The Cambridge Old English Reader

Boethius's De consolatione Philosophiae (‘On the Consolation of Philosophy’) was one of the most widely read and influential books of the Middle Ages, as its survival in over four hundred manuscripts attests. Written in Latin, the work inspired many translations, including one by Chaucer. Boethius, born about AD 480, was a patrician Roman with a passion for philosophy and education. He was appointed to high political office in the Roman Empire under the Ostrogoth king, Theodoric (493–526), but during a period of political unrest was suspected by the king of plotting against him and was imprisoned, before being executed without trial c. 526. His De consolatione, written in prison, was Boethius's way of coming to terms with his unexpected fate. It purports to be a dialogue between himself and a figure called Philosophia (often rendered as ‘Lady Philosophy’), who visits him in his cell. As he rails against the injustice of fortune, she counters with careful comments and elucidations which point insistently to the existence of a divine scheme of things. From this Boethius obtains some peace of mind.

It is not surprising that Alfred felt a special sympathy for the work. He, too, had experienced the lowest ebb of misfortune, in his case when the Danes had overrun Wessex and forced him into hiding. Even after the surprise victory at Edington in 878, which enabled him to come back and build the basis of a stable English kingdom, the Danish threat continued, and he was afflicted by illness. His name for the De consolatione was frōforbōc, ‘comfort book’, and he made many changes which reflect his personal identification with the subject. Although Boethius had been a Christian, this is not immediately apparent in the original work, and one of Alfred's aims in his reworking of it was to present explicit Christian teaching on Providence and the divine order. He eliminated the autobiographical references to Boethius and presented the dialogue as that between the inquirer's mind and the (male) personification of Wisdom, rather than Philosophia.

The extract here is from the fourth book, Alfred's ch. 39. The inquirer has asked Wisdom to explain the fact that often good people suffer while evil people find happiness, according, it seems, to pure chance. Wisdom acknowledges that this is the trickiest of questions, involving as it does the issues of free will and predestination, and of Providence and fate.