SOURCE: "Form and Method in the Consolation;' in Boethius, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 131-53.

[In the essay below, Reiss analyzes the structure, dialogue form, and interweaving of prose and verse in the Consolation of Philosophy.]

Structural Patterns

Whereas linear progression is the most obvious structural pattern of the Consolation, this progression involves much more than a simple movement from a beginning to an ending, or a simple change of the narrator from despair to hope and from ignorance to understanding. As the work develops and consolation yields to instruction and to an awareness of truth, so simplicity yields to complexity—of thought, language, and structure. The five-book structure of the Consolation, where the subject of one book overlaps to that of the next, reveals a movement beyond the overall one that extends from Book 1, with its statement of the problem in terms of its effect on the narrator, to Book 5, with its detachment from the personal and its discussion of man's responsibility in a world governed by providential order. The fiction with which the work begins gives way to the presentation of truth itself. And though this process may be regarded as, on the one hand, an objectifying of that which had been presented subjectively, it may also be described as a moving from superficial appearance to essential truth, reflected by the narrator's looking into himself, a turning from external concerns to those at the heart of one's being.

It is not accidental that the so-called autobiographical parts of the Consolation are limited to the first two books. Similarly, the movement from emotion to reflection is mirrored by the movement from the initial emotional passage in verse to the final philosophical statement in prose. And beyond this, the alternation from verse to prose to verse and so on to the final prose passage necessarily entails a two-fold movement: on the one hand, the movement of the discrete forms, the narrative in the denotative language of prose and the songs in the connotative language of verse; and, on the other hand, the necessary interrelationship of these forms, the way the particular poem, for instance, stems from and leads to the prose passages around it.

The five-book structure of the work may also be seen revealing the traditional five-part division of oration that Boethius would have known from the Institutio oratoria of Quintillian. The structure first appears in the Consolation in microcosm, as Kurt Reichenberger recognized, as the controlling device of 1 :pr.4, where the narrator delivers what amounts to an apologia for his life. Using the exordium (or prooemium), in which the speaker prepares the audience to be well disposed to his argument, Boethius has his narrator make the point that he has not deserved his misfortune; in the narratio, or recounting of the facts, he shows how he has always opposed injustice and worked for the common good; in the probatio, or proof, he states how he has been falsely accused; in the refutatio he rebukes his accusers and reaffirms his innocence; and in the peroratio, using eloquence and emotion, he relates his particular case to what he takes to be the state of the world: the innocent being overcome by the wicked. In terms of the rhetoric, the so-called personal details in this section of the first book—including the references to Basilius, Opilio, and Gaudentius, Boethius's false accusers—function essentially as topoi, or, as they were termed in Latin rhetorical tradition, loci communes, devices to develop the oration at hand.

Applying this five-part division to the Consolation as a whole, we may regard each book as equivalent to one part of a discourse, though we should realize that the discourse is finally that of neither the narrator nor philosophy, but of Boethius the author. Book 1, the exordium, uses the narrator's particular condition to make the problem meaningful; Book 2, the narratio, states the facts of the narrator's good and bad fortune to examine the gifts of Fortune; Book 3, the probatio, demonstrates the nature of true happiness; Book 4, the refutatio, clarifies the nature of evil and the state of the wicked; and Book 5, the peroratio, makes clear man's responsibility in a world governed by Providence. The Consolation may be regarded in one sense as Boethius's demonstration of the uses of rhetoric and grammar, as well as a meaningful part of his educational program, coming after his study of the sciences of the quadrivium and the language of logic, and perhaps stemming from his treatises dealing with rhetoric, In topica Ciceronis and De topicis differentiis.

At the same time, not only is the dialogue that Boethius creates between the narrator and Philosophy itself a form of drama, especially in Book 1, but the five-book structure of the Consolation may reflect the five-act structure of Roman drama. This structure may be found in the plays of Seneca, which are cited several times in the Consolation; and the basis for the structure is spelled out by Horace in his Ars poetica. Moreover, the change of the narrator from grief to serenity, seen in Book 3, the middle of the Consolation, may be understood to correspond to the peripeteia, or turning point, which, according to Aristotle in his Poetics, is central to the drama.

Beyond their relationship to oratory and drama, the five books of the Consolation, divided unevenly into thirty-nine sections of alternating verse and prose, are organized so that the third book is the longest of all, the second and fourth the next longest, and the first and fifth the shortest. Book 1, with seven verse and six prose sections, is shorter than Book 2, composed of eight sections of each form, which is shorter in turn than Book 3, the central book, having twelve sections of verse and of prose. Book 4, composed of eight sections of each form, is likewise shorter than Book 3; and Book 5, with five verse and six prose parts, is shorter than Book 4. Such variations in length indicate a structure which may be described as X XX XXX XX X, and suggest that, along with the linear structure of the Consolation, there exists a ring structure emphasizing the dramatic center, Book 3, where the narrator changes from the despairing figure seen at the beginning and begins to pursue the summum bonum.

