Seeking within the self in The Metres of Boethius

Abstract

The metrical sections of the Old English Boethius have traditionally been regarded as little more than mechanical versifications of the relevant portions of the entirely prose version. This article, however, argues that The Metres of Boethius present an ambitious psychological discourse. The adaptations made during the versification process allow the poet to expand upon the prose source and place greater emphasis on the care of the inner mind. The model of the mind in the Metres owes much to the tradition of vernacular poetry, in which the mind is a separate, wilful part of the self, in need of restraint. Yet the Metres are also indebted to the tradition of their ultimate Latin source, in which the mind has the ability and, indeed, the responsibility, to monitor its own inner depths. This article demonstrates that the Metres-poet engages with both traditions, crafting a strikingly original model of the mind.

In the Old English translation of Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis, traditionally attributed to Alfred the Great, ¹ the translator makes a distinction between the outer surface of the mind and its inner core through the metaphor of the bark and pith of a tree: ²

Ac ðonne he wilnað to underfonne ða are & ðone ealdordome, he ðencð on ðam oferbrædelse his modes ðæt he sciele monig god weorc ðæron wyrcan, & he ðencð mid innewearde mode ðæt he gierneð for gilpe & for upahafenesse ðæs folgoðes, smeageað ðeah & ðeahtigað on hiera modes rinde monig god weorc to wyrcanne, ac on ðam piðan bið oðer gehyded. Ac on uteweardum his mode he liehð him selfum ymbe hine selfne bie ðæm godum weorcum; licet ðæt he lufige ðæt he ne lufað: ðisses middangeardes gilp he lufað, & he licett swelce he ðone onscunige, & him ondræde. ³

As Benjamin Saltzman notes, this metaphor of the bark and pith of the mind is original in the Old English translation. ⁴ The ‘pith’ is an apt metaphor for the deep, innermost part of the mind, which the ruler, in the midst of all other concerns, is at great risk of neglecting. The Old English Pastoral Care sets out to remind rulers that they must constantly scrutinize not only their outward behaviour, but also their innermost selves, in order to ensure that what they do is pleasing to God. For example, a good ruler should be like those heavenly beasts who are ‘ymb eal utan mid eagum besett, & eac innan eagena full’ so that ‘hi mægen ðæm inncundan Deman on hire agnum inngeðonce lician’. ⁵ The importance of monitoring the inner self is stressed in this Old English translation of Gregory’s work, long believed to represent King Alfred’s advice to his subordinates. ⁶ In spite of recent objections to Alfred’s authorship of anything, similarities remain between the Old English Pastoral Care and the other texts of the so-called Alfredian corpus, including the Old English translations of Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae, Augustine’s Soliloquia, and the first fifty Psalms. ⁷ The bark and pith analogy from the Pastoral Care serves as a reminder of the preoccupation with the mind that we encounter throughout the translations traditionally associated with Alfred. ⁸ It cannot be said with any certainty that the poet of the metrical sections of the Old English Boethius knew the Pastoral Care; moreover, the morally-charged, Gregorian analogy of the bark and pith is quite different from the philosophy encountered in Boethius’s De consolatione and its Old English adaptations. However, what is clear is that, like the translator of the Pastoral Care, the poet of the Metres of Boethius is deeply concerned with the scrutiny of the innermost part of the self.

In Boethius’s De consolatione, Lady Philosophy teaches the character ‘Boethius’ that the inner mind has the ability to store a grain of profound truth. ⁹ By remembering this truth, buried deep within the self, one has access to knowledge that transcends the mortal, bodily realm. ‘Boethius’ has, however, like Boetius or Mod (‘mind’) in the Old English version, forgotten this truth: the outer self is unaware of the deep recesses hidden within it. ¹⁰ While the Old English poet’s versification of the prose translation has traditionally been held in little regard, ¹¹ in this article I will suggest that it is through, not in spite of, this versification process that the poet of the Old English Metres of Boethius produces a truly original model of the mind, in which introspection is foregrounded. As I will demonstrate, the poet draws not only on the Old English prose translation and the ultimate Latin source, but also the tradition of vernacular poetry in which he is working. ¹²

