attention due,
Then pray I, dear last-born, let them rejoice
At least to find a music in my voice.

For in this I desire to say no other according to what is said above,
except "Oh, men, you who cannot see the meaning of this Song, do not
therefore refuse it; but pay attention to its beauty, which is great,
both for construction, which belongs to the Grammarians; and for the
order of the discourse, which belongs to the Rhetoricians; as well as
for the rhythm of its parts, which belongs to the Musicians." For
which things he who looks well can see that there may be beauty in it.
And this is the entire Literal meaning of the first Song which is
prepared for the first dish in my Banquet.

CHAPTER XIII.

Since the Literal meaning has been sufficiently explained, we must now
proceed to the Allegorical and true exposition. And, therefore,
beginning again from the first head, I say that when I had lost the
chief delight of my Soul in former time, I was left so stung with
sadness that no consolation whatever availed me. Nevertheless, after
some time, my mind, reasoning with itself to heal itself, took heed,
since neither my own nor that of another availed to comfort it, to
turn to the method which a certain disconsolate one had adopted when
he looked for Consolation. And I set myself to read that book of
Boethius, not known to many, in which, when a captive exile, he had
consoled himself. And, again, hearing that Tullius had written another
book, in which, treating of Friendship, he had spoken words for the
consolation of Laelius, a most excellent man, on the death of his
friend Scipio, I set myself to read it. And although at first it was
difficult to me to enter into their meaning, yet, finally, I entered
into it so much as the knowledge of grammar that I possessed, together
with some slight power of intellect, enabled me to do: by which power
of intellect I formerly beheld many things almost like a person in a
dream, as may be seen in the Vita Nuova. And as it is wont to be that
a man goes seeking for silver, and beyond his purpose he finds gold,
whose hidden cause appears not perhaps without the Divine Will; I, who
sought to console myself, found not only a remedy for my tears, but
words of authors and of sciences and of books; reflecting on which I
judged well that Philosophy, who was the Lady of these authors, of
these sciences, and of these books, might be a supreme thing. And I
imagined her in th