Ring structure also seems to be an especially pertinent way of describing how the thirty-nine poems are organized, though with these the organizing principle is not a quantitative, but a thematic or verbal, linking of parts. In this the first element is related to the last, the second to the penultimate, the third to the antepenultimate and so forth, resulting in a structure which may be described as ABCCBA. In the Consolation, though the actual arrangement of poems in each of the five books is more complex—and imprecise—than this simple statement would suggest, the arrangement itself may nevertheless be meaningfully described as ring structure.

In Book 1, the organization of the seven poems may be understood as follows. Poem 1, the introductory soliloquy showing the narrator's sorrow, stands apart from the other poems. Poem 2, which at the end tells of the mind's losing its light and man's being in chains, has as its counterpart m.7, which likewise shows the mind clouded and in chains. Similarly, m.3, relating the coming of light to man's eyes to the shining of the sun over all, may be linked to m.6, which, beginning with the rays of the sun— both poems refer to the radiis Phoebi—reexpresses the light-theme of the previous poem as the principle of order. And m.4, which celebrates the unmoved man, may be related to m.5, which invokes God as unmoved mover to make the earth stable.

In Book 2, the poems again seem to be organized into four pairs. Poem 1, on Fortune's ruling the world in disharmony, may be related to m.8, which emphasizes Love's ruling the world in harmony. Poem 2, on man's greed as boundless, contrasts with m.7, where man is seen as nothing in regard to the immensity of the universe and the fact of death. Poem 3, on change as a principle of the world, leads to m.6, on the instability of earthly empire. And m.4, on the need for man to lead a serene life, is generalized in m.5, on the need for man to return to the Golden Age. Here the emphasis on happiness (felix) at the end of m.4 is repeated at the beginning of m.5.

The ring structure of the poems in Book 3 is more complex because of Boethius's fragmentation of the false desires of man. Poem 1, which ends with man's finding truth, may be seen leading to m.l2, which begins with man's seeking truth—now reexpressed as love. Moreover, as m.1 ends with man's shaking off his yokes, so m.l2 begins with man's shaking off his chains. Poem 2, asserting the principle that everything desires to return to its home, may be joined to m.11, which calls for man to return to his home; here m.2 ends with the image of the circle (orbem), and m.11 begins with this image. The five poems represented by the short verses 3 through 7 may be understood to form a single unit in that they present man's false desires—wealth, high office, power, fame, and pleasure—and correspond to m.10, which shows man's release from these false desires. And m.8, detailing the blindness of man in pursuing false goals, leads to m.9, the prayer to God to reveal the summum bonum to man.

A similar joining of the separate parts would seem to be revealed in Book 4, but instead of being organized in terms of four groups of poems, it employs two groups. Poem 1, on ascending to the skies with the wings of Philosophy, has as its correlative m.7, on overcoming fortune and the earth, and on reaching to the stars. The four poems, from 2 through 5, are joined in showing man as an inadequate ruler, brought down by his vices to the level of beasts, perversely seeking to destroy himself in his ignorance of the proper order of things. The corrective to this group is m.6, where God the high king rules all, where man is brought up by God, where love banishes dissension, and where man understands the laws of God.

In Book 5, m.1, which presents the river guided by a higher law, may be related to m.5, that details the variety of life forms in the world, each likewise guided. Poem 2, citing Homer's picture of the sun shining on but not into the earth, may be echoed in m.4, with its statement of the Stoic view of images implanting the mind. In this book m.3, on man's being assured in his search for truth in God, stands in isolation, though at the same time, it may be regarded as coupled with the likewise-isolated first poem of Book 1, with its emphasis on the narrator's fall through his unsure foothold in this world.

The point of this ring structure is to provide an additional pattern of meaning to the Consolation. Not accidentally, the climaxing poem of each book is in most instances the longest and/or most significant poem in the book, and the one that emphasizes love and harmony as principles of the universe which should be extended to man. The prayer to God of l:m.5 emphasizes God's joining everything in harmony; the picture of the Golden Age in 2:m.5 stresses peace and harmony; the prayer to God the Creator in 3:m.9 amounts to a celebration of universal concordia; the hymn of praise of 4:m.6 emphasizes the mutual love (alternus amor) that holds everything in order, the concordia oppositorum; and the questions of 5:m.3 function as an assertion that man must discern the connexio rerum, the connections among all things, and, rather than break the bond of things through discord, should extend this bond to himself.

If these five key poems are likewise examined in terms of ring structure, 1:m.5, which shows the narrator's improper prayer to God to provide for man the laws guiding the universe, and which reveals, as Philosophy says, the extent of his illness, easily leads to 5:m.3, the narrator's last speech, where he comes to a proper understanding of Truth, and in effect shows that he has been healed. Similarly, the harmony expressed in the picture of the Golden Age in 2:m.5 may be seen leading to the full statement of universal harmony in 4:m.6. The culminating, or central, poem, of the Consolation is then 3:m.9, the prayer to "the Father of all things" that celebrates and joins all of creation. More than a Platonic hymn to God, this important poem expresses perhaps not accidentally, such basic Christian elements as the Lord's Prayer and liturgical Gloria.

