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 whirling wheel,

you are malevolent,

well-being is vain

and always fades to nothing,

shadowed and veiled

you plague me too;

now through the game

I bring my bare back to your villainy.

Fate is against me

in health and virtue,

driven on and weighted down,

always enslaved.

So at this hour without delay

pluck the vibrating strings;

since Fate

strikes down the strong man,

everyone weep with me.