【英文翻译版77】约翰·马仁邦：《哲学的慰藉》

英文文稿+中文翻译

Zachary Davis: For much of his life, the Roman philosopher Boethius was exceptionally fortunate. He was born into a respected family, he received a great education, he obtained powerful political positions, and he had a beautiful family with two wonderful children.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在一生中的大部分时间里，古罗马哲学家波爱修斯都非常幸运。他出生于一个受人尊敬的家庭，接受了良好的教育，取得了很高的政治地位。他家庭美满，有两个出色的孩子。

Zachary Davis: But towards the end of his life, his good luck ran out. He was wrongly accused of treason, thrown in jail, and sentenced to death. While he was awaiting execution, he began to reflect on his life and how luck had played such an important part. He wrote his thoughts in what would later become one of the most influential philosophical works in history, The Consolation of Philosophy.

扎卡里·戴维斯：但在他生命的最后阶段，他的好运用完了。他被诬陷叛国，关进监狱，判处死刑。等待处决的期间，他开始反思自己的生活，反思运气如何发挥了如此重要的作用。他把自己的想法写进了《哲学的慰藉》，这本书后来成为了史上最具影响力的哲学作品之一。

John Marenbon: The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, is a vastly important text, so you can't but take notice of it. Every aspect of philosophy in the Middle Ages is influenced by Boethius. My name's John Marenbon. I work on philosophy in what I call the Long Middle Ages, which goes from about 200 AD to as late as 1700. I do this at Trinity College in the University of Cambridge.

约翰·马仁邦：波爱修斯的《哲学的慰藉》是一本非常重要的书，你很难不注意到它。中世纪哲学在方方面面都受到了波爱修斯的影响。我是约翰·马仁邦，在剑桥大学三一学院从事哲学研究。我把我研究的时期称作“长中世纪时期”。所谓长中世纪时期，意思是从公元3世纪前后开始，一直到公元18世纪结束。

Zachary Davis: As you can imagine, Boethius’s imprisonment and death sentence led him to ask hard questions about existence. What did it mean that he was so fortunate early on, and now so unfortunate? After these ups and downs, what really mattered in his life?

扎卡里·戴维斯：就像你想象的那样，被判监禁和死刑的经历开始让波爱修斯思考有关存在的问题。他早年那么幸运，现在又这么不幸，这到底意味着什么？经历了这些起起伏伏之后，他生活中真正重要的是什么？

John Marenbon: After we all, in the end, have to face death. So the question is, what's truly valuable in the face of death, whether it's coming prematurely and terribly as for Boethius or even in the ordinary course of events as it is for all of us, it's posing a very strong question, if you like, the central philosophical question.

约翰·马仁邦：我们所有人最终都要面对死亡。那么问题来了：面对死亡，什么才是真正有价值的？不论死亡最终会像降临在波爱修斯身上那般，以可怕的方式突然而至，还是会像普罗大众经历的那样，在日常生活中悄然而来，这个问题都非常有力。我们可以说，这是一个核心的哲学问题。

Zachary Davis: Welcome to Writ Large, a podcast about how books change the world. I’m Zachary Davis. In each episode, I talk with one of the world’s leading scholars about one book that changed the course of history. For this episode, I sat down with Professor John Marenbon to discuss Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy.

扎卡里·戴维斯：欢迎收听：改变你和世界的100书，在这里我们为大家讲述改变世界的书籍。我是扎卡里·戴维斯。每一集，我都会和一位世界顶尖学者讨论一本影响历史进程的书。在本集，我和约翰·马仁邦教授一起讨论波爱修斯的《哲学的慰藉》。

Zachary Davis: In the history of philosophy, Boethius is often seen as a bridge figure between classical and medieval philosophy. He sits right on the edge of the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在哲学史上，波爱修斯常常被看作古典哲学和中世纪哲学之间的桥梁。他恰好生活在罗马帝国覆灭、中世纪开始的时候。

John Marenbon: People talk about the fall of Rome and this date, 476. but in fact, the fall of Rome was a much more gradual thing. And in some ways, you might even want to say that Rome never really fell.

约翰·马仁邦：人们往往把公元476年看作罗马覆灭的时间，但实际上，罗马覆灭是一个更缓慢的渐进过程。在某些方面，你甚至可以说，罗马从未真正覆灭。

Zachary Davis: By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire ruled over the entire Mediterranean region. It stretched from Morocco, Spain, and England in the West to Turkey and Armenia in the East. The empire was so big that it was logistically hard to govern, and it began to divide into the Eastern Roman Empire and Western Roman Empire.