Along with linear and ring structure, we should also note the use of the circle as a structuring principle of the Consolation. Expressed spatially as the celestial spheres suggesting cosmic order, the circle is also the thematic principle of return itself, man's turning back to God after his descent into the world of matter, parodied in the circling of the Wheel of Fortune, as seen in 2:m.1. In the final poem of the Consolation, 5:m.5, the image of man's raising his eyes to heaven not only refers back to man's looking downward to the earth, the image at the beginning of the work (1:m.2), it provides its corrective. Similarly, Philosophy's final admonition to man to lift up his mind in hope (5:pr.6) counteracts the despair pervading the initial poem of Book 1 and illustrates the change from complaint to affirmation seen in the course of the Consolation.

Such relationships depend on our awareness of an earlier given. The affirmation of life and human dignity at the end of the Consolation, while contrasting with the emphasis on death and despair at the beginning, necessitates our reassessing this earlier position. Our being taken back to the beginning functions to transform the initial point. Moreover, just as Philosophy leads the narrator to God, so her final point in Book 5, that man lives in the sight of a judge who beholds all, gives meaning to her initial appearance, as the divine emissary who sees all and who provides for man.

Forms of Dialogue

This return, this completion of a circle, is actually effected through the dialogue between the narrator and philosophy, the two characters in Boethius's drama. Although Boethius had employed the dialogue as a structuring form as early as his Dialogue on Porphyry's Isagoge, he here uses a complex blend of several kinds of discourses, including monologue, Socratic dialogue, and apocalyptic dialogue. From beginning to end, however, the Consolation is also a conversation, in which we are aware of the interacting of voices. Even when one voice is extended or dominant, as Lady Philosophy's voice so often is, the other frequently punctuates it. Didactic as the work is, it retains throughout a sense of voice as though what is at hand has a living presence. And even when the dramatic and personal are least present, the work gives the impression of being something other than an essay or even a lecture. Though at times the statement may be so extensive that we may tend to forget that it is speech, the lapse is but for a moment. In the last book, for instance, where the narrator's lengthy arguments about the necessary opposition of divine foreknowledge and human free will (5:3) are followed by an even longer reply by Philosophy, which offers a corrective to the narrator's position (5:4-6), we have little sense of conversation. But at the same time, Boethius insists that we differentiate the particular speakers and be aware that the first argument is but a jumping-off point for the second.

Boethius takes us from an awareness of the silent musing of the narrator at the beginning of the Consolation to speech and then back again at the end to an awareness of silence—there is no answer to Philosophy's last words. The initial and final speeches function as monologues that frame the entire work. The narrator's report at the beginning of his visit by Philosophy is balanced by Philosophy's final affirmation of universal justice. What happens is that the silent musing leads to a single voice which yields to two voices as the dialogue begins; then at the end this gives way to one voice again, which in turn leads to silence. Unlike the initial silence, the final silence suggests fulfillment. Now that speech has led to understanding and agreement, the need for words no longer exists.

As dialogue, the Consolation is obviously artificial: We recognize that it is actually the externalizing of an internal conflict. What Boethius does at the outset of this work may be meaningfully compared to what Augustine does at the beginning of his Soliloquies. There, after the narrator notes how for many days he has been seeking to know himself and the highest good, he suddenly hears someone speak: "whether it was myself or someone else from without or within I know not." When Augustine's narrator answers this voice, which he calls Reason (Ratio), the dialogue begins. So in the Consolation, the dialogue is a voicing of the feelings and thoughts existing within the narrator. Although Boethius externalizes these into contrasting positions represented by two characters, and creates two contrasting forms of language—the prose, denotative and analytic; and the verse, connotative and celebratory—the whole dialogue is less dialectic than didactic. Even though at the end, on the matter of reconciling God's foreknowledge and man's free will, we see something of an exchange of ideas, throughout most of the Consolation Philosophy is in the position of correcting the obviously erroneous views of the narrator, and of reaffirming accepted truth.

Although the kind of dialogue employed by Socrates in Plato's dialogues was well known in Latin literature, both in classical writings in the dialogues of Cicero and in Christian writings as early as the Octavius of Minucius Felix, Boethius's actual application of this kind of dialectic is only sporadic. The Consolation is more obviously a work of instruction and, more apparently, a protreptic, or exhortatio, to proper understanding. While perhaps to be understood in terms of Boethius's earlier protreptics, it leads to the study not of the preparatory quadrivium or of logic, but of philosophy itself, that which is at the end of the earlier studies. While as a protreptic the Consolation may be related to several Neoplatonic treatises, including those by Plutarch and Iamblichus, and while it may have had its impetus in the now-lost Protrepticus of Aristotle and the Hortensius of Cicero, it is finally quite different from all these works. As an exhortatio to philosophy, the Consolation is really an exhortatio to God, in which man is urged to seek the highest good.

