Carmina Burana [ O Fortuna ～ Fortune plango vulnera ]

Director: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Stars: Lucia Popp, John van Kesteren and Hermann Prey

Carmina Burana - Carl Orff

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298787/


O Fortuna

O how Fortune,
inopportune,
apes the moon's inconstancy:
waxing, waning,
losing, gaining,
life treats us detestably:
first oppressing
then caressing
shifts us like pawns in her play:
destitution,
restitution,
mixes and melts them away.

Fate, as vicious
as capricious,
whirling your merry-go-round:
evil doings,
worthless wooings,
crumble away to the ground:
darkly stealing,
unrevealing,
working against me you go:
for your measure
of foul pleasure
I bare my back to your blow.

Noble actions,
true transactions,
no longer fall to my lot:
powers to make me
then to break me
all play their part in your plot:
now seize your time -
waste no more time,
pluck these poor strings and let go:
since the strongest
fall the longest
let the world share in my woe.


Fortune plango vulnera

I cry the cruel cuts of Fate
with eyes worn red from weeping,
whose fickle favours travel straight
back into her keeping:
as ye read, so shall ye find -
luck comes curly-headed
from the front, but round behind
not a hair is threaded!

Dame Fortune once invited me
to enjoy her blessing:
to riches' throne exalted me,
caring and caressing:
but from maximum renown,
garlanded and fêted,
Fate stepped up and threw me down -
glory dissipated!

Fortune's wheel goes round and round,
down go all my talents;
others rising from the ground
fly too high to balance:
so beware Fate's old routine,
kings and lords and ladies -
for beneath her throne lies Queen
Hecuba in Hades.

CARMINA BURANA (PENGUIN CLASSICS)



O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.

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

Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!


Fortune plango vulnera
stillantibus ocellis
quod sua michi munera
subtrahit rebellis.
Verum est, quod legitur,
fronte capillata,
sed plerumque sequitur
Occasio calvata.

In Fortune solio
sederam elatus,
prosperitatis vario
flore coronatus;
quicquid enim florui
felix et beatus,
nunc a summo corrui
gloria privatus.

Fortune rota volvitur:
descendo minoratus;
alter in altum tollitur;
nimis exaltatus
rex sedet in vertice
caveat ruinam!
nam sub axe legimus
Hecubam reginam.