Classical Poetry

Fortuna

Cruel Fortune! You seem so heartless sometimes!
Born by the cold Oceanus and Tethys,
Or some say fathered from Zeus of the skies,
"She who turns the year 'round" on its axis,
That teaches us all prudent autarky,
Fortune makes neither orders nor makes me.
Evil Fortune guides the rudder through waves,
Steers almost all the world's actions one way,
Forcing all to converge to the same place.
At the ship's wheel once she turns it half-way
The sacred King, at the height of his chance
Like Actaeon's crown, is destined to die,
Yet death is simply a new beginning,
And this daughter of both the sea and sky,
Keeps juggling her spheres, he wheel keeps spinning,
She makes a fool of him whom she'd ruin
This jealous divinity Fortuna.
Just as she can divest man of all things:
Holds Almathea's cornucopia,
Grants partial success in undertakings
And part suff'ring that we pass life meeting
Changes of chance but not always winning.
No man lady luck smiled warmly upon
Didn't fin'lly meet hell, or heaven.
Alas Fortune! What god's crueler than you?
She turns her fav'rite love into a fool,
She may rage and move strangers inciting them,
For when she praises she comes to ensnare,
And when she breaks-off, it's vain to repair.
Fortune's fickle: she takes back what she gave,
Her gifts are as wax-figures: they melt away,
While good Fortune hides man's bad qualities,
Man's true worth is shown through adversities;
Tyche's sometimes seen holding a feather,
Or she's with wings, or cradling young Pluto,
Her wealth so fragile, like glass it shatters,
Fools fear Fortune, the wise endure her so.