Speaking of Fortuna

Video Find of the Day

I think people in the Middle Ages were way ahead of us in some respects. For one thing, they had a finer sense of the innate horror of life. Bad things didn't just happen to people on TV for them.

Carmina Burana @Carl Orff



English Translation

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are constantly changing,

ever waxing
and waning;
hateful life

first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;

poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.

Fate - monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,

you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,

shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;

now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.

Fate is against me
in health
and virtue,

driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.

So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;

since Fate
strikes down the strong man,
everyone weep with me!