Both monologue and Socratic dialogue should be viewed as part of a larger overall structure, that may be termed the sacred, or apocalyptic, dialogue. This is less the kind of discourse found at the end of the Book of Job, when God finally speaks to man, than that found in the apocryphal 2 Esdras, where a divine spirit reveals hidden wisdom to man. This kind of revelation became a genre at the end of the second century and was favored by both Christians and pagans, as may be seen in the extremely popular Shepherd of Hermas, as well as the Neoplatonic Poimandres of Hermes Trismegistes, where, as in the Consolation, a narrator numbed and immersed in his reflections is visited by a being of immeasurable height, signifying the highest Intelligence, who shows him a vision and then discusses with him various metaphysical issues. Closer to Boethius's lifetime are such other relevant examples of this genre as the Soliloquies of Augustine and the Mitologiae of Fulgentius, a Neoplatonic work more or less contemporaneous with the Consolation, that is likewise concerned with revealing the nature of divinity.

At the same time, we should note the significance of Boethius's making his instructor an allegorical personification and not a human figure, say Symmachus, thereby projecting a relationship of the sort he had created with Fabius in his early Dialogue on the Isagoge; or even Plato, thereby creating a human representative of philosophy. It is also significant that Boethius calls his instructor Philosophy and not Reason, or Intelligence, or Wisdom. Though containing reason, she is more than this way to truth; and similarly, she is not truth or wisdom itself; for in Boethius's view the personification of wisdom would have indicated God alone. Rather, the name Philosophy suggests both the way to truth and the end of the journey, in a sense as logic in Boethius's earlier writings was considered to be both a tool and a part of Philosophy. And Boethius's understanding of philosophy in the Consolation is wholly in accord with his earlier definitions of it, as in the Arithmetic, when he writes that "philosophy is the love of wisdom," and as in his first commentary on the Isagoge, when he calls philosophy "the love and pursuit of wisdom and in some way the friendship with it." Philosophy should thus be understood as both the inclination toward wisdom and the expression of what is to be learned.

The Allegorical Principle

As an apocalyptic dialogue, the Consolation is necessarily an allegory. However, its allegory is "not a mere device" but rather a narrative principle. We are in fact aware of allegory from the beginning of the work with the mysterious appearance and description of Philosophy. Although we do not know whether or not her strange and contradictory appearance—both old and young, both of average height and higher than the heavens—is the product of the narrator's dulled perception, we soon realize that such details reveal the nature, scope, and purpose of philosophy itself. The point of her varying height, for instance, is obviously to show that philosophy pertains both to ordinary human existence and to the truth that is so far beyond man's ordinary understanding that he cannot hope to know it fully. Similarly, her dress further reveals her nature. The pi at the bottom of her dress and the theta at the top—probably indicating the first letters of the Greek terms for the two divisions of philosophy, practica and theoretica—make even clearer that Boethius means for his character to be understood as encompassing all of philosophy, while the link between the letters shows that it is possible to move from one to the other.

The unity of philosophy is reinforced, moreover, by the detail of the tear in her dress. All that is stated at first is that marauders had carried off pieces of the material, but we are told a bit later that after the death of Socrates, the various philosophical schools—what are called the "mob" of Epicureans, Stoics, and others—tried to seize philosophy for themselves. Though they succeeded in obtaining pieces of her garb, they foolishly thought these to be the whole thing (l:pr.3). Beyond representating a criticism of the ancient schools of thought after Plato, this allegory makes clear a major point of Boethius—that philosophy naturally battles the rash forces of folly. The narrator, the character Boethius, who has been one of Philosophy's staunchest supporters, should not be surprised at his predicament since wicked men have always tried to hurl down those who are concerned with truth. The unity of philosophy extends to the final detail in the description of the lady, the books and scepter she carries. These go beyond the different spheres of philosophy and focus on its twin roles. Through studying philosophy, man may reach wisdom; and through following its precepts, he may properly rule himself and his society.

The details of this description have been carefully emphasized by Boethius to achieve a certain purpose and to give a certain view of philosophy. But regardless of how vivid some of these details may seem, we should recognize their essentially traditional nature. For all of her individuality, Lady Philosophy is in a long line of allegorical personifications who instruct man, including the female instructors in the Shepherd of Hermas, Reason in Augustine's Soliloquies, and Nature—who is also both old and young—in Claudian's panegyric On the Consulship of Stilicho (early fifth century). Moreover, the depiction of wisdom as a female figure in general and as a beautiful, radiant goddess in particular expresses a convention which may be traced back to Plato's Phaedrus and which was well known in Latin literature from Cicero on.

Notwithstanding all of these analogous figures, the most likely source of Boethius's Philosophy is the nameless figure in Plato's Crito who, as Socrates reports, appears to him in a vision. Doubtless representing philosophy, this figure—like Boethius's character—is fair and comely and clothed in bright dress. While apparently making clear to the imprisoned Socrates the imminence of his death, she also seems to provide that which allows him to accept his death resolutely, just as Boethius's Philosophy teaches the narrator to accept his fall and to look beyond his personal misfortune. Moreover, it hardly seems coincidental that when noting how wisdom has always been threatened by the forces of evil, Philosophy focuses on the death of Socrates, which, while unjust, nevertheless represents a victory for her who, she says, was at his side (1:pr.2).

