Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/116

 the sea to overstep the threshold of the earth, having fixed their boundaries in such wise that the sea may not broaden her border over the motionless earth. By the same order the alternation of the flow and ebb is ruled. These ordinances God suffereth to stand as long as He willeth, but whenever He shall loose the bridle-rein wherewith He hath bridled His creatures (that is, the law of contraries we have mentioned), and let them fall asunder, they shall leave their present harmony, and, striving together each according to his own will, abandon their fellowship, and destroy all this world, and themselves be brought to nought. The same God uniteth people in friendship, and assembleth them in marriages of pure affection; He bringeth together friends and comrades so that they loyally observe concord and friendship. Oh, how blessed were mankind if their minds were as straight and as firmly based and ordered as the rest of creation is!'

When Philosophy had sung this lay, she had so captivated me with the delightfulness of her song, that I was in an admiration, and very eager to hear her with all my heart, and very soon after I called to her and spake thus: 'O Philosophy, thou