crederes, feraces inter se annos sterilesque pensares. Fortunae te regendum dedisti; dominae moribus oportet obtemperes. Tu uero uoluentis rotae impetum retinere conaris? At, omnium mortalium stolidissime, si manere incipit, fors esse desistit. THE SECOND BOOK OF BOETHIUS I. After this she remained silent for a while; and, having by that her modesty made me attentive, began in this wise: "If I be rightly informed of the causes and condition of thy disease, thou languishest with the affection of thy former fortune, and the change of that alone, as thou imaginest, hath overthrown so much of thy mind. I know the manifold illusions of that monster, exercising most alluring familiarity with them whom she meaneth to deceive, to the end she may confound them with intolerable grief, by forsaking them upon the sudden, whose nature, customs, and desert, if thou rememberest, thou shalt know that thou neither didst possess nor hast lost anything of estimation in it; and, as I hope, I shall not need to labour much to bring these things to thy remembrance, for thou wert wont, when she was present, and flattered thee most, to assail her with manful words, and pursue her with sentences taken forth of our most hidden knowledge. But every sudden change of things happeneth not without a certain wavering and disquietness of mind. And this is the cause that thou also for a while hast lost thy former tranquillity and peace. But it is time for thee to take and taste some gentle and pleasant thing which being received may prepare thee for stronger potions. Wherefore let us use the sweetness of Rhetoric's persuasions, which then only is well employed when it forsaketh not our ordinances; and with this, let Music, a little slave belonging to our house, chant sometime lighter and sometime sadder notes.