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Subject Area: Philosophy

XXIII - Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy [520 AD]

Edition used:

King Alfred’s Version of the Consolations of Boethius. Done into Modern English, with an Introduction by Walter John Sedgefield Litt.D. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900).

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XXIII

WHEN Philosophy had uttered this discourse she began to chaunt again, and spake thus: ‘Whoever would sow fertile land, must first pluck up the thorns, and furze, and fern, and all the weeds that he seeth infesting the field, so that the wheat may grow the better. Consider also another example: everybody thinketh honeycomb the sweeter if he a little before taste something bitter. Again, calm weather is often the more grateful, if shortly before there have been violent storms and the north wind withgreat rains and snows. And the light of day likewise is more grateful by reason of the dreadful darkness of the night, than it would be if there were no night. So also is True Happiness far more delightful to possess after the miseries of this present life, and thou mayest far more easily understand this True Happiness, and attain to it, if thou first pluck up and utterly remove from thy mind False Happiness. Once thou canst get to know the true one, I know thou wilt desire nought else before it.’