扎卡里·戴维斯：公元3世纪，罗马帝国统治了整个地中海地区，疆域西至如今的摩洛哥、西班牙和英国，东至如今的土耳其和亚美尼亚。如此辽阔的疆域让帝国治理起来困难重重。慢慢地，帝国分裂成了东罗马帝国和西罗马帝国。

Zachary Davis: By the 4th century AD, Germanic tribes were invading and taking control of many areas of the Western Roman Empire. Rome was sacked several times. But while the Roman Empire was being politically and militarily overtaken, its culture wasn’t.

扎卡里·戴维斯：到了公元4世纪，日耳曼部落入侵并控制了西罗马帝国的许多地区。罗马被洗劫了好几次。尽管罗马帝国在政治上和军事上被异族超越，在文化上它仍然保持领先。

John Marenbon: You know to some extent they get Romanized a bit, but quite a lot of Roman institutions start to fail. But, Latin remains as the language of the church and Christianity is preached in all these various barbarians and they get converted to Christianity. So to some extent, you have the church with a center in Rome taking the place of the Roman Empire.

约翰·马仁邦：日耳曼部落在某种程度上被罗马化了一些。罗马的许多制度难以为继，但拉丁语仍然是教会的官方语言，基督教在蛮族中广为传播，很多人都转而信奉基督教。所以从某种程度上说，罗马帝国不复存在，取代其地位的是一个以罗马为中心的教会。

Zachary Davis: In 476 the Roman Empire lost its last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus. He was deposed by a Goth military leader named Odoacer who was deposed and murdered by another Goth named Theodoric. Boethius was born one year after Theodoric took over the Roman Empire.

扎卡里·戴维斯：476年，罗马帝国的最后一任皇帝罗慕路斯·奥古斯都下台。他被哥特军事将领奥多亚克废黜，后者后来被另一个哥特人狄奥多里克废黜并杀害。波爱修斯在狄奥多里克接管罗马帝国的一年后出生。

John Marenbon: Boethius himself—something very important about him was that he was born to the very highest rank of Roman society.

约翰·马仁邦：有一个关于波爱修斯的信息非常重要。他出生于罗马社会的最高阶层。

Zachary Davis: He was born into the prestigious Anicii family. Boethius’s grandfather was a Roman senator, and his father was a consul. Every year, two consuls were elected to serve a one-year term. They were in charge of foreign affairs, the army, and the senate. Boethius’s parents both died when he was young, and he was left an orphan. But that was in some ways a fortunate turn of events.

扎卡里·戴维斯：他出生在著名的安尼修斯家族。波爱修斯的祖父是罗马元老院成员，父亲是执政官。每年罗马都会选出两名执政官，任期一年，负责外交、军队和元老院事务。波爱修斯的父母在他很小的时候就去世了，他成了一个孤儿。但在某种程度上，这是他人生一个幸运的转折。

John Marenbon: He was orphaned and he was adopted by somebody who was even grander than his parents.

约翰·马仁邦：他成了孤儿，却被比他父母更显赫的人收养了。

Zachary Davis: A Roman aristocrat named Memmius Symmachus adopted young Boethius and instilled in him a love of philosophy and literature. During the time of the late Roman Empire, most of the great philosophical works came from classical Greece. If you wanted to learn philosophy, you had to learn Greek. But that changed as the Goths took over the Western Roman Empire.

扎卡里·戴维斯：罗马贵族梅米乌斯·西玛古收养了小波爱修斯，向他灌输了对哲学和文学的热爱。罗马帝国晚期，大多数伟大的哲学作品都来自古希腊。如果你想学习哲学，就必须学习古希腊语。但在哥特人占领西罗马帝国之后，情况发生了变化。

John Marenbon: Knowledge of Greek rapidly declined. So people were left to use Latin sources or a few works which have been translated into Latin, and that makes a big difference.

约翰·马仁邦：希腊语记载的知识迅速减少，人们只能使用拉丁语或被翻译成拉丁语的资料和作品，这就有了很大的不同。

Zachary Davis: But Boethius was lucky.

扎卡里·戴维斯：但波爱修斯非常幸运。

John Marenbon: He had very traditional education in which he learned Greek absolutely fluently. In the past, people probably traveled to Greek speaking countries at that seems unlikely, but it was as if he'd done so.

