Boethius composed De Consolation Philosophiae in the sixth century A.D. while awaiting death by torture, condemned on a charge of plotting against Gothic rule, which he protested as manifestly unjust. Though a Christian, Boethius details the true end of life as the soul's knowledge of God, and

consoles himself with the tenets of Greek philosophy, not with Christian precepts. Written in a form called Meippean Satire that alternates between prose and verse, Boethius' work often consists of a story told by Ovid or Horace to illustrate the philosophy being expounded. The Consolation of

Philosophy dominated the intellectual world of the Middle Ages; it inspired writers as diverse Thomas Aquinas, Jean de Meun, and Dante. In England it was rendered into Old English by Alfred the Great, into Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer, and later Queen Elizabeth I made her own translation.

The circumstances of composition, the heroic demeanor of the author, and the Meippean texture of part prose, part verse have been a fascination for students of philosophy, literature, and religion ever since.

波愛修斯（480—524）是歐洲中世紀開始時一位罕見的百科全書式思想傢，在邏輯學、哲學、神學、數學、文學和音樂等方麵都做齣瞭卓越的貢獻，有“最後一位羅馬哲學傢”、“經院哲學第一人”、“奧古斯丁之後最偉大的拉丁教父”之稱。