BOETHIUS’S DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIAE AND THE OLD ENGLISH VERSIONS

Boethius’s De consolatione Philosophiae, a dialogue between a fictionalized version of ‘Boethius’ himself and Lady Philosophy, is prosimetrical in form, written in alternating prose and verse sections. ¹³ Of the two versions of the Old English translation of De consolatione, one, known as the B-text (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 180), offers a wholly prose rendering, while the C-text (London, British Library, Cotton Otho A. vi) features versifications of most of the metres, interspersed among the prose sections. ¹⁴ Despite the later date of Bodley 180, ¹⁵ the entirely prose version is thought to precede the prosimetrical version, as is implied in the prose preface to the Boethius. ¹⁶ While it has been widely recognized that the Metres are based on the Old English prose translation, rather than the Latin text, ¹⁷ two important questions remain: firstly whether the Metres-poet was the same person as the prose author, and, secondly, if he was not, whether he had access to the Latin original of De consolatione or only the Old English translation. ¹⁸ In any case, the adaptations made by the poet of the Metres suggest that, if he was in fact the original translator, he saw the versification process as an opportunity to give his earlier work new emphasis.

The relationship between the two versions has been the subject of recent debate. Erica Weaver has argued that the B- and C-texts should be understood as part of the opus geminatum tradition, in which prose and verse texts on the same subject complement one another. ¹⁹ She suggests that Bede’s two lives of Cuthbert, which make up an opus geminatum, can be seen as a model for the Boethius, arguing that Bede’s preface to the prose life implies that the verse version is meant to be ‘entertaining’, compared with the ‘more scholarly’ prose version. ²⁰ This division between serious scholarship and entertainment is analogous to the presentation of the prose and verse sections of the Old English Boethius in the metrical preface, which was once present in the Cotton manuscript, now preserved in Junius’s transcript. Here, the Metres are presented as lighter and more engaging than the entirely prose translation, designed to catch the attention of the ‘selflicne secg’ (CMP.7). ²¹

However, Susan Irvine has recently suggested that this reference to the ‘self-regarding man’ may only reflect the literary topos that poetry makes a refreshing counterpart to prose, rather than the reality of the intended audience. ²² Irvine argues, moreover, that the opus geminatum form seems to have had an influence on the reception, rather than the composition, of the two versions: that is, that while the two versions may have been presented as a pair in later years, they were not envisaged as such by their creator(s). ²³ The arguments advanced by Irvine invite a fresh look at the Metres. The claims of the metrical preface, that the poetry was designed to aid comprehension and prevent boredom, have somewhat clouded the judgement of modern readers and critics. Seeing the Metres in a new light, it is possible to observe their intellectual originality and independence from the prose source, especially in the poet’s articulation of the relationship between the outer individual and the depths of their inner self.

INNAN AND INNE

It has long been established that the Metres show the influence of the Old English prose source. As Mark Griffith observes:

Some key singular features of the prosody of Met – proliferation of prosaic diction, the breaches of Kuhn’s first law, the prominence of particles and proclitics and the consequent weakening of prosodic rules governing them, departures from the norms of precedence, loosening of the rules particular to light verses – betray the general influence, unique in the surviving corpus, of an OE prose original. ²⁴

While the poet often omits the occasional word when versifying, especially adverbs and the conjunction and, he rarely omits whole clauses. ²⁵ Indeed, he frequently amplifies the prose, adding not only individual words but whole clauses. Griffith notes that many of the poet’s single-word additions are adverbs: most of these adverbs are very common, and largely otiose; nearly half occupy the first alliterating, metrically stressed position in the b-verse (the second half-line); many begin with vowels; and they generally modify ‘verbs or participles in line-final position (which are taken or adapted from the prose)’. ²⁶ Griffith concludes that this group of adverbs ‘mainly comprises alliterative fillers deployed in a methodical fashion to convert a verb into a whole b-verse’. ²⁷ Such adverbs are added, it seems, not only to pad out the b-verse, but also to provide alliteration where the existing element(s) of the b-verse, taken from the prose, do not alliterate with the material taken from the prose which falls into the a-verse.

