uncomelyandbroken

Nubibus atris
condita nullum
fundere possunt
sidera lumen.

So run the first four lines of the final poem in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Book 1. These eight words, so skillfully arranged, convey with precision a primary theme of the Consolatio‘s opening book.  In an earlier poem, Boethius had already powerfully connected the stars, in their regular orbit, with the idea of a cosmic order that ought to apply to human affairs.  Here, Boethius draws another astral analogy.  The stars, he claims, are sources of light in the night sky, if only the clouds do not obtrude.  This is a critical Boethian theme, the idea that the capacity to see what is real (as represented by the light-giving, order-confirming stars) requires a commitment to genuine philosophical inquiry.  In other words, the mind and soul must be trained to see past the distractions of Fortune in order to make out Truth.

The meter of this short stanza is great (it’s an adonic, a dactyl followed by a trochee, “TUM ti ti TUM ti”), but even more significant is the arrangement of the words.  Latin allows a long separation between noun and adjective, and Boethius has cleverly segregated the adjectives in line 2 from their corresponding nouns in line 4.  The effect is to sift out in the verses the negative from the positive as an analogy for refining one’s vision.  It is a poetic representation of the philosophical quest to look beyond the ephemeral darkness to the eternal light.

When hid by clouds,             the stars at night
Cannot pour forth                their brilliant light.

Due to a lack of talent, I can’t replicate Boethius’ sturdy meter, but I hope my rendition at least can get across some idea of the word order, with the second half of each line undercutting the negative first half. Perhaps nobody will mind if, as a way of suggesting what I think Boethius’ eight words are saying here, I allude to Van Gogh’s famous stars swirling in the violent Mistral winds, an image painted through the barred windows of his asylum in Saint Remy, only few hundred miles west of the prison where, centuries before, the poet-philosopher had also looked for answers into the night sky.

In the Medieval Latin class I’m teaching this term, we’re now reading Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. (If you’ve not read it before, stop wasting time on-line and read it now.)  The Consolatio is partially written in prose, partially in verse, and offers a genuinely comforting framework within which to view adversity. It was written when Boethius, who had been at the very highest realms of influence, was unjustly imprisoned; not long after he would be mercilessly killed.  I’ve asked my students to try to turn the verse portions into English poetry, and one of them demanded that I do the same.  Talk about a reversal of fortune!  My laughable effort is below, with the original Latin following. It’s not the entirety of the poem, only the first part, and it gets a little free at the end, but I think the Boethian idea of Fortuna’s fickleness comes through.

Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
Book 1, Poem 5, “O Stelliferi Conditor Orbis”
Complaint in Verse to the Universe’s Capricious Ruler

O Ruler of the astral sphere
at rest on your eternal throne—
To spin the skies and master stars
in motion is your work alone.

As now the Moon, illumined full,
Returns her brother’s sunny beam
And dims the constellations ‘round
Her head, and then herself grows dim.

As Venus who, at evening,
has in the west made cold ascent,
will change her course and, paler now,
arise to meet the sun again.

Another star, at winter’s start,
which looks upon the scattered leaves,
now brings constriction of the light
that lengthens then in summer’s breeze.

You rule the ever-turning year,
arrange for Zephyr to return
the leafy boughs the North Wind stole.
You bloom in spring what summer burns.

Exemption from such firm control
Is granted nothing, not a thing
Escapes its proper placement, in
your government of everything

So why, in all this vast array,
this interwoven universe,
do lives of people like myself
alone not turn back from the worse?

The original Latin (which is given in full here):

O stelliferi conditor orbis,
qui perpetuo nixus solio
rapido caelum turbine uersas
legemque pati sidera cogis,
ut nunc pleno lucida cornu
totis fratris obuia flammis
condat stellas luna minores,
nunc obscuro pallida cornu
Phoebo propior lumina perdat
et qui primae tempore noctis
agit algentes Hesperos ortus
solitas iterum mutet habenas
Phoebi pallens Lucifer ortu.
Tu frondifluae frigore brumae
stringis lucem breuiore mora,
tu cum feruida uenerit aestas
agiles nocti diuidis horas.
Tua uis uarium temperat annum,
ut quas Boreae spiritus aufert
reuehat mites Zephyrus frondes,
quaeque Arcturus semina uidit
Sirius altas urat segetes:
nihil antiqua lege solutum
linquit propriae stationis opus.
Omnia certo fine gubernans
hominum solos respuis actus
merito rector cohibere modo.
…