约翰·马仁邦：他接受了传统的教育，会讲一口流利的希腊语。从前，人们可以去希腊语国家旅行。到了这个时候，这么做似乎不太可能了。但波爱修斯却似乎得以成行。

Zachary Davis: This was thanks in a large part to his adoptive father, Memmius Symmachus, who was fluent in Greek.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这在很大程度上要归功于他的养父梅米乌斯·西玛古。他的养父能说一口流利的希腊语。 

John Marenbon: And he didn't have to bother to work for a living, so he was able to devote himself for most of his life to a plan of study and writing. He decided to make himself—perhaps he was modeling himself on Cicero—make himself into a Latin figure, writing in Latin, but who would make Greek learning available.

约翰·马仁邦：他也不用费心靠工作谋生，所以在一生中的大部分时间里，他能够专心学习和写作。他似乎想要以西塞罗为榜样，说拉丁语、写拉丁语，但也希望宣扬希腊文化。

Zachary Davis: Boethius began his literary career by writing about Greek music, math, and then later, logic. His writings helped preserve classical Greek learning into the Middle Ages.

扎卡里·戴维斯：波爱修斯的文学生涯开始于撰写关于希腊音乐、数学以及后来的逻辑学方面的文章。他的作品促使古希腊的学问得以保存到了中世纪。

John Marenbon: He translated almost all of Aristotle's logic into Latin. And he provided commentaries on some of these works and textbooks. And these works weren’t highly original, but that wasn't the point. People working in this tradition didn't try to be. He was very much like his Greek contemporaries at the simple Platonic schools of Athens and Alexandria who are producing these commentaries, bringing together a lot of discussions from previous centuries.

约翰·马仁邦：他几乎把亚里士多德的所有逻辑学著作都翻译成了拉丁文。他还为其中一些作品和教科书撰写评论。这些作品的原创性不高，但这并不是重点。从事这项传统的人目标并不在于原创。他很像同时代雅典和亚历山大港的柏拉图学派的希腊人。这些人撰写评论，汇总了几个世纪以来的大量讨论内容。

Zachary Davis: Besides his writing career, Boethius also got married, had two children, and was elected to various public positions, including senator and consul.

扎卡里·戴维斯：除了写作之外，波爱修斯还结了婚，有了两个孩子，当选了多个的公共职位，包括元老院成员和执政官。

John Marenbon: And then everything changed when in the early 520s, Theodoric, the Ostrogothic ruler asked him to be his prime minister.

约翰·马仁邦：到了公元520年代初，一切都变了。东哥特王国国王狄奥多里克请他担任首席执政官。

Zachary Davis: The technical title was Master of the Offices, but it would be Theodoric’s most important official.

扎卡里·戴维斯：职位名称叫“部门总长”，是狄奥多里克手下最重要的职位。

John Marenbon: He took on this job and immediately got into trouble.

约翰·马仁邦：他接受了这份工作，却立即陷入了麻烦。

Zachary Davis: It turned out that Theodric’s court was quite corrupt, and Boethius wanted to expose that corruption. The details aren’t exactly clear, but basically, Theodric was paranoid that Boethius was plotting against him and wrongly accused him of doing so.

扎卡里·戴维斯：原来狄奥多里克的宫廷非常腐败，而波爱修斯想要揭发这些腐败行为。具体细节我们不得而知，但总的来说，此事的结果是狄奥多里克偏执地认为波爱修斯在密谋造反，给他错误地安上了谋反的罪名。

John Marenbon: As a result of all these things, Boethius found himself suddenly, from being somebody who lived all his life in luxury with everything that he wanted and had up until then been the most important person in the country except for the ruler. Suddenly he's thrown into prison, accused of treason, and facing a death sentence. And that's the setting for his most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy.

约翰·马仁邦：所有这些事情让波爱修斯发现，自己的命运突然转变。之前他享尽荣华，拥有想要的一切，位居一人之下万人之上；可刹那间他就沦为阶下囚，被指控叛国，将要被处决。他最有名的作品《哲学的慰藉》就是在这一背景下诞生的。

Zachary Davis: Boethius wrote The Consolation of Philosophy while he was imprisoned, waiting to be executed. The text is both fictional and autobiographical, and alternates between prose and poetry. Boethius sets the story in the cell where he is imprisoned and writes himself in as one of the main characters.