The words inne and innan (‘within’, ‘in’, ‘inside’), adverbs which can also be used as prepositions, would have offered the Metres-poet exactly the alliterative and metrical padding which Griffith describes. ²⁸ Though some occurrences of inne could be dismissed as alliterative fillers, there are occasions where, though inne does fulfil a functional, alliterative role, its effect is not limited to the satisfaction of these metrical requirements. On a number of occasions, inne serves to highlight the emphatically interior location of the mind, as in the example from Metre 5 below. In quotations from the Metres, bold text indicates noteworthy additions made during the versification process, and bold italicized text indicates noteworthy material which is present in the prose source.

Forðæm simle bið

se modsefa miclum gebunden

mid gedrefnesse, gif hine dreccean mot

þissa yfla hwæðer, ²⁹ innan swencan;

forðæm þa twegen tregan teoð tosomne

wið þæt mod foran mistes dwoleman,

þæt hit seo ece ne mot innan geondscinan

sunne for ðæm sweartum mistum, ær ðæm hi geswiðrad weorðen. ³⁰

In this metre, Wisdom (the Old English version of Lady Philosophy) warns Boetius of the dark mists which prevent the light of the ‘eternal sun’ from illuminating the mind within. Only with this interior illumination will Mod (‘mind’), as Boetius is sometimes known, be able to discover what it seeks. Innan features on two occasions in this passage, forming an envelope pattern. ³¹ On the first occasion (41b), innan alliterates with yfla, a word taken directly from the prose, perhaps suggesting that innan was introduced in the b-verse to provide alliteration with yfla, as all vowels can alliterate with y in Old English poetry. ³² The occurrence of innan in 41b accords exactly with Griffith’s observations about common adverbs added by the poet: it alliterates in the first position in the b-verse, begins with a vowel, and modifies the line-final verb swencan, which has been adapted from ricsian (B6.18) (‘govern’) in the prose. ³³ Therefore it might be assumed that, here, innan was added simply to fill an alliterative gap and to convert the single verb swencan into a complete b-verse.

However, the addition of innan, which locates the error caused by the two evils of excessive pride and despair within the mind, amplifies the theme of interiority and establishes the inner self as a site of vigilant scrutiny. The image of the heavenly beasts ‘innan eagena full’ from the Old English Pastoral Care comes to mind here. ³⁴ Moreover, the second occurrence of innan in this passage (44b) does not fulfil alliterative requirements in quite the same way, as it alliterates with ece in the a-verse, which is, like innan, additional. The addition of the second innan contributes to an elaborate envelope pattern, in which both b-verses (41 and 44) are made up of innan plus an infinitive, with the infinitive verb in each case governed by ‘mot’. The subject of motan (‘be permitted’) in the first instance is ‘either of these evils’; in the second, the ‘eternal sun’. As such, the envelope pattern neatly contrasts the two combatants: the evils which create the dark mist of confusion within the mind, and the eternal sun, which should illuminate the mind. The use of innan in this envelope pattern, while perhaps initially motivated by alliterative requirements, heightens the contrast between the forces of dark and light found in the prose, and specifically locates this struggle within the mind. This is not a conflict which takes place on the surface of the mind, but rather plays out in the hidden recesses of the inner self; this attention to introspection replaces the more general self-awareness advocated by the corresponding Old English prose chapter (B6).

Metre 16 likewise emphasizes the importance of monitoring one’s inner self:

Se þe wille anwald agon, ðonne sceal he ærest tilian

þæt he his selfes on sefan age

anwald innan, þy læs he æfre sie

his unþeawum eall underðyded. ³⁵

Lenz argues of both Metre 25 and Metre 16 that the ‘stronger emphasis upon the mind than the individual in these meters indicates that the state of the mind influences the life of the individual’. ³⁶ However, the pronouns in these opening lines of the metre resist straightforward interpretation. As sefa (‘mind, heart’) is a masculine noun, it is not clear where ‘he’ and ‘his’ belong: to the individual, or the mind. In one reading, the sefa is in danger of being subordinated to the vices of the individual; in the other, a wilful sefa endangers the individual. This blurring of agency is characteristic of the Metres-poet’s ambiguous portrait of the mind, which appears as both a responsible arbiter of inner virtue and a site of interior moral disruption.

