This is a collection of references to the wheel of fortune in literature and culture. I started it by simply investigating a footnote on page 24 of the Penguin edition of the Consolation, and then I added some stuff that was mentioned on Wikipedia, which has nowhere near enough quotation for my taste. I have included almost every reference I could find and quote, especially in English. I hope to expand it whenever I find another reference.
0. Contents
1. Texts
2. Pictures
3. Music
1. Texts
The idea of the Wheel of Fortune is originally Greek. It is one of the eternal ideas which Pindar has in his second Olympian ode 23–24:
ὅταν θεοῦ Μοῖρα πέμπῃ
ἀνεκὰς ὄλβον ὑψηλόν(“When God's Fate sends up high prosperity”). The figure is that of a wheel.[...]
— D. M. Robinson, The Wheel of Fortune, Classical Philology, XLI, 1946, pp. 207 ff.
(The quote below was suggested by this paper; it also contains some more purported Greek examples, which I did not think worth quoting.)
But my fate circles on the shifting wheel
Of God’s reversal, and still suffers change;
Like to the pale moon's face, that cannot stay
For two nights ever in the same aspect,
But first comes issuing from the dim—then grows
With lovelier visage waxing to the full—
And once at her bright fairest—then forthwith
Lapses and fades, and comes to nothingness.
— Sophocles, Pearson fragment 871 (translation by W.G. Headlam)
Dame Fortune, some philosophers maintain,
Is witless, sightless, brutish ; they declare
That on a rolling ball of stone she stands;
For whither that same stone a hazard tilts.
Thither, they say, falls Fortune ; and they state
That she is witless for that she is cruel,
Untrustworthy, unstaid : and, they repeat,
Sightless she is because she nothing sees
Whereto she'll steer herself: and brutish too
Because she cannot tell between the man
That's worthy and the unworthy. But there are
Other philosophers who against all this
Deny that there is any goddess Fortune,
Saying it is Chance Medley rules the world.
That this is more like unto truth and fact
Practice doth teach us by the experience;
Orestes thus, who one time was a king,
Was one time made a beggar.
— Pacuvius, Loeb fragment 37–46
Why need I speak of the banquets of those days, why of your joy and self-congratulation, why of your most intemperate drinking-bouts with your crew of infamous companions? Who in those days ever saw you sober, who ever saw you doing any thing which was worthy of a freeman; who, in short, ever saw you in public at all? while the house of your colleague was resounding with song and cymbals, and while he himself was dancing naked at banquets; in which even then, when he was going round in the circle of the dance, he seemed to have no fear of any revolution of fortune. But this man, who is not quite so refined in gluttony nor so musical, lay stupefied amid the reeking orgies of his Greek crew. The banquets celebrated by that fellow at the time of all this misery of the republic, resembled what is reported of the feast of the Centaurs and Lapithae; and it is quite impossible to tell in what sort of debauchery he indulged to the most disgraceful excess.
— Cicero, In Pisonem, 22
I have not fallen so low, low though I am, that I am beneath you too, for beneath you there can be nothing. What stirs your spirit up against me, shameless man? Why do you mock at misfortunes which you yourself may suffer? My woes do not soften you and placate you towards one who is prostrate—woes over which wild beasts might weep, nor do you fear the power of Fortune standing on her swaying wheel, or the haughty commands of the goddess who hates.
— Ovid, Tristia, V. viii. 1–8
Ah, why do you do this, madman? Why, in case Fortune should leave you, do you thus rob your own shipwreck of tears? She is a goddess who admits by her unsteady wheel her own fickleness ; she always has its crest beneath her swaying foot. She is less stable than any leaf, than any breeze; to match her fickleness, base man, there is only yours!
All human affairs hang by a slender thread; chance on a sudden brings to ruin what once was strong. Who has not heard of Croesus’s wealth? Yet of a truth he was captured and received his life from an enemy.[...]
— Ovid, Ex Ponto, IV. iii. 23-39
I shall say nothing of the false wit, and insipid play upon words, which we find in Cicero's orations. His pleasant conceits about the “wheel of fortune”, and the arch raillery on the equivocal meaning of the word “verres”, do not merit a moment's attention. I omit the perpetual recurrence of the phrase, “esse videatur”, which chimes in our ears at the close of so many sentences, sounding big, but signifying nothing. These are petty blemishes; I mention them with reluctance. I say nothing of other defects equally improper: and yet those very defects are the delight of such as affect to call themselves ancient orators. I need not single them out by name: the men are sufficiently known; it is enough to allude, in general terms, to the whole class.
— Tacitus, A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, §23
But it may be that some are impressed by the thought that an emperor who was most devoted to the faith has been so totally abandoned. That is to assess the value of goodness by the fleeting circumstances of our present life. What wise man does not know that the transactions of human life take place on a kind of sphere or revolving wheel, and that they do not consistently meet with the same success, but their condition changes and they undergo alternation?
