Oh Fortuna

O Fortune

O Fortune
Like the moon
You are changeable,
Ever waxing
And waning;
Hateful life
Now hard
And then soft
The sharp mind
It melts poverty
And power
As ice melts away.

Fate, monstrous
And empty,
You whirling wheel,
You are malevolent,
Well-being is vain
Always dissolves
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 through Fate
The strong man
Is struck down,
Everyone weep with me!

I lament the wounds of Fortune
With weeping eyes
For the gifts she made me
She takes away rebelliously.
It is written in truth,
That she has a fine head of hair,
But when it comes to seizing an opportunity
She is bald.

On Fortune's throne
I used to sit raised up,
Crowned with the many-colored
Flowers of prosperity;
Though I may have flourished
Happy and blessed,
Now I fall from the peak
Deprived of glory.

Fortune's wheel turns:
I go down, demeaned;
Another is raised up;
Far too high up
The king sits at the summit
Beware ruin!
For under the axis
We read of Queen Hecuba.