who, so far from giving medicine to heal his malady, even feed it with
sweet poison? These it is who kill the rich crop of reason with the
barren thorns of passion, who accustom men's minds to disease, instead
of setting them free. Now, were it some common man whom your allurements
were seducing, as is usually your way, I should be less indignant. On
such a one I should not have spent my pains for naught. But this is one
nurtured in the Eleatic and Academic philosophies. Nay, get ye gone, ye
sirens, whose sweetness lasteth not; leave him for my muses to tend and
heal!' At these words of upbraiding, the whole band, in deepened
sadness, with downcast eyes, and blushes that confessed their shame,
dolefully left the chamber.

But I, because my sight was dimmed with much weeping, and I could not
tell who was this woman of authority so commanding--I was dumfoundered,
and, with my gaze fastened on the earth, continued silently to await
what she might do next. Then she drew near me and sat on the edge of my
couch, and, looking into my face all heavy with grief and fixed in
sadness on the ground, she bewailed in these words the disorder of my
mind:

FOOTNOTES:

[A] [Greek: P] (P) stands for the Political life, the life of action;
[Greek: Th] (Th) for the Theoretical life, the life of thought.

[B] The Stoic, Epicurean, and other philosophical sects, which Boethius
regards as heterodox. See also below, ch. iii., p. 14.