— Ambrose of Milan, Epistula 73 (Maur. 18), §34
Didst thou commit thy sails to the winds, thou wouldst voyage not whither thy intention was to go, but whither the winds drave thee; didst thou entrust thy seed to the fields, thou wouldst set off the fruitful years against the barren. Thou hast resigned thyself to the sway of Fortune; thou must submit to thy mistress’s caprices. What! art thou verily striving to stay the swing of the revolving wheel? Oh, stupidest of mortals, if it takes to standing still, it ceases to be the wheel of Fortune.
Mad Fortune sweeps along in wanton pride,
Uncertain as Euripus’ surging tide;
Now tramples mighty kings beneath her feet;
Now sets the conquered in the victor’s seat.
She heedeth not the wail of hapless woe,
But mocks the griefs that from her mischief flow.
Such is her sport; so proveth she her power;
And great the marvel, when in one brief hour
She shows her darling lifted high in bliss,
Then headlong plunged in misery’s abyss.Now I would fain also reason with thee a little in Fortune’s own words. Do thou observe whether her contentions be just. “Man,” she might say, “why dost thou pursue me with thy daily complainings? What wrong have I done thee? [...] The sea is permitted to invite with smooth and tranquil surface to-day, to-morrow to roughen with wave and storm. Shall man’s insatiate greed bind me to a constancy foreign to my character? This is my art, this the game I never cease to play. I turn the wheel that spins. I delight to see the high come down and the low ascend. Mount up, if thou wilt, but only on condition that thou wilt not think it a hardship to come down when the rules of my game require it. Wert thou ignorant of my character? [...]”
— Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, 2, §§1–2
Philosophers tell us of a woman fastened to a wheel which turns perpetually, so that they say she is sometimes rising and sometimes falling with its movement. What is this wheel ? It is the glory of the world which is carried round in perpetual motion. The woman fastened to the wheel is Fortune, whose head alternately rises and falls because those who have been raised by their power and riches are often precipitated into poverty and misery.
— Honorius of Autun, Spec. Eccles., col. 1057. Patrol., clxx, ii.,
as quoted in Emile Mâle, The Gothic Image translated by Dora Hussey, 2018 ed., p. 96
I cry the cruel cuts of Fate
with eyes worn red from weeping,
whose fickle favours travel straight
back into her keeping:
as ye read, so shall ye find –
luck comes curly-headed
from the front, but round behind
not a hair is threaded!Dame Fortune once invited me
to enjoy her blessing:
to riches’ throne exalted me
caring and caressing:
but from maximum renown,
garlanded and feted,
Fate stepped up and threw me down –
glory dissipated!Fortune’s wheel goes round and round,
down go all my talents:
others rising from the ground
fly too high to balance:
so beware Fate’s old routine,
kings and lords and ladies –
for beneath her throne lies Queen
Hecuba in Hades.
— Carmina Burana, CB16 “Fortune plango vulnera”
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,
fair transactions,
no longer fall to my lot:
powers to make me
and then break me
all play their part in your plot:
now seize your time –
waste no more time,
pluck these poor strings, then let go:
since the strongest
fall the longest
let the world share in my woe!
— Carmina Burana, CB17 “O Fortuna”
The Roman du Renart (of the twelfth century) offers a similar example of this curious treatment begun in Chrestien. The passage describes the wheel of Fortune which is pictured at the end of the Renart manuscript:
Montes est, Dieus penst del abatre;
Sen monter ne viut nus debatre,
Ains est corones coume uns rois.
Fauser fait jugemens et lote,
Fortune a se ruee escotee
Si que mais n’ert par li tornee.
Jamais n’en ert Renart mis jus,
Se Dieus nel’ fait ki maint lassus. [...]
— Howard R. Patch, Fortuna in Old French Literature
Pleasant, agreeable Fortune lies to men, tricks them, and makes fools of them. Like a mother, she suckles them, and does not seem to give bitter milk. She gives them the appearance of being loyal when she distributes among them her delights—riches and honor, dignities and authority—and promises them stability in a condition of mutability; and when she places them on her wheel, she feeds them all on vain glory in worldly prosperity. Then they believe themselves such great rulers and see their estates as so secure that they czrn never fall from them. [...] But when contrary, perverse Fortune turns them from their high estate and tumbles them around the wheel from the summit toward the mire; when, like a mother-in-law, she places on their hearts a painful plaster moistened, not with vinegar, but with unhappy, meager poverty; then she shows that she is sincere and that no one should trust himself to prosperous Fortune, in whom there is no security whatever.[...]
[N]othing Fortune did would entrap a wise man nor would the revolution of her turning wheel bind him or make him sorrowful. All her deeds are too dangerous, because they are not stable. For this reason, love of her is neither profitable nor in any way pleasing to a worthy man; nor is it just that it should be pleasing when it falls into eclipse for so small reason.[...]
