Boethius, The Consolation 1.4

. . . When she saw that the Muses of Poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and she said:

“Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do they ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions.

“They free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them to it. I would think it less grievous if your allurements drew away from me some uninitiated man, as happens in the vulgar herd. In such a one my labors would not be harmed, but this man has been nourished in the lore of the Eleatics and the Academics. To him you have reached? Away with you, Sirens, seductive unto destruction! Leave him to my Muses to be cared for and to be healed.”

Their band, thus berated, cast a saddened glance upon the ground, confessing their shame in blushes, and passed forth dismally over the threshold.

For my part, my eyes were dimmed with tears, and I could not discern who was this woman of such commanding power. I was amazed, and turning my eyes to the ground I began in silence to await what she should do.

Then she approached nearer and sat down upon the end of my couch. She looked into my face heavy with grief and cast down by sorrow to the ground, and then she raised her complaint over the trouble of my mind in these words: . . .

— from Book 1, Prose 1

As dangerous as completely ignoring our feelings is also dwelling on them too heavily. It is never feelings themselves that are the problem, but what I may choose to do with those feelings, and how I will act to help them make me better.

The Muses of Poetry are not encouraging Boethius to move forward, but are allowing him to languish in place, and he is sinking under his own weight.

How many medicines have I taken that have hardly been cures at all, but have ultimately made the agony worse? They only compounded the suffering by messing about with the appearances and symptoms, and neglecting the root causes.

I once faced the worst bout of the flu I had ever come across, and I knew that my body needed rest and nourishment to fight the infection, and to rebuild its strength.

Yet I foolishly took some pills that repressed my fever, numbed my pain, and turned my thinking into mush, because I was so sure I had to be at work. Yes, what I did for pennies apparently mattered more than my health. I then had to spend twice as much time later doing the reasonable thing by embracing a proper recovery.

As it is with the body, so it is with the soul. It isn’t just a matter of rearranging, blocking, or wallowing in my passions. Reason can show me how to make it right, by going to the source, and making it right there.

My own first response to the coming of the Black Dog was to wash him away in drink. When I only woke up with even more despair, I tried to simply ignore him. Lying to myself didn’t change the reality of it, of course, and I then tried to wish him away with all sorts of diversions and ways of busying myself. It was much like spending my time repainting a house infested by termites.

What could possibly be left? Conventional medicine offered various drugs and therapy, but these had very little lasting effect. I began to recognize that the feelings were not going anywhere. Yet what could my own thinking, my own most powerful tool, begin to do with the presence of those feelings?

The first thing I ever really noticed about this passage, once I began to read it not as an intellectual exercise but as an opportunity for healing, was the way Boethius described how both he and the Muses can stare at nothing but the ground beneath them in silence.

I related to that immediately, since I had started doing much the same when I lost my anchor in the affection of another person. It had been an illusion I had created for myself, but it had seemed there on one day, and suddenly it was gone on the next.

It was quite literal, not just figurative. My eyes began to be lowered, because I was afraid to see anyone else or to meet a passing gaze, and I spoke very little, because I was afraid of being bitten in response. There was a cringing shame behind all of it.

I felt sorry for myself. No one sat down next to me, though I really just needed to sit down with myself, and have a really good heart-to-heart. 

Written in 4/2105