Not only does the description of Philosophy in the Consolation represent a way of regarding philosophy that would probably have been familiar to Boethius's audience, it seems likely that Boethius was relying on familiarity with the tradition. His allegory is not creating meaning; it is, rather, a way of referring to preexisting meaning. The fact that the narrator is unable at first to use the traditional and obvious details offered to recognize his visitor shows clearly how dulled he has become. Moreover, the initial contrast between the two figures is purposeful: Whereas Philosophy is calm and tranquil, the narrator is agitated and distraught; whereas her eyes are clear, his are full of tears; whereas she is ageless, he has moved from youth to old age; whereas she stands above him, he is fallen. In contrast with her brightness and vi-tality, his countenance is "sad with mourning, and cast upon the ground with grief (1:pr.1). Her words, as may be seen in 1:m.2 in particular, concern the "perturbation" of the narrator's mind, which is "headlong cast/In depths of woe" and which has lost its light (1-2).

As Wolfgang Schmid first noticed, the condition of the narrator here is that of someone overcome by lethargy. According to a long tradition in which man's physical appearance is taken to be a sign of his spiritual condition, we may see that the narrator has fallen victim to lethargy, or sloth, which is the cause of the despair and mourning that occupy him totally. Regardless of whether or not the sickness detailed here represents the actual condition of Boethius after his fall, it functions in the Consolation as a symbolic expression of his spiritual condition.

The contrast between the narrator and Philosophy is but the first instance in the work of a blending of ordinarily disparate elements. Although we might think it incongruous that a figure from the familiar world of man should appear on the same plane as an allegorical personification, we should understand that this procedure is not unusual either in late classical writings or in the Consolation. In fact, simultaneous linking and juxtaposing may even be regarded as the dominant method, if not the overall literary and philosophical principle, of the work, involving language, narrative details, literary structures, and philosophical ideas. It extends to the blending of the legendary and the historical, the fictional and the factual, and the personal and the traditional, and reflects Boethius's concern throughout the Consolation with relating the particular to the general and the individual to the typical. It is also the basis for the unusual mixture of prose and verse continued systematically throughout the entire work.

Prose and Verse

The prosimetric form of the Consolation necessarily relates the work to the Menippean satire—after the work of Menippus of Gadara (third century B.C.)—which had been Latinized as early as Varro's Satyrae Menippeae in the first century B.C. While satura, or satire, originally meant nothing more than a mixture or medley, in particular one of alternating prose and verse passages, in Roman literature it typically appeared in such works as the Apocolocyntosis divi Claudii, a lampoon of the dead emperor Claudius attributed to Seneca the Younger, and the bawdy and likewise comic Satyricon of Petronius—an author alluded to by Boethius at the end of his Dialogue on the Isagoge. Closer in spirit to the Consolation, and perhaps Boethius's actual source for the form, is the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella. But notwithstanding the similarity in form of the Consolation and these antecedents, the "grave impressiveness" with which Boethius's work treats its passages of prose and verse removes it from these other instances of Menippean satire and raises the form to a position in literature it had never before attained.

Both the prose and the verse of the Consolation may be properly and meaningfully judged as literary language. While recognizing that Boethius's prose is hardly "the classical Latin of the Ciceronian age," we should recognize that it still offers "a simplicity, a restraint, a clarity of diction which are in very marked contrast to the overornate, diffuse and excessively rhetorical style" prevalent in the literature of the time. Indeed, Boethius's style may be regarded as "well nigh a miracle" in view of the tendency of contemporary writing toward "distorted ornateness." And it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Boethius in his prose is not only nearer than any of his contemporaries to the great age of Cicero, but "nearer than any of his predecessors had been for centuries."

The thirty-nine poems have not been so consistently praised over the centuries as the prose. Although offered by and large by Philosophy—and not by the narrator—to give a pleasant and welcome rest from the strain of following the arguments developed in the prose passages, they are more than diversions or decorations. Their function is to do more than intersperse the prose passages or enliven the instruction the narrator is receiving. Sometimes they summarize the argument of the prose; at other times they carry the discussion forward; and at still other times they comment on what is at hand, functioning, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy, to provide perspective for assessing the progress of the dialogue at hand. When the narrator is too weak to take the strong medicine of Philosophy, the poems provide relief; but as he becomes increasingly receptive to her words, they in turn become more complex. Although it has been suggested that as the argument becomes increasingly difficult, the verses occur less often, we should recognize that their connotative language is frequently more demanding than the relatively straightforward denotative language of the prose passages.

Widely different evaluations have been made of this poetry. An anonymous ninth-century critic felt that just as Boethius's prose was not inferior to Cicero's, so his verse was the equal of Virgil's; and in the Renaissance, Julius Caesar Scaliger spoke of these verses as "divine." In the nineteenth century, however, Hermann Usener was quite critical of them. Although he saw in the prose "a thinker of a greater time," he regarded the verse as the voice of "a child of the sixth century," an evaluation that led twentieth-century readers to affirm anew the power and poetic skill of the poems. Probably the most accurate view of the verses is still that of Rand [in his Founders of the Middle Ages, 1928]: "Some are exceedingly good, some are only moderate, and a few are insignificant—that being the only way, according to the poet Martial, in which one can write a book."

