and your eloquence: when in the circus you sat in the place of honour between the consuls, and by a display of lavishness worthy of a triumphing general, you pleased to the full the multitude who were crowded around in expectation.
