Book corner · Philosophy · Poetry · Intermediate
The Consolation of Philosophy
De consolatione philosophiae
Boethius · c. 524 · Medium (150–350 pages)
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What it is
A dialogue in five books, alternating prose and verse, written around 524 while Boethius was in prison awaiting execution on a charge of treason. Lady Philosophy appears at his bedside, drives away the Muses of poetry who are feeding his self-pity, and diagnoses his illness: he has forgotten what he is. In Book II she shows that Fortune is changeable by nature, so her gifts of wealth, office and fame were never truly his, and that bad fortune teaches more than good. Book III argues that everyone seeks happiness, that false goods such as riches and power cannot give it, and that the perfect good is God. Book IV asks why the wicked seem to prosper, answering that vice is its own punishment and that providence orders everything. Book V asks how God's foreknowledge can leave human choice free, and answers that God, being eternal, sees all of time at once, as a present.
Why read it
It was one of the most widely read books of the Middle Ages, and it remains a clear, moving account of loss, luck and happiness, and of the puzzle of foreknowledge and free will.
Where to start
Begin with Books I and II for the scene and the argument about Fortune; P. G. Walsh's Oxford World's Classics translation and Victor Watts's Penguin translation are both reliable.
Original text in the public domain; free translations exist online