The Consolation of Philosophy was, throughout the Middle Ages and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the sixteenth century, the scholar's familiar companion. Few books have exercised a wider influence in their time. It has been translated into every European tongue, and into English nearly a dozen times. The great work of Boethius, with its alternate prose and verse, skilfully fitted together like dialog and chorus in a Greek play, is unique in literature and ought not to be forgotten.