Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/160

 has wisdom, and righteous who has righteousness? And so we name God that which has the divine nature and happiness, and every happy man is a god. Yet there is only one God; he is the stem and base of all forms of good;  from Him these forms all come, and to Him they return, and He ruleth all. Though He is the beginning and foundation of all good men and all good things, yet the forms of good that issue from Him are many, even as all stars receive their light and brightness from the sun, yet some are more, others less bright. Likewise the moon shines according as the sun illumines her; when she is fully lighted up by him, she shines with all her brightness.'

Now when I understood this discourse I was dismayed and sore afraid, and I said, 'Truly this is a wonderful and pleasing and rational discourse that thou art now speaking.'

'Nothing,' she said, 'is more pleasing nor more wise than the matter of our discourse, and that which we are going to discuss; and so I think we had better join it on to our former discourse.'

'Why, what is that?' said I.

Then said she, 'Well, thou knowest that I told thee that True Happiness was a good thing, and from True Happiness come and to it return all the other forms of good that we have spoken of. Even so from the sea the water makes its way into the earth, and there grows fresh; then it comes up at the spring, becomes a brook, then a river, then follows the course of the river until it comes again to the sea. But I would now