Notes

This solves the second of the points left in doubt at the end of bk. i., ch. vi.

This solves the third. No distinct account is given of the first, but an answer may be gathered from the general argument of bks. ii., iii., and iv.

The sword of Damocles.

Paley translates the lines in Euripides' 'Andromache': 'They [the childless] are indeed spared from much pain and sorrow, but their supposed happiness is after all but wretchedness.' Euripides' meaning is therefore really just the reverse of that which Boethius makes it. See Euripides, 'Andromache,' Il. 418-420.

The paradoxes in this chapter and chapter iv. are taken from Plato's 'Gorgias.' See Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 348-366, and also pp. 400, 401 ('Gorgias,' 466-479, and 508, 509).

'No trivial game is here; the strife Is waged for Turnus' own dear life.' Conington. See Virgil, Æneid,' xii. 764, 745: cf. 'Iliad,' xxii. 159-162.

Parmenides. Boethius seems to forget for the moment that Philosophy is speaking.

I.e., the necessity of the truth of the statement from the fact.

Plato expressly states the opposite in the 'Timæus' (28B), though possibly there the account of the beginning of the world in time is to be understood figuratively, not literally. See Jowett, vol. iii., pp. 448, 449 (3rd edit.).

The substance of this poem is taken from Plato's 'Timæus,' 29-42. See Jowett, vol. iii., pp. 448-462 (third edition).

The doctrine of Reminiscence—i.e., that all learning is really recollection—is set forth at length by Plato in the 'Meno,' 81-86, and the 'Phædo,' 72-76. See Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 40-47 and 213-218.

To frighten away the monster swallowing the moon. The superstition was once common. See Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' pp. 296-302.

This is not, of course, literally true, though the Tigris and Euphrates rise in the same mountain district.

Compare Plato, 'Meno,' 80; Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 39, 40.

A criticism of the doctrine of the mind as a blank sheet of paper on which experience writes, as held by the Stoics in anticipation of Locke. See Zeller, 'Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics,' Reichel's translation, p. 76.