Fate is against me in health and virtue driven on and weighted. est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. “Hail, most beautiful one, precious jewel, Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. (For a further explanation of the above poem, click here.)Īnd there’s also this mocking hymn that intentionally draws on language usually reserved for the Virgin Mary, only to apply the praises elsewhere: My council’s all furnished with drinkers, it is, to be one of the gamblers is my dearest wish, and whoever at dawn seeks me in the tavern come vespers, he’ll be stripped naked as Adam, and thus relieved of his shirt he’ll cry: Quos vero vincit, ii lti cedunt, non quidem ex defectu sed ex incremento. Here is a rather funny passage of a man making a confession to an Archbishop:Īnd here’s a rather unflattering portrait of an Abbot: Est igitur affectus (per generalem affectuum definitionem) imaginatio quatenus. I make all these handsome men love me against their will. Pedlar, give to me some rouge my cheeks to redden, till Hac in hora So at this hour sine mora without delay corde pulsum tangite pluck the vibrating strings quod per sortem since Fate sternit fortem, strikes down the string man, mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me!īut then there’s this passage (and many others like it!) from the 16th poem: Sors salutis Fate is against me et virtutis in health mihi nunc contraria, and virtue, est affectus driven on et defectus and weighted down, semper in angaria. driven on and weighted down, always enslaved. Sors immanis Fate – monstrous et inanis, and empty, rota tu volubilis, you whirling wheel, status malus, you are malevolent, vana salus well-being is vainsemper dissolubilis, and always fades to nothing, obumbrata shadowed et velata and veiled michi quoque niteris y ou plague me too nunc per ludum now through the game dorsum nudum I bring my bare back fero tui sceleris. est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. O Fortuna O Fortune, velut luna like the moon statu variabilis, you are changeable, semper crescis ever waxing aut decrescis and waning vita detestabilis hateful life nunc obdurat first oppresses et tunc curat and then soothes ludo mentis aciem, as fancy takes it egestatem, poverty potestatem and power dissolvit ut glaciem. Some of these poems were put to music Carl Orff in 1936.Īnd as I discovered when translating them for Latin class in college, some of them are very bawdy, and some are critical of the Catholic Church. “O Fortuna” is part of a collection of Latin and German poems from the 11th-13th centuries known as Carmina Burana, or “Songs of Beuern.” “Beuern” refers to a monastery in Bavaria where they were discovered in 1803.

Est affectus et defectus