Victoria Lansing, University of Oxford
Awaiting execution, Boethius turned to a variety of classical authors in the Consolatio, but Ovid looms largest. I argue that the Tristia and Ex Ponto shape our understanding of the way the prisoner and Philosophy interact, and that a heretofore missed allusion to Ovid colors the way we evaluate the success of Philosophy’s consolation effort.
Scholars have long-remarked that Boethius plays an Ovidian character in 1m.1, employing the elegiac meter of the Tristia and Ex Ponto and alluding to this tearful mode as representative of the degeneration of his literary career; flebilisheu maestos cogor inire modos, (Cons. 1m.1.2) looks to Ovid’s statement, flebilis ut noster status est, ita flebile carmen, / materiae scripto conveniente suae (Trist. 5.1.5-6). Scholars such as O’Daly (1991), Claassen (1999), and Fielding (2017) argue that elegiac grief ceases with the prisoner’s deployment of the meter in 1m.1, but this does not account for 5m.1, where Philosophy speaks in elegiacs. As the opening poem of the first and last books is elegiac, Ovid is deployed as a framing device for Boethius. Only by pairing these elegiacs can we fully understand the utilization of Ovid’s persona. I argue that Boethius uses Ovid in two ways; when his prisoner-self speaks the allusive phrase, he paints himself as a forlorn poet on Ovid’s example (1m.1). But when Philosophy voices the allusion, she militates against Ovid (5m.1). In this way the persona of Ovid also represents broader tensions between the prisoner and his philosophical guide.
In addition to the elegiacs, I will also consider Ovid’s presence in the final poem of the Consolatio, 5m.5, which exposes the difficulty of applying a consolation at the proper time. The authorial-Boethius uses an allusion to Pont. 4.11, when Ovid writes to Gallio to console him on the loss of his wife, to undermine the consolatory efforts of his own healer Philosophy. Thus, while scholars have dismissed Ovidian influence after 1m.1, I believe that Ovid’s works from Tomi exert structural control on the Cons. and help us evaluate the success of Philosophy’s project.