In any case, I would add to Lenz’s observation that it is not just the state of the mind that is emphasized, but the innermost depths of the mind. While the poet may have decided to introduce innan because of its alliterative potential with anwald, which is present in the prose source (B29.79), the addition serves to develop the image of the mind as a physical space with (possibly concealed) depths. ³⁷ The phrase on sefan, also additional in the verse, likewise contributes to this effect. Saltzman highlights the use of spatial markers in the bark-and-pith metaphor in the Old English Pastoral Care: ‘on ðam oferbrædelse his modes’; ‘on hiera modes rinde’; ‘on ðam piðan’; ‘on uteweardum his mode’ (emphasis added). He shows that the passage ‘focuses on the physical spaces within the mind’ and as such is able to create ‘a highly material map of the mind’. ³⁸ I would argue that the use of the spatial markers on and innan in Metre 16 produces a similar effect. While the poet deals elegantly with incorporealities elsewhere in his adaptation of Boethius’s De consolatione, ³⁹ here his preoccupation is with a material model of the mind, one which may be indebted to the psychology of vernacular poetry.

As Leslie Lockett and Malcolm Godden have shown, Old English poetry tends to depict the mind as a part of the body: it does not exist before the creation of the flesh, and it dies when the body dies; significantly, it is distinct from the soul. ⁴⁰ For example, the poet of The Seafarer describes how the body will not be able to carry out its various operations after death: it will not be able to taste sweetness, nor feel pain, ‘ne hond onhreran ne mid hyge þencan’ (The Seafarer 96). ⁴¹ The hyge (‘mind’), then, is analogous to those organs which experience taste and touch and, like the tongue and the skin, it does not survive death. According to Lockett, although the author of the prose Boethius was influenced by this vernacular distinction between mortal mod (‘mind’) and immortal sawol (‘soul’), the translation follows Boethius’s philosophy of the unitary soul: that is, that the mind and the soul are both part of the same incorporeal entity, and both live on after the death of the body. ⁴² Unsurprisingly, the Metres show far greater indebtedness to the poetic tradition than the prose Boethius, yet the poet also maintains much of the philosophy of the ultimate Latin source. The mind of the Metres is one element of the transcendental, unitary soul and, at the same time, the flesh-bound hyge of vernacular poetry.

The sefa (‘mind, heart’) in Metre 16, surrounded by the spatial markers on and innan (the latter in a stressed, alliterating position), does not seem to belong to this incorporeal model of the unitary soul. It has more in common with the mod of vernacular poetry, which is corporeal, alienable from the transcendental soul, and often depicted as a container. The ‘mind-as-container’ motif, as it is termed by Britt Mize, is employed on several occasions in the Metres: for example, wordhord (CM6.1b) (‘store of words’); breostcofa (CM9.32b) (‘breast-chamber’); gewitloca (CM10.12b and CM12.26b) (‘intellect-locker’); incofa (CM22.18a) (‘inner chamber’); runcofa (CM22.59a) (‘secret chamber’); and ferhðloca (CM24.5a) (‘heart-locker’). ⁴³ All of these compounds present the mind as a separate, enclosed space within the self. As in the Pastoral Care, where ‘on ðam piðan bið oðer gehyded’, this interior space has the potential to conceal knowledge, vices and desires from the outer self. ⁴⁴

ON MODE AND ON BREOSTUM

The preposition on, then, serves to frame the mind or heart in spatial terms, as in the example from Metre 16 (on sefan, CM16.2). This simple formula of on plus a word for the mind appears throughout Old English poetry, as a handful examples will demonstrate; in every case, the word for mind or heart also appears in the Metres, similarly modified by on.

