Friday, March 13, 2009 - 21:56
it varies slightly from translation to translation depending on what source you use, but basically it's this:
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 turning wheel,
you are malevolent,
your favor is idle
and always fades,
shadowed,
veiled,
you plague me too.
I bare my back
for the sport
of your wickedness.
In prosperity
or in virtue
fate is against me,
Both in passion
and in weakness
fate always enslaves us.
So at this hour
pluck the vibrating strings;
because fate
brings down even the strong,
everyone weep with me.