The Consolation of Philosophy

honors, it dissipates a bit of smoke; if it changes In this context, "changes" refers to losing friends or seeing their loyalty shift due to one's loss of status our friends, it proves to us that there is nothing worthy of love but God, and as He is the sole source of our hearts, He must be the unique object of our affections. But what makes this piece even more worthy of recommendation is that the pleasant and the useful A reference to the classical ideal of "prodesse et delectare"—to provide both profit and delight are dispensed here with such judgment and skill that the sweetness of the Poetry Boethius wrote in a style called "prosimetrum," which alternates between prose and verse possesses no fewer attractions and innocent charms for the mind than the force of the discourse has power over the deepest wounds of the soul.

It is true that there is some obscurity in some of the Verses, because our Poet-Philosopher speaks sometimes like Plato The Greek philosopher whose ideas on the soul's divine origin and the nature of the Good are central to the book, and at other times he adapts himself to the approach of the Stoics A school of philosophy that taught the endurance of pain or hardship without display of feelings and without complaint. The diversity of these sentiments has sometimes excused me from the rigor that should restrict a Translator to the words of his Author, although I have endeavored to express almost all of his thoughts. If, to render a verse clearly, it seems that I occasionally employ Paraphrase A restatement of a text to clarify its meaning, rather than a literal word-for-word translation, I should be forgiven this infidelity, since I constrain myself with greater scrupulousness to all the Prose. I must admit, however, that another, who might be more of a slave [to the literal text] than I, would undoubtedly succeed better than I