The Consolation of Philosophy

I have not seen the Glasgow edition of the year 1751, to which readings of the Glasgow and Oxford codices are said to have been added. Theodor Obbarius (Jena 1843) used certain codices of little value; he compared the old editions and added to them what F. C. Freytag had gathered from versions in his Trost der Philosophie, aus d. Lat. des B. Consolation of Philosophy, from the Latin of Boethius (Riga 1794).

Many more codices were available to Rudolf Peiper for preparing the Teubner edition, which appeared in 1871. He rightly recognized that T was the best of his codices, such that, except for the part which Schepss eventually realized was supplied from codex W, one must not depart from its text very often; very often, however, the punctuation must be corrected. One may disregard the second edition that Peiper was preparing, since Augustus Engelbrecht correctly explained on page 4 that it would have been much worse. After Peiper's death, Georg Schepss undertook the task of editing the Consolation; he either examined or arranged for the examination of nearly three hundred and fifty codices, and he had six books, not used by Peiper, fully collated. Through his tireless labor and the commentary of Engelbrecht, which was cut short by Schepss's premature death...

1) I prefer the German version of I. H. Weingaertner (Lentz 1827), which is not to be disregarded, over that of Freytag; Richard Scheven's version (1893) was inserted into the University Library edition edited by Ph. Reclam. Better than these, to my mind, is the interpretation released by Maria Luisa Gothein, the widow of Eberhard Gothein, who died before the book appeared. It is titled: Boethius, Trost der Philosophie Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy (Berlin 1932); I myself addressed certain errors in a review inserted in Phil. Woch. 1933, 414 sqq. The Latin text is of almost no importance, since here and there it depends on Peiper, with consideration given to Engelbrecht, who will be mentioned shortly. Add the English versions, which were produced by Cooper (New York 1902) and H. R. James (London 1897); cf. G. Bertoni, Intorno a due volgarizzamenti di Boezio, Bull. Soc. fil. Rom. NS. I 5.
2) Usener (Anecd. Holderi p. 49): folternde Mißinterpunktion torturous mispunctuation.
3) Die Consolatio philosophiae des Boethius. Sitz.-Ber. d. Akad. Wien CXLIV 190 sqq. (III 1 sqq.) = Eng. His Boethiana in Wiener Stud. XXXIX 154 are indicated as Eng.3 — He rightly (see Eng. 54) disregarded the conjectures which Buresch (above p. VI, note 4) brought forward without just cause.
4) Regarding the minor works that pertain to the Consolation, see above p. X and below XXXI; furthermore, Jahresber. CXLI 138.