classics digests, reflections and reviews
The Insufficiency of Humanism Tribulation generally signifies nothing else but some kind of grief, either pain of the body or heaviness of the mind. All the wit in the world cannot bring about that the body should not feel what it feels. But that the mind should not be grieved with either bodily pain or occasions of heaviness pressed unto the soul, this thing the philosophers laboured very much about. […]
Read moreFor the Down-and-Out When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d, Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts […]
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[Original Latin Title: Consolatio Philosophiae] Boethius was a Christian philosopher of ancient Rome, but “Consolation of Philosophy” is not a treatise on Christianity. For it doesn’t address the question of sacrifice and remission of sins, let alone the love of God. But instead, like Plato’s Republic, it attempts to reshape the readers’ understanding of the nature of evil and justice, by way of answering the question, “Why do good people […]
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