The thirty-nine meters themselves are so varied that they not only provide representatives of almost every meter known in the sixth century, they include two or three meters apparently invented by Boethius. But while they may represent a tour de force of prosody, we should realize that for Boethius the poems must be viewed in conjunction with the prose. The final poem in each book would seem to provide a transition to the next book. And the fact that all the books except the last end with a poem suggests that Boethius intended to move from verse to prose, and, moreover, to include in the Consolation precisely thirty-nine examples of each form—whatever the significance of this number may be.

Whereas the rational dialectic of the prose takes the form of catechism, syllogism, and dialogue, the verses, linguistically and functionally distinct, may be said "to constitute modes of knowing and discoursing alternative to those central to speculative philosophy." As Boethius makes clear, the operation of human reasoning has its limitations. Though higher than animal sensation, it is lower than divine understanding (5:pr.4), and rational discourse as the expression of this is likewise limited. Besides knowing through reasoning, man knows through remembering. Emphasizing the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence, where learning is viewed as a matter of recollection (3:m.11), Boethius points out that although man cannot foresee the future, he can remember the past. By doing so, he not only knows truth, thus becoming godlike, but he may also come to understand the perplexing disorder of the world. The recall of truth shares some meaningful similarities with the discovery of it by syllogistic argument: As the conclusion of a syllogism is implicit in its premise, so the object of reminiscence is contained in the memory. But Boethius emphasizes the differences by using prose as the language of rational discourse and verse as the language of recall, that which is appropriate for expressing history and myth.

To make this point is not to say that allusions to the past are absent from the prose sections of the Consolation Not only does Boethius cite classical authorities throughout the entire work, he also alludes to historical and mythological figures. In the prose, however, these allusions function mainly as points of reference in Philosophy's argument, whereas in the verse they are in effect expressions of the movement through time and space demanded of the narrator and Boethius's audience. The verses refer in particular to great figures from history and myth who provide models and warnings for man. From Roman history, Boethius singles out such figures as Nero (2:m.6; 3:m.4), Fabricius, Cato, and Brutus (2:m.7); and from myth he uses the story of Orpheus (2:m.l2), as well as episodes from the stories of such heroes as Ulysses (4:m.3, m.7), Agamemnon, and Hercules (m.7).

The poems take the mind on journeys across time and space, insisting that it see what is beyond its immediate concerns, recall the past, and finally leave the earth behind and look to God. The verses are full of spatial references—equivalents, as it were, to the figures from history and myth—often based on the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and the four points of the compass (1:m.3-5; 2:m.4). Also they look to far off lands—Thrace (1:m.3), India, Thulé (3:m.5), Armenia (5:m.1)—and to the spectacular and exotic features of this world: to the mountains Vesuvius (1:m.4) and Etna (2:m.5), and to the rivers Tagus, Hermus, Indus (3:m.10), Tigris and Euphrates (5:m.1). And they even look beyond this world to the underworld (3:m.12) and to the heavens (4:m.1). In making the mind move back in time and across the earth and the universe, Boethius offers exercises of a sort that, on the one hand, make the torpid narrator come alive and cease musing on his personal troubles and, on the other hand, "set the memory going, turning over its riches until the desired truth is reclaimed."

The Philosophical Synthesis

While uniting such apparent alternatives as space and time, recollection and dialectic, and verse and prose, Boethius also extends the principle of synthesis to the philosophical content of the Consolation Although the work may well be described as remarkably heterogeneous, it, like Boethius's earlier writings, represents an amalgamation of classical thought. But rather than postulate different sources for different sections of the work—for instance, a Stoic section, an Aristotelian section, a Platonic section— we should recognize that regardless of where the seed of Boethius's thought originated, the "inspiring and sustaining spirit" of the Consolation is Plato, and the real unifying factor is late Neoplatonism.

To affirm the essential Neoplatonism of the work is not to deny the obvious Aristotelian influence. Not only does Philosophy once refer to "my Aristotle" (5:pr.1), she cites his ideas again and again. Besides showing the influence of treatises comprising the Organon, notably On Interpretation, the Consolation reveals that Boethius obviously knew well such other works by Aristotle as the Nicomachean Ethics, with its definition of happiness (3:pr.10); the Physics, with its definition of chance (5:pr.1); and On the Heavens, with its distinction between eternity and temporal duration (5:pr.6). But since Boethius had devoted the greater part of his work before the Consolation to translating and interpreting Aristotle, "it would be surprising"—as Helen Barrett realizes—if the Consolation did not show the influence of Aristotelian thought.

