Quotation
Last reviewed:
“If you have come to the wheel of Fortune, you must accept her turns.”
Boethius · Late Roman philosophy · Medieval · c. 524
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes Fortune's speech as a hard consistency: anyone who took her gifts took the terms, and the terms include loss, so outrage at the wheel mistakes a turning mechanism for a broken promise. Philosophy is not yet at her own remedy. She is stripping the prisoner's complaint. A rival reading hears a cruel demand to be grateful for ruin, but the voice is Fortune's, staged by Philosophy, and the book will go on to relocate happiness away from the wheel; The image is in book two, prose 2.
Did Boethius really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A compression of Philosophy's speech in Consolation, book two, prose 2, not one famous sentence in a standard translation. Philosophy speaks as Fortune, reminding the prisoner that her wheel turns. The Latin argument is secure. This English is a paraphrase.
Where it comes from
Consolation of Philosophy II, prose 2
Approximate date: c. 524.
How to use it
A business in Margate that expanded while the season was kind, and calls the quiet winter a betrayal, has accepted the wheel in the good months. Philosophy's staged speech says the turns were the deal. It does not say the winter is just, or that the staff deserve it; It says the shock of change is partly a refusal to remember what kind of good was being enjoyed.
A mindset reading
The sentence is a poor comfort if it is handed to someone in grief as the whole of the Consolation. It is a first move, spoken in Fortune's persona, against the idea that luck had a duty to stay. The rest of the book argues that a good Fortune can confiscate was never the self's true good; Quoting only the wheel produces a tougher and thinner doctrine than the dialogue.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is Fortune's wheel, the image of a power that raises and throws down by turns, which Philosophy puts into Fortune's own mouth. Book two uses the speech to shame the prisoner's selective memory. Later books move the good into what cannot be turned. This English compresses the speech and is marked as a paraphrase, not as a single canonical line.
- change
- resilience
- happiness
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes Fortune's speech as a hard consistency: anyone who took her gifts took the terms, and the terms include loss, so outrage at the wheel mistakes a turning mechanism for a broken promise. Philosophy is not yet at her own remedy. She is stripping the prisoner's complaint. A rival reading hears a cruel demand to be grateful for ruin, but the voice is Fortune's, staged by Philosophy, and the book will go on to relocate happiness away from the wheel; The image is in book two, prose 2.
Did Boethius really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A compression of Philosophy's speech in Consolation, book two, prose 2, not one famous sentence in a standard translation. Philosophy speaks as Fortune, reminding the prisoner that her wheel turns. The Latin argument is secure. This English is a paraphrase.
Which work is it in?
Consolation of Philosophy II, prose 2 Approximate date: c. 524.