Ða wearð folctoga forht on mode

(Daniel 724). ⁴⁵

Beadohilde ne wæs hyre broþra deaþ

on sefan swa sar swa hyre sylfre þing

(Deor 8–9). ⁴⁶

Þa ðær Iudas wæs

on modsefan miclum geblissod. ⁴⁷

(Elene 874b–875)

hwæþere him on ferhþe greow

breosthord blodreow. ⁴⁸

(Beowulf 1718b–1719a)

he nyste ræda nanne

on gewitlocan. ⁴⁹

(Judith 68b–69a)

Wearð me on hige leohte

utan and innan, siðþan ic þæs ofætes onbat. ⁵⁰

(Genesis B 676b–677)

The use of on (‘in’) in these examples creates what Mize calls ‘subjectivizing moments’, drawing us into the mind of the individual in question. ⁵¹ The compound gewitloca (literally ‘intellect-locker’) from Judith is an excellent illustration of the mind-as-container motif, with the mind imagined as a receptacle for the intellect. In the example from Genesis B the mind is understood to have an outer and inner part, just as in the bark-and-pith metaphor in the Old English Pastoral Care. Especially relevant for the Metres, with its emphasis on clear perception, is the fact that both parts of Eve’s hyge (‘mind’), the inner and the outer, can be illuminated.

Innovations made by the Metres-poet emphasize that it is this inner mind of the individual, apparently distinct from their outer, superficial self, which has the capacity to know true happiness, as in Metre 12:

Þu meaht eac mycle þy eð on modsefan

soða gesælða sweotolor gecnawan ⁵²

In this example, the phrase on modsefan may have been added by the Metres-poet to alliterate with the words meaht and mycle, drawn from the B-text: ‘And eac micle ði eð þu miht þa soðan gesælða gecnawan’ (B23.12–13). ⁵³ However, the addition of this phrase also serves to locate the very act of recognizing true happiness within the modsefa. The simple on [mode] formula (in which mod stands for any word for the mind or heart) is a shorthand for the mind-as-container motif, evoking an enclosure which can be kept separate and hidden from the self.

The Metres-poet’s use of adverbs and prepositions such as innan and on, then, contributes to a material model of the mind which seems to have its roots in vernacular poetry. As the compound breosthord in the above example from Beowulf illustrates, however, Old English poets could go further than this in their spatialisation of the mind, often specifically locating the mind within the breast. ⁵⁴ Using a variant of the on [mode] formula, on breostum (‘in the breast’), the Metres-poet heightens the materiality of his model of the mind, adding an almost fleshly dimension. In Metre 21, Wisdom laments that treasures will not illuminate the eyes of the mind, enabling them to perceive true happiness:

ac hi swiðor get

monna gehwelces modes eagan

ablendað on breostum, þonne he hi on beorhtran gedon. ⁵⁵

As in Metre 5, the inner self struggles against forces which would prevent it from seeing clearly. Here, though, interiority is given a specific spatial location through the additional phrase on breostum, which may have been included to alliterate with ablendað (see B34.200), although two alliterating elements in the a-verse are by no means essential. The effect of the phrase on breostum here is to locate the eyes of the mind, the very faculty which searches for transcendental truth, within the breast: a material space within the body. ⁵⁶

A similar materializing effect can be identified in Metre 19, in which the recognition of true happiness is located not just in the possibly abstract space of the mod or sefa but, specifically, within the breast:

Ac ðæt is earmlicost ealra þinga

þæt þa dysegan sint on gedwolan wordene

efne swa blinde  þæt hi on breostum ne magon

eaðe gecnawan hwær þa ecan good,

soða gesælða, sindon gehydde. ⁵⁷

Again, the adverbial phrase on breostum could be dismissed as an alliterative filler, introduced to find alliteration for blinde. However, the location of both the eyes of the mind and the individual’s ability to know on breostum lends a material dimension to Mod’s journey towards enlightenment, situating the means of divine revelation within the chest cavity. However, while the use of the formulas on [mode] and on breostum can be seen to draw upon the tradition of vernacular poetry, the mind of the Metres is not wholly in line with the container-like mind of Old English poetry. The container-minds of this poetic tradition are alienable from the self, lockable repositories of valuable knowledge and dangerous secrets. Though the Metres-poet is certainly in dialogue with this model of the mind, he also draws upon the concept of the unitary soul found in both De consolatione and his Old English prose source which, as Lockett has demonstrated, is at odds with the vernacular location of the mind within the breast. ⁵⁸ The mind of the Metres belongs to this unified self, responsible for moral introspection and self-scrutiny, but at the same time it resembles the hidden container within that self, potentially disruptive and disobedient.

