O Fortuna

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are constantly changing,
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 strong man,
everyone weep with me!

English translation of a Latin poem, O Fortuna, from Carmina Burana, courtesy Wikipedia.

A fittingly dark rendition constructed by Carl Orff, and performed by the Berlin philharmonic, is perhaps the darkest composition I’ve ever listened to. There is a Seiji Ozawa’s version that is slightly faster in tempo, and then there is complete pop’ed version by Era. Each delightful in their own way.