Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/82

 of men to be a judge? If however thou wilt say thou art unhappy because thou no longer hast the fleeting honours and joys that thou once didst have, still thou art not unblest, for thy present woe will pass away even as thou sayest thy joys have passed. Dost thou think such change of state and sadness of mood come to thee alone, and have never befallen, nor will befall, any other man? Or dost thou think that in any human mind there can be aught enduring and without change? If for a while anything endures in a man, death snatches it away, and its place knows it no more. And what are worldly riches but a foretokening of death? For death cometh to no other purpose but to take life. So also riches come to a man to rob him of that which is dearest to him in the world, and this they do when they depart from him. Tell me, O Mind, since naught in this life may endure unchanging, which deemest thou the better? Art thou to despise these earthly joys, and willingly give them up without a pang, or to wait till they give thee up and leave thee sorrowing?'

Then Philosophy began to sing and chaunted thus: 'When the sun shineth brightest in the cloudless heaven, he dimmeth the light of all the stars, for their brightness is as nothing compared with his. When the south-west breeze softly bloweth, the flowers of the field grow apace, but when the strong