Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (12th c., Lombard script)

[I.] ...in the first place... Boethius; he notes this: that he was a friend; but he was not a friend of [his] friends. A friend of the fate of the king, i.e., in a just struggle, the victory of the Latin [tongue]. Here the friend is conquered.
[II.] The matter of the king; Mali; Amallio the Torquatus; he is called Torquatus because he, in the struggle of the Creostulani, conquered a Gaul, took a golden torque from him, and placed it upon himself. Sallust; the matter of the king, regarding the dignity of Rome, and from the study of good men... he performed; no, not theirs. Boethius; that, I ask, Boethius, who was an assistant; but an auxiliary of many, who was oppressed by the power of the Goths, and especially those who were in the machine, who [also]...
[III.] ...Boethius... seeks help. Honorius; when he, in [his] dignity, is living in exile, he prays; and he who used to pray for others. And if he had dignity in his heart. And if anything toward others, what was coming. Paten was saying that he was governing the republic in the manner of the ancients. What they read when they pray. I. That of those who are in exile; others who are not exiled, pray. Others, exiled, pray. And a better state is [implied] than the reading that he is exiled. For he said he was an exile, that he had already departed from exile [knowing] the pact of his own victory... Here begin the kinds of meters... [of the book of Boethius brought into the light].

The five books of the consolation of philosophy of the author Boethius, with their various kinds of poems, he wrote. Of which the kinds are these, which [one] recognizes in the crudity and sweetness of the meters, as much as he who is a doctor, who is robust in books, who is composed in diligence and study, and in few books. The first, therefore, of the poem is elegiac, which consists of the first heroic [foot]. The second is the Phimebrun, heroic. The third is dactylic. Through the members he has...