VocalEssence Chorus, Bob Adney and Jeff Bina, percussion; Thomas Mondry and Casey Rafn, piano

1. O Fortuna (O Fortune)
2. Fortuna Plango Vulnera (I Lament the Wounds of Fortune)

Sung in Latin
1. O Fortuna (O Fortune)
O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
and ever waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;
poverty
and power,
it melts then like ice.
Fate, monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel
you are malevolent,
your favor is idle
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed,
and veiled,
you plague me too;
now through the game
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!
—Anonymous

2. Fortuna Plango Vulnera
(I Lament the Wounds of Fortune)
I lament the wounds of Fortune
with weeping eyes,
for the gifts she made me
she perversely takes away.
It is written in truth,
that she has a fine head of hair,
but, when it comes to seizing an opportunity
she is bald.
On Fortune’s throne
I used to sit raised up,
crowned with
the many-colored flowers of prosperity;
though I may have flourished
now I fall from the peak
deprived of glory.
The wheel of Fortune turns;
I go down, demeaned;
another is raised up;
far too high up
sits the king at the summit—
let him fear ruin!
for under the wheel’s axle we read,
“Hecuba, the Queen.”
—Anonymous