(_Chaucer’s Boethius_, pp. 43, 44.) (1) Quem caduca ista felicitas vehit, vel scit eam, vel nescit esse mutabilem. Si nescit, quænam beata sors esse potest ignorantiæ in cæcitate? (2) Si scit, metuat necesse est, ne amittat, quod amitti posse non dubitat; quare continuus timor non sinit esse felicem. An vel si amiserit, negligendum putat? Sic quoque perexile bonum est, quod æquo animo feratur amissum. (_Boethius_, lib. ii. prose 4.) XIII. FORTUNE. ----Fortune That semeth trewest when she wol bigyle, . . . . . . . . . . . . . And, when a wight is from hire whiel ithrowe, Than laugheth she, and maketh hym the mowe. (_Troylus and Cryseyde_, bk. iii. st. 254, vol. iv. p. 299.) She (Fortune) vseþ ful flatryng familarité wiþ hem þat she enforceþ to bygyle. (_Chaucer’s Boethius_, p. 30.) .  .  .  .  .  .  . She lauȝeþ and scorneþ þe wepyng of hem þe whiche she haþ maked wepe wiþ hir free wille  .  .  .  . Yif þat a wyȝt is seyn weleful and ouerþrowe in an houre. (_Ib._ p. 33.) In book v., stanza 260, vol. v. p. 75, Chaucer describes how the soul of Hector, after his death, ascended ‘up to the holughnesse of the seventhe spere.’ In so doing he seems to have had before him met. 1, book 4, of Boethius, where the ‘soul’ is described as passing into the heaven’s utmost sphere, and looking down on the world below. See _Chaucer’s Boethius_, p. 110, 111. Ætas Prima is of course a metrical version of lib. ii. met. 5. Hampole speaks of the wonderful sight of the Lynx; perhaps he was indebted to Boethius for the hint. --(See _Boethius_, book 3, pr. 8, p. 81.) I have seen the following elsewhere: (1) Value not beauty, for it may be destroyed by a three days’ fever. (See _Chaucer’s Boethius_, p. 81.) (2) There is no greater plague than the enmity of thy familiar friend. (See _Chaucer’s_ translation, p. 77.) * * * * * Chaucer did not English Boethius second-hand, through any early French version, as some have supposed, but made his translation with the Latin original before him. Jean de Méung’s version, the only early French translation, perhaps, accessible to Chaucer, is not always literal, while the present translation is seldom free or periphrastic, but conforms closely to the Latin, and is at times awkwardly literal. A few passages, taken haphazard, will make this sufficiently clear. _Et dolor ætatem jussit inesse suam._ And sorou haþ comaunded his age to be in me (p. 4). Et ma douleur {com}ma{n}da a vieillesse Entrer en moy / ains quen fust hors ieunesse. _Mors hominum felix, quæ se nec dulcibus annis Inserit, et mæstis sæpe vocata venit._ Þilke deeþ of men is welful þat ne comeþ not in ȝeres þat ben swete (i. _mirie_). but comeþ to wrecches often yclepid. (p. 4)