Chaucer's Translation of Boethius's "De Consolatione Philosophiae"

by Boethius

IX. THE GRIEF OF REMEMBERING BYGONE HAPPINESS.

For, of fortunes scharp adversité,

The worste kynde of infortune is this,

A man to han ben in prosperité,

And it remembren, when it passed is.

(Troylus and Cryseyde, bk. iii. st. 226, vol. iv. p. 291.)

Sed hoc est, quod recolentem me vehementius coquit. Nam in omni adversitate fortunæ infelicissimum genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem.[10]

(Boethius, lib. ii. pr. 4.)