Thou Art a Shield for Me Lyrics by Kent Henry
In medieval and ancient philosophy the Bike of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae , is a symbol of the capricious nature of Fate. The bike belongs to the goddess Fortuna (Greek equivalent Tyche) who spins information technology at random, changing the positions of those on the bicycle: some endure bully misfortune, others proceeds windfalls. The metaphor was already a cliché in ancient times, complained about by Tacitus, just was greatly popularized for the Middle Ages by its extended treatment in the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius from around 520. It became a common image in manuscripts of the book, and then other media, where Fortuna, often blindfolded, turns a large wheel of the sort used in watermills, to which kings and other powerful figures are attached.
Origins [edit]
The origin of the word is from the "wheel of fortune"—the zodiac, referring to the Celestial spheres of which the 8th holds the stars, and the ninth is where the signs of the zodiac are placed. The concept was first invented in Babylon and later developed by the ancient Greeks.
The concept somewhat resembles the Bhavacakra, or Wheel of Condign, depicted throughout Ancient Indian art and literature, except that the earliest conceptions in the Roman and Greek earth involve not a two-dimensional wheel but a iii-dimensional sphere, a metaphor for the world. It was widely used in the Ptolemaic perception of the universe equally the zodiac being a bike with its "signs" constantly turning throughout the year and having effect on the globe's fate (or fortune).
In the second century BC, the Roman tragedian Pacuvius wrote:
Fortunam insanam esse et caecam et brutam perhibent philosophi,
Saxoque instare in globoso praedicant volubili:
Id quo saxum inpulerit fors, eo cadere Fortunam autumant.
Caecam ob eam rem esse iterant, quia nihil cernat, quo sese adplicet;
Insanam autem esse aiunt, quia atrox, incerta instabilisque sit;
Brutam, quia dignum atque indignum nequeat internoscere.Philosophers say that Fortune is insane and blind and stupid,
and they teach that she stands on a rolling, spherical rock:
they affirm that, wherever chance pushes that rock, Fortuna falls in that direction.
They echo that she is blind for this reason: that she does non run across where she's heading;
they say she'south insane, because she is brutal, flaky and unstable;
stupid, because she tin't distinguish between the worthy and the unworthy.
—Pacuvius, Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta. Vol. 1, ed. O. Ribbeck, 1897
The idea of the rolling ball of fortune became a literary topos and was used frequently in declamation. In fact, the Rota Fortunae became a prime instance of a trite topos or meme for Tacitus, who mentions its rhetorical overuse in the Dialogus de oratoribus.
In the second century AD, astronomer and astrologer Vettius Valens wrote:
-
- There are many wheels, most moving from west to east, only some move from east to westward.
- Seven wheels, each hold one heavenly object, the kickoff holds the moon...
- Then the 8th wheel holds all the stars that we see...
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- And the ninth wheel, the wheel of fortunes, moves from east to w,
- and includes each of the twelve signs of fortune, the twelve signs of the zodiac.
- Each cycle is inside the other, similar an onion's skin sits inside some other peel, and there is no empty space betwixt them.[ This quote needs a citation ]
Boethius [edit]
The goddess and her Wheel were eventually absorbed into Western medieval idea. The Roman philosopher Boethius (c. 480–524) played a key role,[4] utilizing both her and her Wheel in his Consolatio Philosophiae. For example, from the commencement chapter of the second volume:
I know the manifold deceits of that monstrous lady, Fortune; in particular, her fawning friendship with those whom she intends to cheat, until the moment when she unexpectedly abandons them, and leaves them reeling in desperation beyond endurance.
[...]
Having entrusted yourself to Fortune'due south dominion, you must adjust to your mistress'south ways. What, are you lot trying to halt the motion of her whirling bike? Dimmest of fools that you are, yous must realize that if the wheel stops turning, it ceases to be the form of take chances."[5]
In the eye ages [edit]
Religious didactics [edit]
The Cycle was widely used as an allegory in medieval literature and art to aid religious teaching. Though classically Fortune'southward Wheel could exist favourable and disadvantageous, medieval writers preferred to concentrate on the tragic attribute, home on downfall of the mighty – serving to remind people of the temporality of earthly things. In the morality play Everyman (c. 1495), for case, Death comes unexpectedly to claim the protagonist. Fortune'due south Wheel has spun Everyman low, and Good Deeds, which he previously neglected, are needed to secure his passage to heaven.
Geoffrey Chaucer used the concept of the tragic Wheel of Fortune a great deal. It forms the basis for the Monk's Tale, which recounts stories of the great brought low throughout history, including Lucifer, Adam, Samson, Hercules, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Nero, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and, in the following passage, Peter I of Cyprus.
- O noble Peter, Cyprus' lord and rex,
- Which Alexander won past mastery,
- To many a heathen ruin did'st one thousand bring;
- For this thy lords had so much jealousy,
- That, for no crime save thy high chivalry,
- All in thy bed they slew thee on a morrow.