METRE 22: SEEKING WITHIN THE SELF

Metre 19 laments the foolishness of those who are so blind ‘on breostum’ that they do not know where true happiness is gehydde (‘hidden’). In Metre 22, Boetius learns that this true happiness can be found within the self. This metre draws not only upon the Platonic philosophy of De consolatione to express this truth, but also the mind-as-container motif from vernacular poetry, which, while fundamentally incompatible with the Platonic idea of anamnesis, nonetheless offers a fitting model for imagining the process of introspection and recollection as described by Boethius.

As in the corresponding Latin metre (Book 3, Metre 11), Plato is invoked in Metre 22 to support the idea that a grain of truth is buried within every mind, though it may be concealed by useless cares. Everyone has the ability to access this grain, and thus remember the truth, if they seek within the self. ⁵⁹ The vernacular model of the mind is inherently inconsistent with this Platonic philosophy: corporeal in nature, this mod does not pre-exist or survive the body after death, and as such would be an inadequate receptacle for the Platonic grain of transcendental truth. In spite of this, the vernacular mind-as-container motif offers a surprisingly apt framework for the exploration of Plato’s theory, as it implies a secret chamber within the body of which, like the pith of the bark-and-pith metaphor, the outer self may be quite ignorant. Mize argues that the mind-as-container motif, which appears on a number of occasions in Metre 22, is not necessary for ‘the sense of the verse adaptation’ in this metre; rather, he identifies a trend also found in The Metrical Psalms, whereby the motif appears ‘to have been added for aesthetic reasons by Anglo-Saxon writers drawn to a traditional way of representing the mind that they felt was appropriate to the stylized poetic register’. ⁶⁰ While Mize suggests that the motif has only a decorative, superficial function in the Metres, I would argue that, in line with many of the poet’s apparently functional additions, this vocabulary serves to articulate the complex model of the mind in the Metres, and to amplify the themes of interiority and introspection found in the prose source.

When describing the useless contents of the mind which prevent it from reaching the truth, the poet employs the word incofa as a replacement for the more neutral mod of the prose source (B35.9):

He ongit siððan

yfel and unnet eal þæt he hæfde

on his incofan æror lange ⁶¹

The prefix in, which fulfils the alliterative requirements of the line, serves to highlight the significance of the inner part of the mind in the quest for the grain of truth, while the second element, cofa, implies that this inner mind is something which might be hidden, perhaps from the outer self. The sense of concealment evoked by the mind-as-container motif here is echoed elsewhere in this metre, when the poet employs the compound runcofa (literally, ‘secret chamber’) to describe the location of hidden rihtwisness (‘reason’):

Forðæm hit is riht spell þæt us reahte gio

ald uðwita, ure Platon.

He cwæð þætte æghwilc ungemyndig

rihtwisnesse hine hræðe sceolde

oft gewendan into sinum

modes gemynd ; he mæg siððan

on his runcofan rihtwisnesse

findan on ferhte fæste gehydde

modes sines mæst and swiðost

mid gedræfnesse dogora gehwilce

and mid hefinesse his lichoman

and mid þæm bisegum  þe on breostum styreð

mon on mode mæla gehwylce. ⁶²

Lenz suggests that runcofa, which appears nowhere else in Old English literature, ‘transforms the concept of memory from a familiar force within the individual into an unknown and sacred presence’. ⁶³ Far from a superficial or decorative poetic technique, this mind-as-container vocabulary amplifies the idea of the inner mind as a repository which can contain both sacred truth and evil or useless thoughts. Although the corresponding Old English prose chapter (B35) does not make use of the mind-as-container motif, Boethius’s Latin metre does describe the mind as a thesaurus (‘treasury’). ⁶⁴ Whether or not the poet was aware of the parallel, the choice of runcofa in this metre recalls the image of the treasure store from the original Latin verse; however, the brief allusion to the mind as a treasury in the Latin becomes a central motif in the Old English adaptation of the verse, deepening the sense of the mind as a hidden and mysterious chamber within the self.

