Written while Boethius was in prison awaiting execution, The Consolation of Philosophy consists of a dialogue in alternating prose and verse between the author, lamenting his own sorrows, and a majestic woman, who is the incarnation of his guardian Philosophy. The woman develops a modified form of Neoplatonism and Stoicism, demonstrating the unreality of earthly fortunes, then proving that the highest good and the highest happiness are in God, and reconciling the apparent contradictions concerning the existence of everything.