扎卡里·戴维斯：波爱修斯在被囚禁、等待处决时写下了《哲学的慰藉》。该书兼具虚构与自传色彩，文体上散文与诗歌交替出现。波爱修斯将故事设定在囚禁他的牢房中，将自己写成了主要人物之一。

John Marenbon: You have the character Boethius who he depicts himself in his cell lamenting and what appears to him but a woman, a woman we've told who sometimes appears ordinary to some, suddenly she's as high as the sky. So strange. And of course, she's not a real woman. She's called Philosophy and she's a personification of philosophy. You might have hoped it was the tradition of philosophy that Boethius studied all his life.

约翰·马仁邦：故事中，波爱修斯在牢房里哀叹，这时一个女子出现在他面前。我们得知，这个女子在一些人看来非常普通，可突然间她变得像天空一样高。好奇怪。当然，这可不是真正的人类女子。她是哲学女神，是哲学的化身，是波爱修斯毕生研究的哲学传统的化身。

Zachary Davis: Lady Philosophy comes to the fictional Boethius’s cell and finds him very depressed about his fate.

扎卡里·戴维斯：哲学女神来到故事中的波爱修斯的牢房，发现他对自己的命运非常沮丧。

John Marenbon: Her immediate reaction is not to say, oh, how terrible things are. I'm very sorry for you. You have all my sympathy. Absolutely not. She gets rid of the poetic muses who are helping Boethius in his song of lament and asks, why are you upset? I mean, what is there to be worried about and he takes the chance to tell his story and how unjust it is and he said to her rather acidly, is this my library with shelves made of ivory and the volumes in it place me in some horrible prison cell?

约翰·马仁邦：她的第一反应并不是对波爱修斯说，好可怕，我好为你惋惜，对你百分之百同情。绝对不是。诗神缪斯想帮波爱修斯的悲歌遣词造句，哲学女神打断了她们，询问波爱修斯为何闷闷不乐、为何而担忧。波爱修斯趁机讲述了自己的故事，告诉她自己的遭遇多么不公，忿忿地问她，是不是因为我那有着象牙刻成的书架、摆放着卷卷书籍的书房，所以反而导致我最终被送到这可怕的牢房？

John Marenbon: And she has a very good reply to that, she says, I'm not interested in the library and in the books there, what I'm interested in is the contents of the books, the ideas, the doctrines, my teaching. And her view is that Boethius has forgotten what he learned. If Boethius can recall the philosophy he’s learned, then he will be consoled. The book's called The Consolation of Philosophy, and one has to bear in mind that the consolation in the ancient tradition was never too touchy feeling, not “I'm very sorry for you”. It was reasoning with you to show you had nothing to be upset about that old age or sickness or the death of a loved one.

约翰·马仁邦：她给了一个很好的回答。她说，我对书房和那儿的书不感兴趣，我感兴趣的是书里的内容、思想、学说还有我的教诲。她觉得，波爱修斯已经忘记了他学过的东西，如果波爱修斯能够回忆起学过的哲学，就会得到慰藉。这本书的名字叫《哲学的慰藉》。我们有必要记住，古代传统中的慰藉从来不是小心翼翼的情绪流露，不是对你说“好为你惋惜”，而是和你讲道理，让你明白无论生老病死还是爱人离世，都没有什么好难过的。

John Marenbon: All these things were not if you had the proper attitude to them, anything to be concerned about. And so this is what philosophy is trying to do under a pretty extreme situation of somebody suddenly stripped of everything and facing a rather gruesome execution.

约翰·马仁邦：所有这些事情，如果你对它们有正确的态度，就没有什么可担心的。这就是哲学在一个相当极端的情况下所要做的。如果某人突然失去一切，或是面临相当可怕的处决，哲学就派上用场了。

Zachary Davis: What are the main themes that they're exploring together?

扎卡里·戴维斯：他们一起探讨了什么主题？

John Marenbon: Philosophy thinks that Boethius has forgotten what is his land and the reason for this is the terrible shock of his fall of the pending death sentence has put all this out of his mind. He is a sick person. And so what she has to do is to operate on a cure. She pictures herself as a sort of doctor who will start off with lighter remedies and work to more serious ones.

约翰·马仁邦：哲学女神认为波爱修斯已经忘记了自己有过的境遇，之所以这样，是因为死刑判决带给他的可怕冲击已经将这些从他的脑中悉数抹去。他病了，哲学女神必须救治他。哲学女神把自己当作医师，从简单的药方开起，再用复杂的药方。

John Marenbon: The light remedies are arguments to say, well, look, you're complaining about fortune because you've fallen for fortune. But the point is fortune owes you nothing. It's the very character of fortune for people to rise and people to fall. You didn't deserve your high position, so you can't complain now that you've fallen from it. And that's just what fortune's like.

