Unjustly imprisoned and waiting to die, Boethius penned his last and greatest work, Consolation of Philosophy, an imaginary dialogue between himself and Philosophy, personified as a woman. Reminiscent of Dante in places, Boethius's fiction is an ode-to-philosophy-cum-Socratic-dialogue. Joel Relihan's skillful rendering, smoother to the modern ear than previous translations, preserves the book's heart-rending clarity and Boethius's knack for getting it just right. Listen to him on fortune: "We spin in an ever-turning circle, and it is our delight to change the bottom for the top and the top for the bottom. You may climb up if you wish, but on this condition: Don't think it an injustice when the rules of the game require you to go back down."

Consolation of Philosophy recalls the transience of the material world, the eternality of wisdom, and the life of the philosopher. Boethius was deeply influenced by the Platonist tradition, and this piece is one of the more powerful and artful defenses of a detachment that feels almost Buddhist. For anyone who's felt at odds with the world, Consolation is a reminder that the best things in life are eternal. Boethius must be right: the book is just as meaningful today as it was in the sixth century when he wrote it. --Eric de Place

ANNOTATION

Joel Relihan's translation highlights the poetry of the Consolation while remaining faithful to Boethius' Latin.

Author Biography: Joel C. Relihan is Professor of Classics, Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, Boethius (c. AD 475-525) was also an exceptional Greek scholar and it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned when he fell from favour and was imprisoned in Pavia. Written in the period leading up to his brutal execution, it is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy, whose instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restores his health and brings him to enlightenment.

The clarity of Boethius's thought and his breadth of vision made The Consolation of Philosophy hugely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas suffused the thought of Chaucer and Dante. This translation makes it accessible to the modern reader while losing nothing of Boethius's poetic artistry and philosophical brilliance.

SYNOPSIS

Relihan's translation of Boethius's conversation with the personification of philosophy renders the original text into spare, unadorned, clear English. The poems within the work are translated for the first time in meter, giving new weight to this aspect of the work. Relihan (classics, Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts) has provided a lengthy introduction and endnotes featuring an extended discussion of every division within the chapters, making this text ideal for the classroom as well as the scholar.

Annotation © Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Joseph Pucci

Boethius finally has a translator equal to his prodigious talents and manifold vision.

Paul Spade

A splendid new translation of this major work.... The wealth of supplementary aids... [are] invaluable.

James J. O'Donnell

Relihan's daring translation is a welcome tool for the reader who wants to be amused, perplexed, surprised, and enlightened.

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