The Consolation of Philosophy · Book IV
Book IV · Chapter V

The Appearance of Chance

Song V · Wonder and Ignorance.

The Text

Reading guide ↓

A new modern English rendering, made from the Latin with AI assistance — a reading aid, not a scholarly edition.

Chapter V

Here I said: "I see what happiness or what misery is established in the very deserts of the upright and the wicked. But in this common fortune itself I weigh that there is something of good or of evil. For none of the wise would prefer to be an exile, poor and dishonored, rather than to flourish, powerful in resources, reverend in honor, strong in power, remaining in his own city. For thus the office of wisdom is handled more brightly and with more testimony, when the blessedness of those who govern is, in some manner, poured over into the peoples in contact with them — especially since prison and the other torments of legal punishments are owed rather to the harmful citizens for whose sake they were even instituted. Why, then, are these things changed about into their reverse, and the punishments of crimes press down the good, while the bad seize the rewards of the virtues? I greatly marvel at this, and I desire to know from you what the reason may seem to be for so unjust a confusion. For I would marvel less if I believed that all things were mixed up by chance accidents. But now God the ruler increases my stupor. For since he often grants pleasant things to the good and harsh to the bad, and, on the contrary, gives hard things to the good and concedes to the bad what they wish — unless the cause is grasped, what is there that seems to differ from chance accidents?"

"And no wonder," she said, "if something is believed to be reckless and confused when its principle of order is not known. But you, although you do not know the cause of so great a disposition, still, since a good ruler governs the world, do not doubt that all things are rightly done."

Song VWonder and Ignorance
If anyone does not know that the stars of Arcturus glide near the topmost pivot of the sky, why slow Boötes guides his wagon and plunges his late flames in the sea, though he unfolds his risings too swiftly — he will be amazed at the law of the high heaven.
Let the horns of the full moon grow pale, stained by the bounds of the dark night, and let Phoebe, confused, uncover the stars that she had hidden with her shining face — a public error stirs the peoples, and they weary the bronze with frequent beating.
No one marvels that the blasts of the northwest wind batter the shore with roaring surge, nor that the hard mass of snow, frozen with cold, is melted by the burning heat of Phoebus.
For here it is easy to discern the causes; there the hidden ones trouble men's hearts.
Everything that a rare age brings forth, and all sudden things, astonish the fickle crowd. Let the cloudy error of ignorance yield, and surely these things will cease to seem wonders.