约翰·马仁邦：简单的药方是这样的。她说：“你抱怨命运，因为你已经执迷于命运。但命运从没对你有什么亏欠。命运的特点就是人们会起起落落。你不配享有你的高位，也就不该抱怨从那儿跌下来。命运就是这个样。”

Zachary Davis: Lady Fortune was the personification of luck. She was a Roman goddess often depicted with a cornucopia in one hand and a tiller in the other. In medieval times, she was usually shown standing next to a large vertical wheel that she was constantly spinning. Everyone had a place on this wheel, regardless of class or social standing because the fluctuation of luck and fortune impacts everyone.

扎卡里·戴维斯：命运女神是运气的化身。她是古罗马的一位女神，常常被描绘成一手拿玉米穗、一手持舵柄的形象。在中世纪的艺术作品中，她通常站在一个巨大的、竖立的轮子旁边，不断转动着轮子。无论阶级或社会地位如何，每个人都在这个轮子上有一席之地，每个人都受运气和命运起伏的影响。

Zachary Davis: If you were spinning towards the top of the wheel, then you could enjoy all the good things fortune brought you. But if you were spinning towards the bottom of the wheel, things were probably going bad for you, or at the very least, fortune wasn’t granting you her goods.

扎卡里·戴维斯：如果你转向轮子的顶端，那么就可以享受命运带给你的所有好处；可如果你转向轮子的底部，你的情况可能会变糟，至少享受不到命运的果实。

John Marenbon: And the goods of fortune are most of the things that many people value. So, their power and wealth and sensual pleasure.

约翰·马仁邦：许多人都渴望获得命运甜美的果实，如权力、财富和感官上的愉悦。

Zachary Davis: Everyone was constantly spinning on this wheel, from the top, where the goods were, to the bottom, and back again. The idea is that the goods that fortune provides and takes back are not in your control. There is nothing you can do to guarantee them. So while these goods can provide temporary happiness, you can’t depend on them to bring you lasting satisfaction.

扎卡里·戴维斯：每个人都在这个轮子上不断旋转，从结着命运果实的顶部到轮子的底部，再转回去。命运会给予或夺走果实，你无法左右命运的安排，无法保证果实的到来。尽管这些果实可以带给你暂时的幸福，但你不能指望它们带给你长久的满足。

Zachary Davis: Lady Philosophy goes on to show Boethius how the things people usually strive for in pursuit of happiness often end in unhappiness. The most common are wealth, rank, sovereignty, glory, and pleasure. In these things, people are seeking contentment, power, reverence, renown, or joy. They assume that once they achieve these things they will be truly happy.

扎卡里·戴维斯：哲学女神继续向波爱修斯展示，人们为追求幸福而做的努力往往以不幸告终。财富、阶层、主权、荣耀和快乐往往是他们普遍想得到的。得到了这些，他们就得到了满足、权力、尊敬、名声或快乐。他们认为，一旦实现了这些，他们就会得到真正的快乐。

Zachary Davis: The problem is that true happiness includes all of these goods together. Pursuing each of these things individually breaks them up and doesn’t lead one to true happiness. Therefore, she says, true happiness cannot be found in these perishable things. True happiness can only exist in God—the ultimate good.

扎卡里·戴维斯：问题是，真正的幸福是所有这些的总和。单单追求某一样都会让愿望破灭，获得不了真正的幸福。哲学女神说，真正的幸福无法在这些易逝的东西中找到，而是仅仅存在于上帝之处，存在于至善之中。

John Marenbon: And then rather in line with that, Philosophy develops a very demanding view about our attitude to punishment and reward. So one of Boethius, the prisoner’s complaints at the beginning, had been that there's no reward for being good in the world, the wicked prosper and the good suffer. He's an example of that. Philosophy develops an idea that actually it's not true that the good suffer at all or that we could prosper because just by being good, by being virtuous, you're prospering because that's true prosperity; and by being wicked, you're not.

约翰·马仁邦：相应地，哲学女神严厉评判了我们对待奖惩的态度。阶下囚波爱修斯起初抱怨，这世上好人没好报，坏人享受，好人受苦，自己就是个例子。哲学女神则指出，好人受苦这个想法不对。好人自然会享受。只要你做个好人、有德行的人，你就会觉得享受，这是真正的享受；坏人就享受不到。

Zachary Davis: In other words, wickedness pursues those temporary goods, and virtue pursues the highest good. By pursuing temporary goods, you’re never truly happy. So by being wicked, you suffer. Lady Philosophy goes on to say that if you are truly good, nothing can be done to you that would ruin your relationship with God. She tells Boethius that it doesn’t matter that he is in prison on death row. These things can’t get in the way of his relationship with God.

