On the Principles of Arithmetic and On the Principles of Music

PRINCIPLES OF ARITHMETIC, BOOK I, PREFACE.

Hardly any science is so complete in all its parts, or so self-sufficient and reliant on its own resources, that it does not also require the help of other arts. For in sculpting statues from marble, the labor of carving the mass is one thing, the method of shaping the figure is another, 5 and the brilliance of the finished work does not await the hand of the same artisan. But for painting, the panel is entrusted to the hands of carpenters; waxes are gathered by rustic observation; the dyes for colors are sought out through the skill of merchants; and linens worked in industrious weaving-houses provide multifaceted material. Is not the same thing 10 seen also in the instruments of war? One man sharpens the points for arrows; for another, a strong breastplate groans on the black anvil; while yet another buys the coverings for a raw shield-boss The "umbonis" or boss is the central protruding part of a shield. to be fastened to the disc of his own labor. Thus, a single art is perfected by many arts. But the completion of our labor moves toward a far easier outcome. 15 For you alone shall place your hand upon the final work, in which there is no need to worry about a consensus of judges. For however much this judgment is proven to be refined by many arts, it is nevertheless brought to its height by a single examination.

You may therefore test how much labor, drawn out 20 through long periods of leisure, has added to us in this study; whether the quickness of a trained mind can grasp the elusive nature of subtle things; and whether the thinness of a meager style is sufficient to unfold those things which are obstructed by obscure sentences. In this matter, I also seek the benefit of another's judgment, 24 since you, being most skilled in both literatures original: "utrarumque... litterarum." Boethius refers to his mastery of both Greek and Latin, the hallmark of the late Roman intellectual., are able by your pronouncement alone to prescribe to those ignorant of the Greek tongue how much they should dare to judge regarding us. Yet, not being subject to the rules of another, I do not bind myself by the most narrow law of translation; rather, wandering a little more freely, I follow 30 another’s path, but not his footprints. This is Boethius's famous declaration of his method: he is not providing a word-for-word translation, but a creative adaptation that captures the "sense" of the original Greek. For those things which were discussed at greater length by Nicomachus Nicomachus of Gerasa (c. 60–120 AD), a mathematician whose "Introduction to Arithmetic" served as Boethius's primary source. regarding numbers, I have moderated...

1 indigua [in manuscript] a. 3 effingendis [in manuscript] f. effigendis [in manuscript] r. 4 est omitted in d, l. 8 solatia [in manuscript] d. 10 imbellorum [in manuscript] c. || in bellorum also in f, r. 11 thorax [in manuscript] f. 12 crudium bonis [in manuscript] a, b, s. || infigens demercatur [in manuscript] c. 17 multis artibus hoc iudicium [in manuscript] f, multis hoc iudicium artibus [in manuscript] s. 18 cumulamur [in manuscript] c, r. 24 mihi in s in the margin || alieni mihi [in manuscript] c. 25 linguarum (above the line: or litterarum) [in manuscript] s. 28 obnoxiis [in manuscript] a. || ipse [in manuscript] f.