How to Cope: An Ancient Guide to Enduring Hardship - Boethius, Philip Freeman (Translator)

Written by Boethius, Philip Freeman (Translator)
Read by Richard Trinder
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers

Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
Release date: 09-30-25

A vivid and accessible new translation of essential selections from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy

What do you do when your life has fallen apart? Fifteen hundred years ago, a Roman nobleman named Boethius asked this question as he was sitting in a prison cell waiting to die, accused—probably unjustly—of treason. Boethius had been a rich and powerful man with all a person could want in life, but now he had lost everything. Shaken, he wondered how such terrible misfortune could have happened to him and why life was so unfair. When Philosophy herself appears in his cell and confronts Boethius, the conversation that follows between the two on the nature of evil and why humans suffer is as powerful and inspiring today as it was to its first readers. In How to Cope, Philip Freeman presents a lively modern translation of essential selections from Boethius’s classic.

This translation vividly captures Boethius’s journey from bitterness and anger to reconciliation and peace, showing how ancient philosophy, especially Stoicism, can help listeners deal with adversity in their own lives. The book reveals the qualities that have made The Consolation of Philosophy one of the most popular and influential works of classical and world literature, and an inspiration to countless writers, including Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and Chaucer.