The additional phrases on breostum and on mode in this passage may have been selected in order to fill metrical or alliterative gaps, but their effect, presenting the mind in spatial, even fleshly terms, is striking nonetheless. Likewise, the phrase modes gemynd (‘mind’s memory’), in place of the gemynd (‘memory’) of the prose (B35.26), contributes to the idea that the mind has its own hidden repositories of memory which may have been forgotten by the outer self. The mind in this metre resembles the mind of vernacular poetry, a chamber separate and secret from the outer self, lodged within the breast. Nonetheless, in line with the philosophy of the Latin source, the mind is responsible for monitoring this concealed enclosure: ‘gesecge his mode’, Wisdom instructs, that it can find within itself all that it previously sought without (CM22.13–15). ⁶⁵

Metre 22 reveals that the eyes of the mind must turn inward to discover forgotten truth, but as the Metres show, not every mind knows this. In Metre 19, Wisdom describes the way in which people are fooled into thinking that they have found truth:

þonne hi habbað  þæt hiora hige seceð

wenað þonne swa gewitlease

ðæt hi þa soðan gesælða hæbben. ⁶⁶

Here, the hyge (‘mind’) seeks out true happiness: but it is looking in the wrong place. The minds of the foolish do not understand that they need to be reflexive, to look within themselves. ⁶⁷ This hyge resembles, rather, the mind or heart of The Seafarer:

Forþon nu min hyge hweorfeð ofer hreþerlocan,

min modsefa mid mereflode

ofer hwæles eþel hweorfeð wide,

eorþan sceatas, cymeð eft to me

gifre ond grædig ⁶⁸

Just as the bird-like mind of the seafarer, the mind of the foolish man seeks fulfilment in external things: as Mod learns, over the course of the Old English Boethius, true fulfilment can only be found when the mind looks not outwards, but inwards. It is no surprise, then, that the minds of the foolish come back, like the seafarer’s, ‘gifre ond grædig’, unfulfilled. ⁶⁹

The desire of the hyge to be free of the breast, to fly over the sea and the surface of the earth, is typical of the vernacular depiction of the mind or heart as wilful and passionate, requiring restraint. ⁷⁰ While Metre 16 does urge that worldly authority must be counted as meaningless without sufficient rule of the inner self, the Metres-poet tends not to present the mind as unruly, struggling to get free and in need of constant restraint, as it appears in much Old English elegiac verse, in particular. Two near-identical poetic maxims exemplify this vernacular tradition of restraining the unruly mind: ‘Stieran mon sceal strongum mode’ (The Seafarer 190a) and ‘Styran sceal mon strongum mode’ (Maxims I 50a). ⁷¹ Here, the mind is presented as an independent entity which must be governed by some other part of the self. The lines from Metre 22, ‘mid þæm bisegum þe on breostum styreð / mon on mode mæla gehwylce’ (CM22.64–5), echo these gnomic statements aurally, though the similar-sounding verbs stieran/styran and styrian have quite different meanings, ‘steer, restrain’ and ‘stir’, respectively. ⁷² While the proverb advocates steering or restraining the wilful mind, Metre 22 makes the rather unsettling observation that troubles stir the mind from within. Thomas Bredehoft has argued that the Metres-poet plundered Old English poetry in his versification of the prose source, so it is certainly possible that the poet is drawing on a memory of this maxim here. ⁷³

Regardless of whether the poet knew The Seafarer or Maxims I, it is clear that these lines serve quite a different purpose from the universalizing statement found in those two poems. For the Metres-poet, care of the inner self is not about steering the wayward mind in the right direction; rather the mind, as one part of the unitary soul, is responsible for examining its own inner depths, in order to clear away the troubles which prevent the individual from perceiving hidden truth and reason. Therefore, the Metres-poet is at once in contact with the vernacular tradition, and departing from it: while he locates the container-like mind within the breast, this mind is not the wilful hyge of vernacular poetry, but rather one component of the unitary soul.

