Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/182

 he came to the border of light and darkness, and his wife was close behind. He had but stepped into the light when he looked back towards his wife, and immediately she was lost to him.

These fables teach every man that would flee from the darkness of hell and come to the light of the True Goodness that he should not look towards his old sins, so as again to commit them as fully as he once did. For whosoever with entire will turneth his mind back to the sins he hath left, and then doeth them and taketh full pleasure in them, and never after thinketh of forsaking them, that man shall lose all his former goodness, unless he repent.

After that Philosophy had chaunted this lay very pleasantly and skilfully, I had still in my mind a trace of the sadness that I had formerly, and I said, 'O Philosophy, thou that art the messenger and forerunner of the True Light, how wonderful it seems to me, what thou tellest me, for I perceive that all that thou hast said to me was told me by God through thee. I knew this also before in some measure, but this sadness had hampered me, so that I had clean forgotten it. Now the greatest part of my unhappiness comes from wondering why the