To the Reader.

need of many things, which those
who have more moderation than desires
do without with no trouble. It is difficult to
love honors, Glory, and nobility; if
one penetrates the reasons that discredit them,
in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh Prose Boethius’s work is written in "prosimetrum," a style that alternates between sections of prose and poetic verse. Shortly after, this wise
Mistress Lady Philosophy, the personified guide of the narrative touches upon pleasures with such
disdain, but nonetheless with such soundness,
that she proves the pursuit of them as vain
as it is shameful. Then she teaches in what
true happiness consists, rejecting those
which are false and apparent. The ninth
Poem may make one understand what
a translation sometimes costs.
Saint Thomas Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the influential theologian who wrote a famous commentary on Boethius strives to give us
enlightenment in his learned Commentary;
explaining this "soul of the world" original: "ame du monde"; the Anima Mundi, a philosophical concept of an intrinsic force that animates the universe which is
represented to us there, as the intelligence that moves it.
If anyone is not satisfied with his interpretation, let him
read Plato’s Timaeus; perhaps by
taking the leisure to dream a little over his thoughts,
he might draw from it a clearer expression.
For my part, I frankly admit that the
greater part of this treatise is to me only
a profound Prophecy, and that I see
there no more words than Mysteries. It is the
fourth Book which makes us understand