Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/129

 why ye men put your trust in perishable wealth, seeing it cannot free you from poverty; nay, ye thereby only increase it.'

When Philosophy had uttered this discourse she began to chaunt again and singing to say: 'What profiteth it the wealthy miser to amass countless riches and to gather store enough of all precious stones, and though he till his fields with a thousand ploughs, and all this earth be his to govern? For he cannot take with him from this earth anything more than he brought hither.'

When Philosophy had sung through this song, she began to discourse again and said: 'Two things can honour and power do, if they fall into the hands of a fool;  they can make him respected and revered by other fools. But as soon as he quits his power, or his power forsakes him, he has no respect nor reverence for them. Has power therefore the faculty of rooting up and plucking out vices from the minds of its possessors, and planting in their stead virtues? I know that earthly power doth never sow virtues, but gathereth and harvesteth vices; and, when it hath gathered them in, it maketh a show of them instead of covering them up, for the vices of the great, who know and associate with many men, are beheld of the multitude. Thus, then, we lament over power when lost, and at the same time despise it, seeing how it cometh