The Consolation of PhilosophyBoethius
About The Consolation of Philosophy
Boethius wrote around 524 while imprisoned under Theodoric and awaiting execution. Five books alternate prose and verse as Lady Philosophy visits the despairing prisoner and leads him from complaint to understanding.
Book I diagnoses his illness: he has forgotten who he is. Book II dismisses Fortune's gifts as unstable; her wheel raises and lowers without regard to desert. Book III shows that true happiness is the highest good, which is God, and that the partial goods men chase (wealth, power, fame, pleasure) fail because they are partial. Book IV faces the problem of evil and the apparent prosperity of the wicked. Book V treats chance, free will, and divine foreknowledge: God sees all in an eternal present, so foreknowledge does not compel human choice.
The Consolation draws on Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics without citing Christian scripture. It became one of the most copied philosophical works of the Middle Ages. Chaucer translated it. It shaped medieval discussions of fortune, providence, and the good life.