The Consolation of Philosophy

How the first reins of all things guided are

By powerful Nature as the chiefest cause,

And how she keeps, with a foreseeing care,

The spacious world in order by her laws,

And to sure knots which nothing can untie,

By her strong hand all earthly motions draws—

To show all this we purpose now to try

Our pliant string, our musick's thrilling sound.

Although the Libyan lions often lie

Gentle and tame in splendid fetters bound,¹

And fearing their incensed master's wrath,

With patient looks endure each blow and wound,

Yet if their jaws they once in blood do bathe,

They, gaining courage,² with fierce noise awake

The force which Nature in them seated hath,

And from their necks the broken chains do shake;

Then he that tamed them first doth feel their rage,

And torn in pieces doth their fury slake.

The bird shut up in an unpleasing cage,

Which on the lofty trees did lately sing,

Though men, her want of freedom to assuage,

Should unto her with careful labour bring

The sweetest meats which they can best devise,

Yet when within her prison fluttering

The pleasing shadows of the groves she spies,

Her hated food she scatters with her feet,

In yearning spirit to the woods she flies,

The woods' delights do tune her accents sweet.

When some strong hand doth tender plant constrain

With his debased top the ground to meet,

If it let go, the crooked twig again

Up toward Heaven itself it straight doth raise.

Phoebus doth fall into the western main,

Yet doth he back return by secret ways,

And to the earth doth guide his chariot's race.

Each thing a certain course and laws obeys,

Striving to turn back to his proper place;

Nor any settled order can be found,

But that which doth within itself embrace

The births and ends of all things in a round.