Metres of Boethius - Prose and Verse

Prose and Verse

Alfred's prose version was a fairly free adaptation of Boethius and some parts are greatly summarised from the original. There is an introduction putting the work into context and numerous notes and digressions throughout explaining allusions for the intended audience.

While some of these additions may be Alfred's own work, many of them come from glosses to contemporary Latin manuscripts of the Consolation which were obviously used in the translation process. There is also a significant number of references to Christianity within the translation which are entirely absent in Boethius's secular work.

There are two surviving main manuscripts of the Alfred's Boethius. The earliest was written in the 10th century about fifty years after Alfred's death and contains the alliterative verse rendering of the work. This manuscript was damaged in the Cotton library fire of 1731. The later document is from the 12th century and is the prose translation of the work.

Alfred enjoyed working on the translation as a release from his worries and as a kind of self-education in philosophy. It was his hope that others would benefit from its moral message. He explains this in the proem of the work as well as confirming that he produced both the prose translation and the verse Lays.

"King Alfred was the interpreter of this book, and turned it from book Latin into English, as it is now done. Now he set forth word by word, now sense from sense, as clearly and intelligently as he was able, in the various and manifold worldly cares that oft troubled him both in mind and in body. These cares are very hard for us to reckon, that in his days came upon the kingdoms to which he had succeeded, and yet when he had studied this book and turned it from Latin into English prose, he wrought it up once more into verse, as it is now done."