o_fortuna
user24 O fortune,
like the moon
changing state
always waxing
or waning
detestable life


Sorry, I can't remember the rest.
040812
...
google.com 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 string man,
everyone weep with me!

.
040812
...
epitome of incomprehensibility Unpopular_opinion about this piece's vocal part, maybe, but it doesn't do justice to the words.

If you're putting music to a poem about how fortune is changeable and arbitrary, why would you make bar after bar plod along with such a boring, predictable tune and rhythm? with only tiny bits of alternation to keep the singers awake?

Maybe that's the joke. An example of a trick Fortune will play on you. See, the first few bars make you think it'll actually be interesting ,and then the proverbial rug is pulled from under your feet, landing you straight into da da, da da...da da, da da...da da, da da, DA da daaaa...

(See my answer to red_blanks_for_february for some slight context; basically this is my millionth time hearing this piece but my first time singing it in a choir.)
240207
what's it to you?
who go
blather
from