The various and mostly anonymous authors responsible for the collection of poems now known as the Carmina Burana were a motley assortment of disaffected monks, students and clerici vagrantes (‘wandering clergy’), often referred to collectively as ‘Goliards’, an obscure catch-all term for these writers of satirical and/or profane songs about love, sex, drinking, gambling and other vagaries of Fortune. The manuscript, once housed in the Bavarian monastery of Benediktbeuern, was first published in 1847 under the title Carmina Burana (‘Songs from Benediktbeuern’). In 1937, German composer Carl Orff (1895-1982) made a selection of the pieces set to new music. Orff’s opening lyric, O Fortuna – an invocation to fickle Fate – is the work’s signature piece, and has been used widely in films and TV.
Mark Walker
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!
O Fortune,
just like the moon
variable in state,
always waxing
or waning;
detestable life
now hardens
and then softens
the mind’s understanding as a joke;
it melts poverty,
power
as [the sun melts] ice.
O monstrous Fate
and empty,
you are a whirling wheel,
an evil condition,
a vain safety
always dissolving,
concealed
and veiled
you will also assail me
now through the game
of your villainy
I bear my naked back.
Fate of safety
and virtue
opposed to me;
always in servitude
there is affection
and its absence.
In this hour
without delay
touch the beat in my heart;
because through Fate
Fortune has overthrown the strong
all mourn with me now.
Chosen and translated by Mark Walker (www.pineapplepubs.co.uk).
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