扎卡里·戴维斯：换句话说，坏人追求的是那些暂时的利益，而好人追求的是最高利益。追求暂时的利益无法让你永远都快乐。所以，做坏人会很痛苦。哲学女女神继续说，如果你是真正的好人，没有什么可以破坏你和上帝的关系。她告诉波爱修斯，即使他被关在监狱，即将被处决，也妨碍不了这种关系。

John Marenbon: Philosophy puts that forward, but what's very striking is that then Boethius, the character, is allowed to do one of his few interventions that really challenges Philosophy and says, you know what? In spite of all that, how can you say that somebody in my position is really as well off as somebody who is enjoying prosperity with his family. And so I'm looking forward to a long old age.

约翰·马仁邦：哲学女神说了这番话。但让人惊讶的是，作者让波爱修斯这个人物挑战了哲学女神。他说，你知道吗，尽管如此，你怎么知道落到我这般地步的人能像那些与家人一同享受生活的人一样幸福呢？我希望自己这把老骨头能活久些。

John Marenbon: At that stage, she talks about divine providence and the idea that, in fact, there is some plan behind all these things. Now, sometimes people are being tested to see what they can withstand and that their virtue is being strengthened and so on, so there is some reason behind what happens to different people. It's not something which can be the way things work out and not something which can be explained just in terms of virtue and good in itself.

约翰·马仁邦：这时，哲学女神谈到了神的旨意。她还说，所有事情背后都自有安排。如今，或许有时神会考验世人，看看他们能够承受多少的难关。而在这个过程中，他们的美德会变得越来越强大。这就是为什么不同的人会遇到这些事。这不能仅仅从表面来分析，也不是说可以仅仅用自身的美德和善来解释为什么人会受苦。

Zachary Davis: The text goes on to discuss several other philosophical ideas, such as free will and fate in the eyes of God. It ends with Philosophy saying that we must always strive towards virtue. There are many things we don’t understand about God because God is eternal and we are not, but he is always watching.

扎卡里·戴维斯：书里继续探讨了其他几个哲学思想，如自由意志和上帝眼中的命运。在书的结尾，哲学女神说，我们必须始终努力培养美德。关于上帝，我们有很多地方不了解，因为上帝是永恒的，而我们不是，但上帝一直注视着我们。

Zachary Davis: Boethius finished The Consolation of Philosophy in 524 when he was 44 years old. Later that year he was executed. Little is known about the text’s history in the centuries following Boethius’s death, but by the 11th century it had become part of the European literary canon.

扎卡里·戴维斯：公元524年，波爱修斯完成了《哲学的慰藉》，那时他已经44岁了。同一年晚些时候，他被处决。在波爱修斯去世后的几个世纪里，人们对该书的来历知之甚少。但到了11世纪，它已经成为欧洲文学典籍之一。

John Marenbon: Until the end of the 12th century, it was one of the books of the school curriculum. So in the various schools, which would have been monastic schools in the 9th and 10th, 11th centuries and then in the 12th century, you have a wider sorts of schools, cathedral schools, and you have a big explosion of schools and teachers in Paris at the time. And one thing they're very interested in is logic, which, as I said, Boethius’ translations are used as textbooks. But another thing they're interested in is the conservation of philosophy.

约翰·马仁邦：直到12世纪末，它都是学校的课程用书之一，出现在很多学校的课堂上，如9到11世纪的修道院学校。以至于12世纪更多的学校把这本书视为教材，如教堂学校乃至巴黎的很多校园，也会用上这一本书。这些学校的老师对逻辑学很感兴趣，波爱修斯翻译的许多逻辑学著作被用作了教科书。此外，他们还对保存哲学思想非常感兴趣。

Zachary Davis: So what's at stake in the question of “is this the last classical philosopher versus the first medieval philosopher”?

扎卡里·戴维斯：有人问，波爱修斯是不是最后一个古典哲学家与第一个中世纪哲学家？这个问题为什么那么重要？

John Marenbon: I mean, why is he taking up so much in the Middle Ages? It's partly that until the wave of Aristotelian translations, which came to be read and studied really only in the 13th century, there was very limited access to ancient philosophy, apart from logic. There was a partial translation of Plato's Timaeus to a few other works by Latin philosophers like Seneca. But Boethius’s Consolation has an element of being an introduction to philosophy, because what he's doing is showing you how on a philosophical view—Philosophy is trying to say what philosophical view Boethius should be concerned about. He shouldn't mind the position that he's in.