As outlined above, the poet’s depiction of the inner mind as a container, or contained within the breast, serves to complement the theory of recollection found in the Metres, which is at its most prominent in Metre 22. The mind-as-container model allows the poet to present the mind as buried deep within the chest cavity, or as a container with its own hidden depths. The adverbs and prepositions inne, innan and on all contribute to this image of the mind-as-container, with the grain of truth buried deep within. In Metre 25, for example, Wisdom describes the effect of immoderate pleasures on proud kings:

Þonne hi gebolgene weorðað, him wyrð on breostum inne

beswungen sefa on hraðre mid ðæm swiðan welme

hatheortnesse ⁷⁴

This excellent example of what Lockett terms the hydraulic model of the mind is also found in the prose translation: ‘and þonne hi weorðað gebolgen þonne wyrð þæt mod beswungen mid þam welme þære hatheortnesse’ (B37.19–20). ⁷⁵ However, while the prose features only one word for the mind, mod, the metre includes three separate terms for the mind or something which contains it: the sefa (‘mind’) is in the hreþer (‘heart, breast’) and both, it seems, are within the breost (‘breast’). Michael Matto observes that the word hreþer ‘fairly unambiguously refers to the physical holding place of the mind or soul – that is, the chest cavity’. ⁷⁶ The sefa, then, is buried within two physical containers, firstly the hreþer, and then the breost. Following not long after Metre 22, this image of the mind deep within the breast, while ultimately drawn from the tradition of vernacular poetry, in fact supports the Platonic concept of the mind found in De consolatione, in which the grain of truth lies buried in forgotten depths.

CONCLUSION: THE MEMORY OF WISDOM

As this article has demonstrated, words and phrases in the Metres which might be written off as alliterative or metrical fillers can in fact be shown to develop the imagery and ideas found in De consolatione and the Old English prose translation. The increased focus on interiority and the inner mind is just one area where the poet exploits the necessities of the versification process in order to amplify the themes of the prose, or at times subtly shift the direction of the argument, and it is to be hoped that greater attention will be paid to the skill and artistry of the Metres-poet in other areas, even when the material he introduces seems to have been motivated by the functional requirements of alliteration or metre. One intriguing example of the Metres-poet’s thoughtful adaptation of the prose source can be found in Metre 7, in which Wisdom teaches Mod that one must build the house of wisdom on solid ground:

Ac se ðe ecan agan wille

soðan gesælða, he sceal swiðe flion

ðisse worulde wlite, wyrce him siððan

his modes hus, þær he mæge findan

eaðmetta stan unigmet fæstne,

grundweal gearone; se toglidan ne þearf,

þeah hit wecge wind woruldearfoða

oððe ymbhogena ormete ren,

forþæm on þære dene drihten selfa

þara eadmetta eardfæst wunigað,

þær se wisdom a wunað on gemyndum. ⁷⁷

The conclusion to the parallel section in B12 reads: ‘forþam þe Crist eardað on þære dene eadmodnesse and on þam gemynde wisdomes’ (B12.16–18). ⁷⁸ The version in the B-text is arguably ambiguous: what does it mean for Christ to live in ‘the memory of wisdom’? Metre 7 makes far greater sense, especially when viewed from the point of view of the Platonic Metre 22; in fact, it could even be said that this early metre actually anticipates Metre 22, with its reference to wisdom dwelling within the memory, in the same place as God. In Metre 7 wisdom becomes a counterpart to humility: the philosophical concept of anamnesis, discovering forgotten wisdom within one’s memory, is given a Christian hue, in accord with the increased reference to Christianity in the prose translation. ⁷⁹ The Metres-poet, then, does more than mechanically churn out metrically adequate versions of the appropriate sections of the prose Boethius. Rather, the Metres offer an ambitious discourse on the relationship between the outer self and the inner depths of the mind.