An Assortment of Random Stuff

You never know when some little bit of knowledge is going to be of use...

Monday, March 06, 2006

Here are the lyrics in English to the song O FORTUNA from Carmina Burana.

Carmina Burana - (Means Songs Profane)

SONG: FORTUNE, EMPRESS OF THE WORLD

1. O Fortune

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
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 string man,
everyone weep with me!

2. I bemoan the wounds of Fortune

I bemoan the wounds of Fortune
with weeping eyes,
for the gifts she made me
she perversely takes away.
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-coloured flowers of prosperity;
though I may have flourished
happy and blessed,
now I fall from the peak
deprived of glory.

The wheel of Fortune turns;
I go down, demeaned;
another is raised up;
far too high up
sits the king at the summit -
let him fear ruin!
for under the axis is written
Queen Hecuba.

---------------------
O Fortuna
velut Luna
statu variabilis
semper crecis
aut decrescis
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem
egestatem
potestatem
dissolvit ut galciem

Sors immanis
et inanis
rota tu volubilis
status malus
vana salus
semper dissolubilis
obumbrata
et velata
mich quoque niteris
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.

Sors Salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria
est effectus
et defectus
semper in angaria
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite
quod per sortem
sternit fortem
mecum omnes plangite!