- And thus does Fortune's wheel turn treacherously
- And out of happiness bring men to sorrow.
~ Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Monk's Tale[6]
Fortune'due south Cycle ofttimes turns upward in medieval art, from manuscripts to the great Rose windows in many medieval cathedrals, which are based on the Wheel. Characteristically, it has four shelves, or stages of life, with 4 human figures, usually labeled on the left regnabo (I shall reign), on the top regno (I reign) and is commonly crowned, descending on the right regnavi (I take reigned) and the lowly effigy on the bottom is marked sum sine regno (I am without a kingdom). Dante employed the Wheel in the Inferno and a "Wheel of Fortune" trump-card appeared in the Tarot deck (circa 1440, Italian republic).
Political instruction [edit]
The bicycle of fortune from the Burana Codex; The figures are labelled "Regno, Regnavi, Sum sine regno, Regnabo": I reign, I reigned, I accept no kingdom, I shall reign
In the medieval and renaissance period, a popular genre of writing was "Mirrors for Princes", which set out advice for the ruling classes on how to wield power (the most famous being The Prince past Niccolò Machiavelli). Such political treatises could utilise the concept of the Bicycle of Fortune as an instructive guide to their readers. John Lydgate'southward Fall of Princes, written for his patron Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester is a noteworthy case.
Many Arthurian romances of the era likewise use the concept of the Cycle in this fashion, oft placing the Nine Worthies on it at various points.
...fortune is so variant, and the bicycle and then moveable, at that place nis none constant abiding, and that may exist proved by many old chronicles, of noble Hector, and Troilus, and Alisander, the mighty conqueror, and many mo other; when they were most in their royalty, they alighted everyman. ~ Lancelot in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Chapter XVII.[7]
Like the Mirrors for Princes, this could be used to convey advice to readers. For instance, in most romances, Arthur's greatest war machine achievement – the conquest of the Roman Empire – is placed belatedly on in the overall story. Even so, in Malory's piece of work the Roman conquest and high indicate of King Arthur'southward reign is established very early on. Thus, everything that follows is something of a decline. Arthur, Lancelot and the other Knights of the Round Table are meant to be the paragons of chivalry, yet in Malory's telling of the story they are doomed to failure. In medieval thinking, only God was perfect, and even a corking figure like King Arthur had to be brought depression. For the noble reader of the tale in the Middle Ages, this moral could serve as a alert, just also as something to aspire to. Malory could exist using the concept of Fortune's Bicycle to imply that if even the greatest of chivalric knights made mistakes, so a normal fifteenth-century noble didn't accept to be a paragon of virtue in order to be a good knight.
Carmina Burana [edit]
The Wheel of Fortune motif appears significantly in the Carmina Burana (or Burana Codex), albeit with a postclassical phonetic spelling of the genitive form Fortunae. Excerpts from 2 of the collection's better known poems, "Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Fortune, Empress of the World)" and "Fortune Plango Vulnera (I Bemoan the Wounds of Fortune)," read:
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Later usage [edit]
Fortune and her Wheel have remained an enduring image throughout history. Fortune's wheel can also be found in Thomas More than'south Utopia.
Shakespeare [edit]
William Shakespeare in Hamlet wrote of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and, of fortune personified, to "break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel." And in Henry Five, Deed 3 Scene VI[viii] are the lines:
- Pistol:
- Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of middle
- And of buxom valor, hath past cruel fate
- And giddy Fortune's furious fickle bike
- That goddess blind,
- That stands upon the rolling restless stone—
- Fluellen:
- By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore his eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted besides with a bike, to signify to you lot, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation. And her pes, expect you, is stock-still upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls.
- Pistol:
- Fortune is Bardolph'southward foe, and frowns on him;
Shakespeare too references this Wheel in Male monarch Lear. The Earl of Kent, who was in one case held beloved by the Male monarch, has been banished, only to return in disguise. This bearded character is placed in the stocks for an overnight and laments this turn of events at the end of Act II, Scene ii:[9]
- Fortune, good nighttime, smile once more than; turn thy cycle!
In Act Iv, scene vii, King Lear too contrasts his misery on the "bike of fire" to Cordelia'due south "soul in bliss".
Rosalind and Celia besides discuss Fortune, specially as it stands opposed to Nature, in As You Similar It, Act I, scene two.
Victorian era [edit]
In Anthony Trollope'southward novel The Mode We Alive Now, the character Lady Carbury writes a novel entitled The Wheel of Fortune almost a heroine who suffers cracking financial hardships.
Modern 24-hour interval [edit]
Selections from the Carmina Burana, including the two poems quoted above, were set to new music by twentieth-century classical composer Carl Orff, whose well-known "O Fortuna" is based on the poem Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi.