约翰·马仁邦：为什么他在中世纪占了这么重的分量？部分原因在于，直到13世纪人们才开始大量翻译、认真阅读并研究亚里士多德。在这之前，除了逻辑学，人们对古代哲学的了解非常有限，他们手头上也只有柏拉图的《蒂迈欧篇》以及塞内加等其他拉丁语哲学家作品的部分译文。而波爱修斯的《哲学的慰藉》却有点像哲学导读，哲学女神一直试图告诉波爱修斯要坚持怎样的哲学观点，不要执迷于当下的处境。

John Marenbon: That was a precious source to them for ancient thoughts. They didn't have much else. I think it's partly that, as a work introducing a lot of interesting philosophical themes and in the end going to this very complex business of mind, peace and freedom, but it's remarkably well written and attractive to read, so people throughout the Middle Ages were very keen on classical eternity, classical culture, and this gave them that, along with a lot of interesting things to discuss.

约翰·马仁邦：这是了解古代思想的珍贵资料。中世纪的人们没有什么别的文献材料。我觉得这本书的分量之重还在于，它介绍了很多有意思的哲学话题，最后还谈到了心灵、和平与自由等非常复杂的问题，写得还非常好，读起来很吸引人。所以整个中世纪，人们都非常热衷于古典经典与文化。这本书带给他们这些的同时，也提出了很多可供讨论的有意思的话题。

John Marenbon: And from the 13th century onwards, it gets translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese. Almost every language, even affected Hebrew. And for almost all the great poets of the Middle Ages, it's a key text. I mean, strikingly, two gentlemen who wrote the logical continuation of the government, who said most of it, which is probably the most important piece of French literature, also translated, is the Consolation of Philosophy. And there's a lot of the Consolation of Philosophy in the Chaucer, who I think everybody's heard of. But the thing is medieval. He translated the Consolation of philosophy into English.

约翰·马仁邦：从13世纪开始，它被翻译成法语、德语、意大利语、西班牙语、葡萄牙语等几乎所有语言，甚至还影响了希伯来人。它对中世纪几乎所有伟大诗人来说都非常重要。两位撰文探讨政府合理性延续的大人物说，《哲学的慰藉》是法国包括译著在内的所有文学中最重要的作品。另外，我相信大家也听说过，我们常常能在乔叟的作品中看到这本书的影子。乔叟把这本书翻译成了英文。

Zachary Davis: Maybe we could go into when does it start to wane and sort of its life, you know, in modern times?

扎卡里·戴维斯：或许我们可以讨论一下步入现代之后，这本书的生命力从何时开始减弱了？

John Marenbon: Boethius might have been quite a deep philosopher in the way in which he could bring various things together and he was literally formed with his philosophy. Boethius continues to be quite a lot in the Renaissance and even in the 17th century. He seems to have disappeared very quickly as one of the authors who was really studied.

约翰·马仁邦：波爱修斯可能是一个相当有深度的哲学家。他能把各种东西结合到一起，能将哲学用文学的形式呈现出来。一直到文艺复兴时期乃至17世纪，他的影响力还持续不衰。然而很快，他便从研究者的视线中消失了。

John Marenbon: After then, with the humanism and the type of way in which people learn Latin in the sort of 16th century, 17th century, 18th century with the concentration on correct Latin classical activity, although Boethius is a very—I mean, he's a highly educated writer and writing very, very correct Latin. People's tastes were formed to want to look at authors writing around the year zero, if you like. I mean, Cicero, Virgil.

约翰·马仁邦：在那之后，随着人文主义的发展以及16至18世纪人们学习拉丁语、关注标准的拉丁语古典作品，人们对波爱修斯的兴趣渐渐淡了。虽然波爱修斯是个受过良好教育的作家，写得一手标准的拉丁语文章。但人们的口味慢慢定型了，想要看公元元年前后的作家，比如西塞罗、维吉尔等人的作品。

John Marenbon: So Boethius just seems to be too late for there must be something a bit decadent about him or too flowery or whatever. So I think that that's one of the things which would put him out of mind. Despite all of that, I think, it’s not as if he's not somebody in the curriculum for studying medieval philosophy. People do realize his importance and do study him.