We must likewise acknowledge the general sense of Stoic resolution that permeates the Consolation. It is hardly accidental that Philosophy, when identifying her martyrs, should single out Stoics (1:pr.3); and it may be significant that the Stoic thinker Seneca is, along with Cicero, the main Latin authority cited in the work. Moreover, Stoic ethical teachings, "strong and bracing" as they were, may well have had a special appeal to Boethius after his fall. But Stoicism was a major part of Boethius's cultural heritage, and the Consolation shows little Stoic influence on its particular ideas. In fact, Boethius is explicitly unsympathetic to the Stoic theory of the mind as a passive receiver of impressions (5:m.4), and he has little use for the Stoic theories of materialism, pantheism, and fatalism.

By far the greatest influences on the Consolation come from Platonic and Neoplatonic sources. Plato himself is at the heart of the work, and the Timaeus and Gorgias are notably significant. The Timaeus is the basis of the significant prayer to God in 3:m.9; and the Gorgias is the source of Boethius's solution to the problem of evil in 4:pr.2-3. But the bulk of Boethius's relationships to Plato are due to the influence of Neoplatonic intermediaries. Although it has been suggested that Boethius actually translated the Timaeus, he most likely knew the work as it existed in the commentary of Proclus; similarly, whether or not he knew the Gorgias itself, he certainly knew the commentaries of the Alexandrian Neoplatonists Ammonius Hermiae and Olympiodorus. Moreover, the Enneads of Plotinus may have provided Boethius with the framing principle of Philosophy's drawing up the mind of the narrator from earthly things, as well as with the identification of God as the highest good; Proclus certainly influenced Boethius's view of Providence and Fate; and Ammonius Hermiae influenced his distinction between the eternity of God and the perpetuity of the world, as well as his statement of the relationship between foreknowledge and free will.

To note these influences is not at all to suggest that the Consolation is a pastiche of earlier thought, or that, because Boethius does not produce a new philosophical system as such, he is "a mere collector" of the ideas of others. Rather, we must recognize that as with such earlier work as the Principles of Music, where he synthesizes several earlier views and authorities, Boethius uses the material in the Consolation to construct a new and autonomous work. And while it is most in harmony with the fundamentals of Neoplatonic thought, it is also in accord with the tenets of Christianity.

At the same time, the nature and extent of the influence on the Consolation of Christian doctrine in general and Augustinian thought in particular are not clear. In part, the problem stems from the accommodation by Christianity—and especially by Augustine—of Neoplatonism, and from the difficulty of isolating peculiarly Christian elements within this philosophical work. But it is not sufficient to say that whereas Boethius often echoes the Neoplatonists, "he studiously avoids any attempt to blend Christ with Plato." Whereas this evaluation may be correct in its recognition that the Consolation contains no overtly Christian doctrine, it is misleading in its implication that Boethius is not at all concerned here with the overlapping of Neoplatonism and Christianity. It is likewise misleading to say that both Christianity and Augustine "would of course be in the background of his mind and could not have been without influence on what he wrote in the Consolation." The implication of this statement is that Christianity—like Stoicism—was merely part of the cultural heritage of the time and represented nothing special for Boethius.

Just as the affinity between Philosophy and Christ as healers—what Wolfgang Schmid calls philosophia medicans and Christus medicans—may be more than coincidental, so the similarity between certain issues of the Consolation and concerns of Christianity—for instance, the problem of evil—may not be accidental. And Augus-tine—who was very much troubled by the question of evil—may well have exerted a particular influence on the Consolation, not only on Boethius's method of allegory and dialogue but also on his thought. At times, as Antonio Crocco recognizes, "we sense clearly the presence of Augustine." And inasmuch as Boethius at the beginning of his De Trinitate openly cites Augustine as his authority, we may feel with Etienne Gilson that "one hardly risks being mistaken in saying that where the doctrine of the De consolatione philosophiae coincides with that of Augustine, the coincidence is not fortuitous. Even when he is speaking only as a philosopher Boethius thinks as a Christian."

But though cases have been made for a pervasive Augustinian influence, though the Consolation has even been presented as a sequel to Augustine's Soliloquies, and though the work has been thought to have its nucleus in Augustine's early dialogues, mainly the Contra Academicos, the arguments supporting this relationship are too frequently neither sufficiently clear nor persuasive. At the same time, however, arguments concerned with negating the possible Augustinian influence or with differentiating the thought of the two men have likewise been less than convincing. While on the one hand we may be left with a sense that, as Rand expresses it, "there is nothing in this work for which a good case might not have been made by any contemporary Christian theologian, who knew his Augustine," on the other hand we should also recognize that Boethius's accomplishment is finally rather different from Augustine's. We may get a sense of this difference by noting that Fortune and Fate, two terms in fact proscribed by Augustine, are fundamental to Boethius's argument.

The problem of establishing an Augustinian basis for the Consolation may be related to that of understanding Boethius's citation of authorities. Inasmuch as all of these are figures who lived before the first century A.D., the implication is that Boethius systematically omitted all references to later authorities, even though he clearly knew and used such writers as Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, and Augustine. Pierre Courcelle feels that this strange omission is due to Boethius's purposely citing only pagan authorities who lived before Christ. Having chosen as his fictional guide a figure representing Philosophy, Boethius could hardly have had her allude to Scripture or Christian theology, for such inconsistency would have amounted to "a fault of logic and of taste." Thus, when the narrator asks about the punishment of the soul after the death of the body, Philosophy acknowledges such punishment but says, "I purpose not now to treat of those" (4:pr.4). Moreover, argues Courcelle, Boethius purposely refrained from citing any of the Neoplatonists who lived after Christ—and who clearly influenced his thought in the Consolation—because the figure of Philosophy he created is, in effect, the representative of Neoplatonic thought: "she is their own philosophy," that which they all have in common.

