A man there was just set For heretoch in Rome, Loved by the lord whose bread he ate, And dear to all at home: Dear also to the Greek, When he the town did save ; Long since was he full wise, Boethius was he hight; He ate shame's bitter bread, He to the Greek was true, To bring the Greek to Rome, In hidden haste he plied With letters all the lords, And prayed them by the Lord who died To heed his earnest words. Greece should give laws to Rome, And Rome should Greece obey; The people longed to let them come To drive the Goth away. But lo! the Amuling Theodric found out all, And bade his fellows seize and bring He feared that good earl well, And straightly bade them bind Ah! he had basked so long Ill could he bear such load of wrong, Then was he full of woe, Nor heeded honour more ; This poem also is Alfred's own : and has not in any way been suggested by Boethius. It serves, in an able and effective manner, to introduce the Metres that follow, giving a slight historic sketch of Rome and its fortunes at the time of Boethius's imprisonment. In Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall' all the matters here hinted at are detailed at length: as it is not our wish to encumber this version with needless notes, the reader can if he pleases there refer to the history of Theodoric's invasion and government. Meanwhile, a few words in this version require explanation: e. g. 'sceldas læddon' 'led their shields, -as we would now say of a general, he sent so many hundred 'bayonets' to the flank &c.: 'lind wigende' lime or linden-fighters, so called from their bucklers or spear shafts having been made of lime-wood: 'hlaf' is a 'loaf'; 'ord' a 'beginning or cause' : hence 'hlaford' is a 'patron' or a 'lord whose bread he ate: ' 'heretoga' is a 'general or chieftain'; Boethius was in fact 'consul, but, as in the case of 'atheling' for 'prince,' it is thought best to keep to the word of Alfred. So also of 'Amuling;' which signifies the descendant of Amul. Boethius (prænamed Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, and allied to those noble families) flourished as a Roman citizen and a Christian writer toward the close of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century of our era. He was educated in Greece, where he spent the first years of his life, and married a Sicilian lady of Greek extraction, by name Elpis: these serve to explain the fact of his Philhellenism referred to in the text. After having filled the highest office of state himself and having lived to see his sons Patricius and Hypatius Consuls also, he was sent to a prison in Pavia, for having stood up against the usurpations of Theodoric. He appears to have lived only six months in the prison, and then to have been cruelly executed: but the greater part of those six months he must have spent both wisely and well in the elegant prose and ingenious verse of "The consolations of Philosophy." In the second volume of this edition, King Alfred's prose Boethius will be given in full to the reader: the present work concerns the poetry. John Bunyan, we may remember, as well as the holy Paul, severally have put a prison to the like good uses: but Boethius has been censured, and with some reason, for not adding (what Alfred every where supplies) the consolations of religion to those of philosophy. His metres, 26 in number, are varied and ingenious: they have been systematized by Theodore Pulman ; but it would here be out of place to descant upon them: our text is Alfred, not Boethius. II. A SORROWFUL FYTTE. CARMINA qui quondam studio florente peregi, Flebilis, heu, mæstos cogor inire modos. Sorrowing tearfully, Many a verity In those glad times Of my prosperity Taught I in rhymes ; Now from forgetfulness Wasting in fretfulness Worldliness brought me here Riches have wrought me here When I rely on them Lo! they depart, - Rend they my heart. Why did your songs to me, Say joy belongs to me Why did ye lyingly Think such a thing, Seeing how flyingly Wealth may take wing? The original is the opening poem of Boethius; whereof very little is here adopted by Alfred; but it is almost entirely an independent poem. This may fairly be regarded as a picture of Alfred's own mind in the dark times of his adversity. He reviews past glories, hints at a confession of some of those early sins of worldliness and arrogance whereof Asser has spoken, rebukes flatterers, and lies down alongside of Boethius in his dungeon, with that sympathy which a brotherhood in grief alone can give. III. A FYTTE OF DESPAIR. Heu, quam praecipiti mersa profundo Mens hebet, et propria luce relicta, ALAS! in how grim A gulf of despair, Dreary and dim For sorrow and care, My mind toils along When the waves of the world Stormy and strong Against it are hurl'd. When in such strife My mind will forget Its light and its life In worldly regret, And through the night Of this world doth grope Lost to the light Of heavenly hope. Thus it hath now Befallen my mind I know no more how God's goodness to find, But groan in my grief Troubled and tost, Needing relief For the world I have lost. Here also we have almost all Alfred; it is in fact an expansion of the two first lines of Boethius as given above, and not a trans |