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

All Fortune Is Good

Song VII · The Hero's Path.

The Text

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

Chapter VII

"Do you now see, then, what follows from all these things we have said?"

"What, then?" I said.

"That every fortune," she said, "is wholly good."

"And how can that be?" I said.

"Attend," she said. "Since all fortune, whether pleasant or harsh, is bestowed either for the sake of rewarding or exercising the good, or of punishing or correcting the wicked, all of it is good, since it is agreed to be either just or useful."

"This reasoning is indeed exceedingly true," I said, "and, if I consider the providence and fate which you taught a little while ago, it is an opinion resting on firm strength. But let us count it, if you please, among those which you a little while ago set down as unbelievable."

"Why?" she said.

"Because common human speech uses, and indeed often, the saying that some people's fortune is bad."

"Do you wish, then," she said, "that we approach for a little while the speech of the crowd, lest we seem to have withdrawn too far from human usage?"

"As you please," I said.

"Do you not, then, judge that to be good which benefits?"

"That is so," I said.

"And that which either exercises or corrects, does it benefit?"

"I admit it," I said.

"It is good, then?"

"How not?"

"But this belongs to those who, set in virtue, wage war against hardships, or who, turning aside from vices, seize the path of virtue."

"I cannot deny it," I said.

"What, then, of the pleasant fortune that is given to the good as a reward — does the crowd judge it to be bad?"

"By no means. On the contrary, they judge it to be best, as in truth it is."

"What of the remaining fortune which, since it is harsh, restrains the bad with just punishment — does the people think it good?"

"On the contrary," I said, "they judge it the most wretched of all that can be imagined."

"See, then," she said, "lest, following the opinion of the people, we have concluded something quite unbelievable."

"What?" I said.

"For from the things that have been granted," she said, "it comes about that, of those who are either in possession of, or in progress toward, or in the attainment of virtue, all fortune, whatever it may be, is good; but for those remaining in wickedness, all fortune is the worst."

"This is true," I said, "though no one would dare to confess it."

"For this reason," she said, "the wise man ought not to take it ill, as often as he is brought into a struggle with fortune, just as it does not befit a brave man to be indignant as often as the din of war has sounded. For to each of them the very difficulty is the material — to the one for spreading his glory, to the other for shaping his wisdom. From this, too, it is called virtue, because, relying on its own strength, it is not overcome by adversities. For you, set in the progress of virtue, have not come to dissolve in delights and grow faint with pleasure. You join battle, all too sharply, with every fortune, lest either the sad oppress you or the pleasant corrupt you. Hold the middle with firm strength. Whatever either stops short below or advances beyond has contempt for happiness, and has not the reward of labor. For it is placed in your hand to shape for yourselves what fortune you prefer; for all fortune that seems harsh, unless it either exercises or corrects, punishes."

Song VIIThe Hero's Path
Atrides, the avenger, having waged war for twice five years, atoned for his brother's lost marriage-bed with the ruins of Phrygia.
He, while he longed to give sails to the Greek fleet and bought the winds with blood, put off the father and, a grim priest, sealed the wretched throat of his daughter.
The Ithacan wept for his lost companions, whom fierce Polyphemus, sprawling in his vast cave, sank in his monstrous belly. Yet, raging, his blind face repaid his joy with mournful tears.
Hard labors make Hercules renowned: he tamed the proud Centaurs, took the spoil from the savage lion, pierced the birds with sure arrows, snatched the apples from the watching dragon, his left hand heavier with the golden metal, dragged Cerberus in a triple chain.
Victorious, he is said to have set down the cruel master as fodder for his savage mares. The Hydra perished, its venom burned away. Achelous, the river, his brow disfigured, hid his shamed face beneath his banks.
He laid Antaeus low on the Libyan sands; Cacus glutted Evander's wrath; and the bristly boar marked with foam the shoulders that the high heaven was to press upon.
His last labor lifted the sky on an unbending neck, and again, as the prize of his last labor, he earned the sky.
Go now, you brave, where the lofty road of great example leads. Why, sluggish, do you bare your backs in flight? The earth, once overcome, grants the stars.