If this is indeed an accurate statement of Boethius's procedure, we should realize that it does not mean that the Consolation is thereby a celebration of Neoplatonic thought. Rather, Boethius may well have used philosophy in general and Neoplatonism in particular as a means of justifying the ways of God to man and of making man understand the need to return to God. The Consolation is without doubt "a theodicy of great power and scope." To assert divine justice in the face of obvious evil, Boethius had to face not only the helplessness and inadequate understanding of man but "the mysteries of divine unity and goodness, of fate and human freedom." Whether or not Boethius sets forth "all that he can see of life and time and eternity," we should recognize that these are indeed the concerns of his discourse.

What is important for Boethius is not to prove the existence of God or to define God. Rather, he intends, first, to show "the existence of a perfect Good which must be identical with God," and, second, to stress the workings of divine order in the universe—the term ordo, which describes the same reality as Providence and Fate, permeates the Consolation—and the need for man to participate in this order by returning to God. This return, which is at the heart of both Neoplatonism and Christianity, is not only a major structuring principle of the Consolation, it is also a major theme. Representing the journey of the mind away from the world and back to God, it may be meaningfully described as a "conversion," in the literal sense of a turning around—here effected by means of philosophy; and the Consolation itself may be regarded as what Courcelle calls "a dual conversion in three stages," overseen by Plato. First comes knowledge of the self (Book 2); second, knowledge of the purpose of things (Book 3 to 4:pr.5); and third, knowledge of the laws that govern the universe (end of Book 4 and Book 5). The need for this conversion provides the Consolation with its subject which, though described as "human happiness and the possibility of achieving it in the midst of the suffering and disappointment which play so large a part in every man's experience," may more accurately be considered as the reaffirmation of the point and purpose of the universe and of man's place in God's creation: man's "loving participation in God's divine ordinance of the universe, informed by philosophical study."

The journey that comprises this "loving participation" involves understanding such distractions as Fortune and Fate. Fortune, though appearing in the first three books of the Consolation as above all harmful and detrimental to man, comes to be seen in the last two books as a principle related to Providence. Fortune—which Boethius distinguishes, initially at least, from Fate—is "merely an instrument in God's hand for the correction and education of man, and however harmful and capricious she may appear to his limited intelligence, she is really good in whatever guise she comes." Although Boethius's words may be thought to "constitute a polemical treatise against Fortune," it is clear that Fortune changes in the course of the Consolation from a mythological and allegorical figure to a philosophical concept. In making this revision of Fortune, Boethius is unique. Although Christian authorities had forbidden belief in the goddess Fortune and had even hesitated to employ the name itself, the Consolation not only addresses the issues of the nature of Fortune and its role in creation, it provides for the Western world the definitive way of regarding Fortune. In a similar demythologizing of Fate, a familiar figure in Greek myth and a popular folk deity, Boethius transforms this figure into a philosophical concept. And, following such Neoplatonists as Proclus, he links Fate with Providence and shows it to be subject to God.

Boethius's conception of God in the Consolation may likewise stem from various manifestations of deity in classical metaphysics. This God resembles Plato's Demiurge, Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, and Plotinus's One; He is the Supreme Orderer and the Highest Good, as well as Reality itself. While this conception is by and large Neoplatonic, it is also decidedly Christian inasmuch as it identifies God with Love. Perhaps, since God was not his subject any more than theology was, Boethius purposely refrained from limiting his principle of deity to that of any one religion or philosophical system. But at the same time it is clear that the God of the Consolation evades all of man's categories. As Gilson writes about Boethius's view, "when man has said all he can about God, he has not yet attained what God is."

For Boethius, what one can say about God applies less to God Himself than to His manner of administering the world. And God is finally best referred to as Love (Amor), the creative force and principle of harmony in the universe. This is the Love celebrated in at least five key poems as that which rules the sun and the other stars. While the notion of Love as a cosmic principle and a natural force may simply represent "that amalgamation of Greek and Christian thought which is so familiar to any reader of patristic texts," in identifying God as Love and Providential order as an expression of Love, Boethius "was probably inspired by the Christian faith and the spiritual climate of Christian reflection about the love of God." Moreover, in framing his discussion of the summum bonum, the central argument of the Consolation, with two poems on love—2:m.8 and 3:m.12—Boethius emphasizes that the highest good is not "an abstract cosmological force" but "an active outgoing love, descending from heaven to earth." This love is ideally common and mutual, embracing both God and man, who must recognize his need and responsibility to respond to it and participate in it. Man's desire for the good and his expression of this desire, his return to that which gave him being, are thus to be understood as manifestations of love, as well as of the search for truth.