The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy

by Boethius

EPIGRAM BY SYMMACHUS[177]

Boethius! model of all weal and worth,
Unjustly from thy country driven forth,
Thy fame, unfamed at last, yet one shall praise,
One voice the cry of approbation raise;
What life denied, through death kind heaven giveth;
Thine honour in thy wife's for ever liveth.

[177] This epigram was found by Barth in a Merseburg codex, and first printed in his Adversaria (1624). If genuine (and the faithful reproduction the error SYMMACHIVS for SYMMACHI VS or VR, i.e. VERSVS, is in its favour), the author may be either the son or the father-in-law of Boethius. Some readers may prefer to rank this poem with the epitaph on Elpis, the supposititious first wife of Boethius, on whom see Obbarius, De cons. p. xii. At any rate it is as old as the times of Hrabanus Maurus, who imitated it in a poem also first published by Barth. See Peiper, Cons. p. xxxviiii.