约翰·马仁邦：波爱修斯似乎生得太晚了，文字有些颓靡，文笔也可能太花哨。我觉得这是人们渐渐淡忘他的原因之一。尽管如此，他还是被列入了中世纪哲学研究课程的内容之中。人们确实意识到他的重要性，也确实在研究他。

John Marenbon: I think perhaps sometimes they don't realize his full sophistication because he’s somebody also studied by people doing literature, so they study in one way, and people doing philosophy are studying in another way. And it's more rare that the two sides get put together. I think you need to put them together to realize fully what an interesting author he is.

约翰·马仁邦：我想或许有时候人们没有完整的意识到他的复杂性。研究文学的人用一种方式研究他，研究哲学的用的又是另一种方式。很少有人同时用两种方式研究他。而我觉得，你要同时运用这两种方式，才能充分认识到他是一个多么有意思的作家。

Zachary Davis: So maybe you can bring us to today. In what work can we recognize his lingering influence?

扎卡里·戴维斯：或许咱们可以把视线转到当下。在哪些作品中我们可以看到他挥之不去的影响？

John Marenbon: I would, as I say, two things. On the one hand, even if you have a very simple reading of the Consolation of Philosophy, it is one of the few works which managed to integrate arguments, a dramatic situation, a very beautiful way of expression in a very, very satisfactory way. A Plato, of course, manages to do that, a few other authors. And so in that sense, and I think it should always remain a classical philosophy.

约翰·马仁邦：正如我刚刚说的，有两方面影响。一方面，即使你对这本书的理解不深，你也知道它是为数不多的能将论点、戏剧性与优美表达以非常令人满意的方式融合在一起的作品之一。当然，柏拉图和其他一些作者也能做到这一点。在这个意义上，我觉得这本书应该永远被当做哲学经典。

John Marenbon: But I think there's another slightly more demanding way in which it can be read, which is—can you face death without religion? This is what philosophy, in a way is doing—trying to show, yes, you can. But Boethius himself may not really be sure about that. But I think this question, do we have—just through ourselves and through the resources of philosophy, which in the end is a human reason—do we have the resources to face death and especially this sudden ending and dreadful death that Boethius, the character, was facing?

约翰·马仁邦：不过我觉得还有另一种更深层次的解读方式。这本书在追问，没有宗教你能否面对死亡？哲学在某种程度上就在为这个问题提供肯定的答复。在这个问题上，波爱修斯本人可能并不真正确定。不过我觉得他确实在探讨，我们是否可以仅仅借助自己、借助哲学的源泉、归根到底也就是借助人类的理性来面对死亡，尤其是当我们像书中的波爱修斯这样面对突如其来的可怕死亡时，我们能否做到这点。

John Marenbon: And I think whichever answer people are inclined to give reading Boethius, but trying to think about it in its context and not what Boethius the author might have been saying in a very different context from ours, but one in which the cause of the mixture in him of the classical culture and of Christian culture was very sharp. That's a point I think that we can reflect on and which is more, if not much more contemporary, than the point that you get just from a very simple reading of the work.

约翰·马仁邦：我觉得，无论人们在阅读波爱修斯时倾向于哪种答案，都要试着将这个问题置于当时的背景之下来思考，不要单单看到作者所处的时代背景与我们非常不同，而是要看到在他身上古典文化与基督教文化激烈的碰撞、融合。这是我们可以反思的一点，比你草草阅读它时能得到的观点更多，甚至更有时代意义。

Zachary Davis: The Consolation of Philosophy reminds us that wealth, status, and sensual pleasures can’t on their own bring us true happiness. Besides, we often have very little control over those things anyway. They belong to Fortune, and she grants them and withholds whenever she wants. Instead, real and lasting joy comes from within, through the cultivation of virtue.

扎卡里·戴维斯：《哲学的慰藉》提醒我们，财富、地位和感官享受并不能带给我们真正的幸福。而且不管怎么说，我们往往很难控制这些东西。它们是命运所赐，命运想给则有，不想给则无。真正长久的快乐其实来自于对自身美德的培养，来自于内心。

Zachary Davis: Writ Large is a production of Ximalaya. Writ Large is produced by Jack Pombriant, Liza French, and me, Zachary Davis. Script editing is by Galen Beebe. We get help from Feiran Du, Ariel Liu and Monica Zhang. Our theme song is by Ian Coss. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe today in the Ximalaya app. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

扎卡里·戴维斯：本节目由喜马拉雅独家制作播出。感谢您的收听，我们下期再见！​