Literature [edit]
Fortuna does occasionally turn up in modern literature, although these days she has become more or less synonymous with Lady Luck. Her Wheel is less widely used as a symbol, and has been replaced largely by a reputation for fickleness. She is often associated with gamblers, and die could also exist said to take replaced the Cycle every bit the principal metaphor for uncertain fortune. In his novel, The Club Dumas, Arturo Pérez-Reverte includes a bicycle of fortune in one of the illustrations that accompany the text. Ignatius J. Reilly, the central protagonist of John Kennedy Toole'southward novel A Confederacy of Dunces, states that he believes the Rota Fortunae to be the source of all men's fate.
Popular music [edit]
Jerry Garcia recorded a song entitled "The Wheel" (co-written with Robert Hunter and Bill Kreutzmann) for his 1972 solo album Garcia, and performed the song regularly with the Grateful Expressionless from 1976 onward. The song "Wheel in the Sky" past Journey from their 1978 release Infinity besides touches on the concept through the lyrics "Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin' / I don't know where I'll be tomorrow". The song "Throw Your Hatred Down" by Neil Immature on his 1995 album Mirror Ball, recorded with Pearl Jam, has the verse "The cycle of fortune / Keeps on rollin' down". The Trip-Hop group Massive Assail refer to the Wheel of Fortune on their track "Hymn Of The Big Wheel" on the 1991 album Blue Lines.
Folk music [edit]
Several old folk tunes mention the bike of fortune, most notably 'Fakenham Fair' with its chorus lyrics of 'And then spin me around on the merry-become-round/Give the wheel of fortune a whirl'.
Picture and tv [edit]
Various games of take a chance involve spinning a wheel marked with preset outcomes, mirroring the "wheel of fortune" concept. This is notably done on the long-running, internationally syndicated game show Wheel of Fortune, where contestants win or lose money determined past the spin of the wheel. Such a bicycle is besides featured in the game prove The Toll Is Right, in the "Showcase Showdown" segment. In the 1985 film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, such a wheel was used to determine punishments for criminals.
The 1994 pic The Hudsucker Proxy refers ofttimes to the Rota Fortunae concept, especially in its use of circles as a visual motif. In the TV series Firefly (2002), the chief character, Malcolm Reynolds, says "The Bicycle never stops turning, Badger" to which Badger replies "That only matters to the people on the rim". In the science fiction TV series Farscape, the tertiary-flavor episode "Cocky-Inflicted Wounds (Part two): Wait for the Wheel" has primary character Crichton mention that his grandmother told him that fate was similar a wheel, alternately bringing fortunes up and down.
In the episode The Bitter Suite of the 1995 television show Xena: Warrior Princess, Xena spins the wheel of fortune at the start of her journey through Illusia, a mystical land where the main characters Xena and Gabrielle volition ultimately have to face both their pasts and their relationship in its electric current state. Later in the episode a rope of flame appears and starts to elevate Gabrielle though the Fortune Wheel, then drags Xena along also.
Games [edit]
The video game serial character Kain (Legacy of Kain) used the bicycle of fate. In theFable video game series, the wheel of fortune appears twice, somehow perverted. The Bicycle of Unholy Misfortune is a torture device inFable Two. It is plant in the Temple of Shadows in Rookridge. The Hero can utilise the wheel to sacrifice followers to the shadows. InFable III, Reaver'due south Bike of Misfortune is a device that, one time activated, sends to The Hero a round of random monsters.
The Wheel of Fortune is featured in a Magic: The Gathering carte du jour by that name that forces all players to discard their hands and draw new ones.
References [edit]
- ^ "statuette of Fortuna". Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery Collections: GLAHM F.43. University of Glasgow. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
- ^ "Roman statuette of Fortuna". BBC - A History of the World . Retrieved 12 October 2017.
- ^ MacDonald, James (1897). Tituli Hunteriani: An Account of the Roman Stones in the Hunterian Museum, Academy of Glasgow. Glasgow: T. & R. Annan & Sons. pp. ninety–91. Retrieved xi October 2017.
- ^ Patch, Howard Rollin (1927). The Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Printing. ISBN9780674183780.
- ^ Boethius (2008). The Consolation of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Printing. pp. xix–xx. ISBN978-0-19-954054-9.
- ^ "The Monk's Tale, Mod English – Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)". Classiclit.virtually.com. 2009-11-02. Retrieved 2011-11-24 .
- ^ "Le Morte d' Arthur – Chapter XVII". Worldwideschool.org. Archived from the original on 2016-04-eleven. Retrieved 2011-eleven-24 .
- ^ "King Henry V by William Shakespeare: Act 3. Scene VI". Online-literature.com. 2007-01-26. Retrieved 2011-11-24 .
- ^ "Human activity Ii. Scene II. King Lear. Craig, West.J., ed. 1914. The Oxford Shakespeare". Bartleby.com. Retrieved 2011-11-24 .
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae
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