Everyone must have heard O Fortuna! at least once during their lifetime. It pops up regularly in movies and TV commercials. I first heard it many Moons ago as background music to a TV ad for Old Spice aftershave - in the days when aftershave as a male accessory was in its infancy.
Years later I discovered that Carmina Burana, a cantata by German composer Carl Orff (whose natal Sun is in Cancer) from which O Fortuna! is taken, was derived from a set of mediaeval poems. These poems were discovered in a monastery in Bavaria in 1803. They are not all on sacred subjects, as one might expect from writings found in a monastery, but include poems and songs in Latin, French and German about love, lust, gambling and the trials and tribulations of life on Earth. Carl Orff chose 24 from the much larger collection of poems, and set them to music.
O Fortuna! sits at the beginning and end of the cantata he composed in the mid 1930s. There is a connection between O Fortuna! and the tarot card from the major arcana: Wheel of Fortune. It's a convoluted journey from an aftershave advert to the tarot deck! Card illustrated is from the 15th century Vinconti-Sforza deck.
Carl Orff was born on 10 July 1895 in Munich, Germany at 3:15AM. Sun conjunct Jupiter, and Mercury all in Cancer, with Cancer rising. His natal chart can be viewed here, at Astrodatbank. Zodiac sign Cancer is ruled by the Moon. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana begins with a direct reference to his ruling luminary. Translation:
O Fortuna! sits at the beginning and end of the cantata he composed in the mid 1930s. There is a connection between O Fortuna! and the tarot card from the major arcana: Wheel of Fortune. It's a convoluted journey from an aftershave advert to the tarot deck! Card illustrated is from the 15th century Vinconti-Sforza deck.
The Wheel of Fortune turns I go down, demeaned; another is raised up; far too proud sits the king at the summit -- let him fear ruin! for under the axis we read about Queen Hecuba.
Carl Orff was born on 10 July 1895 in Munich, Germany at 3:15AM. Sun conjunct Jupiter, and Mercury all in Cancer, with Cancer rising. His natal chart can be viewed here, at Astrodatbank. Zodiac sign Cancer is ruled by the Moon. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana begins with a direct reference to his ruling luminary. Translation:
Orff has, over the years, had some justifiably bad press, related to his acquiescence during the Nazi regime, and betrayal of his close friend Kurt Huber. Huber was a founder of the resistance movement, White Rose. Perhaps Orff was a weak and selfish man who, while not being a member of the Nazi party, had achieved acceptance of his music by the ruling regime. He was not courageous enough to forego this in order to offer aid when his friend was arrested, tortured and executed. Is this a reflection of a typically Cancerian trait: withdrawal from danger and unpleasantness, I wonder. It's best not to judge the guy too harshly. None of us knows what we'd do in his position, in those circumstances. We might think we know -but we really do not.O Fortuna O how Fortune, inopportune, apes the moon's inconstancy: waxing, waning, losing, gaining, life treats us detestably: first oppressing then caressing shifts us like pawns in her play: destitution, restitution, mixes and melts them away. Fate, as vicious as capricious, whirling your merry-go-round: evil doings, worthless wooings, crumble away to the ground: darkly stealing, unrevealing, working against me you go: for your measure of foul pleasure I bare my back to your blow. Noble actions, true transactions, no longer fall to my lot: powers to make me then to break me all play their part in your plot: now seize your time - waste no more time, pluck these poor strings and let go: since the strongest fall the longest let the world share in my woe.
