like the moon
The state constantly changing,
always growing
or decreasing;
Detestable life
now difficult
and then easy
Deceptive sharp mind;
poverty
power
it melts them like ice.
Fate—monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
stand malevolent,
vain is the help
and always likely to fade to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game,
my bare back
I bring to your villainy.
Fate, in health
and in virtue,
is now against me,
driven on
and weighted down,
always in the vale of tears (Angaria).
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating string;
since Fate
strikes down the strong,
everyone weep with me!
...I mourn the blows of Fortune with flowing eyes, because her gifts she has treacherously taken back from me. Opportunity is rightly described as having hair on her forehead, but there usually follows the bald patch at the back.
ReplyDeleteOn the throne of Fortune I had sat elated, crowned with the gay flower of prosperity; however much I flourished, happy and blessed, now I have fallen from the pinnacle, deprived of my glory.
The wheel of Fortune turns; I sink, debased; another is raised up; lifted too high, a king sits on the topólet him beware of ruin! Under the axle we read, Queen Hecuba.