İdamını beklerken bir zindanda yazılmıştır. Boethius ile Bilgelik adlı bir kadın arasında geçen diyalog, mutluluğun talihin en kötü darbelerine rağmen ayakta kalıp kalamayacağını sorgular.
Talihin tüm tersliklerinde mutluluğu tatmış olmak, sefaletin en kötü türüdür.
Hiçbir şey sen öyle düşünmedikçe acıklı değildir; öte yandan, halinden memnun değilsen hiçbir şey mutluluk getirmez.
Sevenlere kim yasa koyabilir? Aşk, kendi başına daha yüce bir yasadır.
Translated by H.R. James (1897). Written in a prison cell awaiting execution, Boethius conducts a dialogue with Lady Philosophy on fortune, true happiness, and providence. Public domain.
I who with youthful heat did verses write, must now my woes in mournful numbers tell.
While I was pondering thus in silence, and using my pen to set down so tearful a complaint, there appeared standing over my head a woman's form, whose countenance was full of majesty, whose eyes shone as with fire and in power of insight surpassed the eyes of men, whose colour was full of life, whose strength was yet intact though she was so full of years that none would think her of our epoch. Her stature was of doubtful kind, for sometimes she contracted to the normal measure of a man, sometimes she seemed to touch with her crown the very heavens; and when she had raised her head higher, she penetrated the sky itself beyond the possibility of human sight.
Dost thou not know me? Why art thou silent? Is it shame or amazement that hath struck thee dumb? I would it were shame; but I see thou art overcome by amazement. When she saw me not only silent but utterly tongue-tied and dumb, she laid her hand gently upon my breast, and said, There is no danger; thou art suffering from lethargy, the common ailment of deluded minds. Thou hast for a little while forgotten thyself; but thou shalt quickly be restored to the right path when thou hast recognised me.
This is my art, this the game I never cease to play. I turn the wheel that spins. I delight to see the high come down and the low ascend. Mount up, if thou wilt, but only on condition that thou dost not think it a hardship to come down when the rules of my game so require.
What king was ever so prosperous that he had not some quarrel with his lot? Of this account how full, how varied is the story! Think of him who has wealth: is he not tormented by craving? Think of him who has power: must he not tremble at the conspiracies of those around him? Think of him who is praised for his dignity: does he not spend his life in poverty of spirit? Think of him who has children: does he not think of what bitter grief they may bring him?
I love to turn the wheel. I love to see the high come down. Since, then, Fortune follows her own capricious bent, is the mortal to be angry with her? Nay, let a man chide Fortune as he will: she feels it not. But the wise man abides Fortune's inconstancy with a mind steadfast and unmoved.
The good is what everyone desires. But those who seek it in the wrong places find only the shadow. For all men strive to reach one and the same end, but by different paths. The goal of our striving is happiness, which is the highest good.
Now I would ask thee, said she, if thou wert to see a man who wished to be thought a philosopher, and who had reached a level of outward decorum, but whose god was his belly, who found his pleasure in food and drink, and who spent all his leisure in the indulgence of appetite, what wouldst thou call him? What but a man fashioned in the likeness of a brute?
That which is simple and indivisible in its nature, human error separates, and transforms from the true and perfect to the false and imperfect. Dost thou think that nothing is wanting to him who lacks nothing? Nothing, truly. And has that one sufficiency, power, reverence, glory, and joy? Nothing, truly. And shall we therefore gather these many things into one, and affirm that their whole is the good?
Happiness is the perfect good, and perfect good is true blessedness. And this is to be found in God alone. For He who is the supreme good is also supreme happiness.
Seeing then, as I showed a little while ago, that everything that is known is cognised according to the nature of the cognisant, and not according to its own nature, let us now contemplate, as far as lawfully we may, what is the nature of the Divine essence, so that we may also learn what its knowledge is.
God is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. Let us, therefore, consider what eternity is. For this word carries with it a revelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge.
Eternity, then, is the complete, simultaneous, and perfect possession of unlimited life. This becomes clearer by comparison with things temporal. For whatever lives in time lives in the present, proceeding from past to future, and nothing is so situated in time as to be able to embrace the whole extent of its life at once.
Wherefore, since God hath always an eternal and present state, His knowledge also surpasseth all movement of time and abideth in the simplicity of His present, and embracing all the infinite spaces of future and of past, considereth them in His simple act of knowledge as though they were now in act.