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In their songs, Boethius and Lady Philosophy repeatedly mention the Sun, the stars, and the appearance of sunlight after nighttime or adverse weather. These references represent the purpose of wisdom and philosophy in humans’ tumultuous lives. Much like the sun sheds light onto the darkness, philosophy helps people recognize the greater truths of the universe (as governed and planned out by God) and break out of their comparatively small and biased perspectives.
First, sunlight represents wisdom or truth, which radiates from a faraway source but still reaches and influences all worldly things. Philosophy specifically cites Homer’s use of the Sun with this metaphorical significance in his Iliad, which further shows how she sees wisdom as inherently tied to the Greek tradition. She also refers to people’s own knowledge of the truth as “inward light” and talks about her own task as helping “the resplendent light of truth” break through the fog of ignorance.
Secondly, the appearance or disappearance of sunlight represents the balance of opposite elements in nature (like light and dark), and the way that this balance requires constant change within the world itself. Much like the sun rises and instantly bathes the world in light, people’s lives can change rapidly because of the whims of Fortune. “The world stays rarely long the same,” Philosophy argues, so it is wrong for people to “put [their] faith in transient luck.”
Finally, the Sun represents the universe’s inherent, mathematical order: the Sun always rises every morning, and the stars move in an astronomically predictable way. In Boethius’s time, it was believed that the Sun and other stars rotated around the Earth, but this does not change the fact that the motions of the planets are governed by what Philosophy calls “the law observed in heaven” and “the great plan of the universe.”
The Sun and Sunlight Quotes in The Consolation of Philosophy
The The Consolation of Philosophy quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Sun and Sunlight. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book III, Part II
Quotes
The sun into the western waves descends,
Where underground a hidden way he wends;
Then to his rising in the east he comes:
All things seek the place that best becomes.
Each thing rejoices when this is retrieved:
For nothing keeps the order it received
Except its rising to its fall it bend
And make itself a circle without end.
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Book III, Part IX
Quotes
O Thou who dost by everlasting reason rule,
Creator of the planets and the sky, who time
From timelessness dost bring, unchanging Mover,
No cause drove Thee to mould unstable matter, but
The form benign of highest good within Thee set.
All things Thou bringest forth from Thy high archetype:
Thou, height of beauty, in Thy mind the beauteous world
Dost bear, and in that ideal likeness shaping it,
Dost order perfect parts a perfect whole to frame.
[…]
Grant, Father, that our minds Thy august seat may scan,
Grant us the sight of true good’s source, and grant us light
That we may fix on Thee our mind’s unblinded eye.
Disperse the clouds of earthly matter’s cloying weight;
Shine out in all Thy glory; for Thou art rest and peace
To those who worship Thee; to see Thee is our end,
Who art our source and maker, lord and path and goal.
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The Sun and Sunlight Symbol Timeline in The Consolation of Philosophy
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Sun and Sunlight appears in The Consolation of Philosophy. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book I, Part II
...in his room sings that life’s trials and tribulations lead people away from their “inward light.” Although Boethius “once was free” when he studied astronomy and uncovered the mysteries of nature,...
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Book I, Part III
...Boethius compares the way his despair disappeared through his meeting with the mysterious woman to the Sun re-emerging after a storm.
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Book I, Part VI
...him break through his ignorance, which she compares to a fog, and find “the resplendent light of truth.”
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Book I, Part VII
Boethius sings about abrupt changes in nature: clouds obscuring sunlight, a storm disturbing the calm ocean and muddying the water, and a fallen boulder redirecting...
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Book II, Part III
...again sings of a series of changes in nature: the Sun bathing the world with light and drowning out other stars, flowers growing in the spring and wilting in the winter,...
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Book III, Part X
...Riches and worldly pursuits distract people from the divine, but anyone who “see[s God’s] shining light” will immediately see His greater truth.
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Book IV, Part V
...the greatness of “the law observed in heaven,” which explains mysteries like the workings of the Sun . While some natural phenomena are seen as easy to explain, other phenomena confound people,...
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Book V, Part II
Philosophy sings of the poet Homer, who in turn sang of the Sun in the Iliad. The Sun illuminates much of the world, but fails to reach some...
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