On such a one I should not have spent my pains for naught.

But this is one nurtured in the Eleatic and Academic philosophies.

Nay, get ye gone, ye sirens, whose sweetness lasteth not; leave him for my muses to tend and heal!' At these words of upbraiding, the whole band, in deepened sadness, with downcast eyes, and blushes that confessed their shame, dolefully left the chamber.
But I, because my sight was dimmed with much weeping, and I could not tell who was this woman of authority so commanding--I was dumfoundered, and, with my gaze fastened on the earth, continued silently to await what she might do next.

Then she drew near me and sat on the edge of my couch, and, looking into my face all heavy with grief and fixed in sadness on the ground, she bewailed in these words the disorder of my mind: FOOTNOTES: [A] [Greek: P] (P) stands for the Political life, the life of action; [Greek: Th] (Th) for the Theoretical life, the life of thought.
[B] The Stoic, Epicurean, and other philosophical sects, which Boethius regards as heterodox.

See also below, ch.iii., p.