“If you
would diligently behold with unsullied mind
the laws of the God of thunder upon high,
look
to the highest point of heaven above.
There,
by a fair and equal compact,
do
the stars keep their ancient peace.
The
sun is hurried on by its whirl of fire,
but
impedes not the moon's cool orb.
The
Bear turns its rushing course
around
the highest pole of the Universe,
and
dips not in the western depths,
and
though it sees the other constellations sink,
it
never seeks to quench its flames in the ocean stream.
In
just divisions of time does the evening star
foretell
the coming of the late shadows,
and,
as Lucifer, brings back again the warming light of day.
Thus
does the interchanging bond of love
bring
round their never-failing courses;
and
strife is forever an exile from the starry realms.
This
unity rules by fair limits the elements,
so
that wet yields to dry, its opposite,
and
it faithfully joins cold to heat.
Floating
fire rises up on high,
and
matter by its weight sinks down.
From
these same causes in warm spring
the
flowering season breathes its scents;
then
the hot summer dries the grain;
then
with its burden of fruits comes autumn again,
and
winter's falling rain gives moisture.
This
mingling of seasons nourishes and brings forth
all
on earth that has the breath of life;
and
again snatches them away and hides them,
whelming
in death all that has arisen.
Meanwhile
the Creator sits on high, rules all and guides,
king
and Lord, fount and source of all,
Law
itself and wise judge of justice.
He
restrains all that stirs nature to motion,
holds
it back, and makes firm all that would stray.
If He
were not to recall them to their true paths,
and set them again upon the circles of their
courses,
they
would be torn from their source and so would perish.
This
is the common bond of love;
all
seek thus to be restrained by the limit of the good.
In no
other manner can they endure
if
this bond of love be not turned round again,
and
if the causes, which He has set, return not again.”
—from
Book 4, Poem 6
In my
younger days, when I still naively assumed that other people would get as
excited as I did about learning something new and off the beaten path, I was
once passionately explaining to one of my professors how life-changing it was
for me to finally read Boethius’ Consolation with care. I could tell he
was being patient with me, and that he would surely prefer to be doing
something else, but I had him cornered, and in my elation I just didn’t want to
admit that he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing.
“Boethius
is sort of old and tired, isn’t he? It’s not like he’s on the cutting edge of scholarship.
You might be better off studying something more contemporary, something that
isn’t so derivative of outdated attitudes.”
I should
have nodded and been on my way, but I stubbornly persisted. I suggested that
the arguments were timeless, precisely because they spoke to a universal meaning
and purpose in Nature we too often overlook. If we think it’s obsolete, could
it be that we’ve forgotten something? Wasn’t there a great truth in recognizing
that the whole of the world is ruled by love?
I had
clearly gone too far, because I got the smirk and the roll of the eyes. “Well,
I really can’t help you if you want to follow all that crude physics, and I
hardly think anyone in their right mind would say that Boethius has anything to
do with love.”
I have
come to accept that these are not the most popular views, and yet I still
believe there is something crucial to be learned from them. Yes, all the talk
about the four elements, and the balance of hot and cold, of wet and dry, and
the music of the spheres, may not fit our current scientific jargon. I can go
deeper than the differences of symbolism and expression, however, and see a
common Universe of causality, balance, and order.
And yes,
while Boethius may not speak with the emotional intensity of a romantic poet,
or with the social conscience of the flower generation, he does most certainly believe
that love makes the world go around, as he again makes very clear in the poem
above.
In that
every aspect of Nature, to whatever degree of awareness or perfection, moves
and act for the sake of the good, all creatures are driven by love, drawn
toward their fulfillment as parts within the whole. They all work together, admittedly
in often mysterious ways, but they are all charged with direction.
It is,
in this sense, a love that binds all things together in a unity.
Nothing happens
in vain. Each event balances itself out with every other event. Wherever there seems
to be a diversion, that diversion itself becomes a means for a correction. Aristotle,
or Boethius, or Aquinas understood this just as well as Kepler, or Newton, or
Einstein.
I can
speak of such a love not just in a metaphorical sense, since the reality of
design necessitates the ultimate presence of mind and will. It may not be fashionable
to say that the heavens make music, but the fact that they do not literally
produce sounds does not mean that they do not reflect the most beautiful
harmony.
Written in 12/2015
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