witty_pseudonym

O Fortuna translation- Stolen from
http://members.chello.se/hansdotter/carmina.html

O Fortune,
like the moon
with its changing phases,
you are ever growing
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.

When health
and virtue
are against me,
are only pain
and exhaustion,
forever in this vale of tears.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the string man,
everyone weep with me!