Take care then never to take anything from her, neither honors nor services. Let her turn her wheel, which she turns constantly without stopping, while, Iike a blind person, she remains at the center. Some she blinds with riches, honors, and dignities, while she gives poverty to others; and when it pleases her, she rakes everything back. He who allows himself to be upset by events or who takes pleasure in anything is a great fool, since he can protect himself; he can certainly do so, but only if he wishes to.
— Romance of the Rose, 4807ff., 5325ff., 5869ff.
CROKESOS
Me dame, je vous en merchi
De par men grant seigneur le roi.
Dame, k’est che la ke je voi
En chele roe? Sont che gens?MORGUE
Nenil, ains est essamples gens.
Et chele ki le roe tient
Cascune de nous apartient;
Et s’est trés dont k’ele fu nee
Muiele, sourde et avulee.
CROKESOS
Comment a ele a non?
MORGUE
Fortune.
Ele est a toute rien commune,
Et tout le mont tient en se main.
L'un fait povre hui, rike demain,
Ne point ne set cui ele avanche.
Pour chou n'i doit avoir hanche
Nus tant soit haut montés en roche;
Car, se chele roe hescoche,
Il le convient descendre jus. [...]
— Adam Le Bossu, Le Jeu de la feuillée, vv. 764–781
In La Manekine, Philippe de Beaumanoir (c. 1250-1296), pauses for a long discourse on Fortune, beginning with a complaint. The Manekine is distressed because no woman has ever suffered from Fortune as she has. 50 Fortune is an enemy of good people. She shows her power, and continually turns her wheel, on which all the world is set. He is a fool who trusts the wheel. God put the present sufferer in a higher place than ever before, and then came her fall:
Car fortune a son voloir maine
Les gens, puis que Dix li consente.But Fortune is not the less capricious.
These very striking passages do not include all that Philippe has to say concerning Fortune, but they do disclose his position. God consents to Fortune’s rule of the world, according to Philippe. Thus we see that Fortuna must be dominated by the Christian God, and in some way works His will.
— Howard R. Patch, Fortuna in Old French Literature
[Pierre de la Broche, in a dialogue, declares that Fortune] is his mortal enemy, and she (with something of the calm of the blessed figure in Dante) replies: It is my delight to turn my wheel; you have ruined yourself, Pierre. And Reason agrees.
— Monmerqué and Michel, Theatre Frangais, pp. 208 ff.; as quoted in Howard R. Patch, Fortuna in Old French Literature
Give ever to thy poor or unfortunate friends as thou art able; gold, silver, wine, oil, corn, cloth, houseroom, counsel, and comfort, but keep to thyself thy sweet liberty; and never let that go from thee to any other! to give assurance for another at a distant time is superfluous, if thou canst give him freedom; if not, it is folly; for the day of payment in this life is not long after the day of promise; and events to thyself are not to be measured for hereafter; while the wheel of fortune turneth continually.
— Petrarch, De remediis utriusque fortunae, Dobson pp. 249–250 (see also p. 137, p. 166, and the preface)
Boccaccio has Fortuna so often at the tip of his pen that he certainly does not despise the poetic image. He has found her extremely useful to cover the idea of the cause of certain phenomena in human life, and he apparently offers no substitute for her. Let us take the description in the Amorosa Visione:
The scene is the interior of a visionary castle. The room has many paintings. One is that of Fortuna, “colei, che muta ogni mondano stato,” sometimes glad, sometimes sad. She turns a great wheel toward the left unceasingly. She is deaf, and hears no prayer. She has no law or compact. She says (I imagine her speech): “Let every man who desires, be bold to mount, but when he falls let him not become angry with me. I never deny any the step. Let come who will.” I saw men climb with their wits and, arrived at the top, say, “I reign”; others I saw fall to the bottom, and they seemed to say, “I am without reign.” One was sad; another glad.
— Howard R. Patch, The Tradition of the Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Philosophy and Literature, ch. 3
[“]Now canst thou, Son, behold the transient farce
Of goods that are committed unto Fortune,
For which the human race each other buffet;For all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever has been, of these weary souls
Could never make a single one repose.”“Master,” I said to him, “now tell me also
What is this Fortune which thou speakest of,
That has the world’s goods so within its clutches?”And he to me: “O creatures imbecile,
What ignorance is this which doth beset you?
Now will I have thee learn my judgment of her.He whose omniscience everything transcends
The heavens created, and gave who should guide them,
That every part to every part may shine,Distributing the light in equal measure;
He in like manner to the mundane splendours
Ordained a general ministress and guide,That she might change at times the empty treasures
From race to race, from one blood to another,
Beyond resistance of all human wisdom.Therefore one people triumphs, and another
Languishes, in pursuance of her judgment,
Which hidden is, as in the grass a serpent.Your knowledge has no counterstand against her;
She makes provision, judges, and pursues
Her governance, as theirs the other gods.Her permutations have not any truce;
Necessity makes her precipitate,
So often cometh who his turn obtains.And this is she who is so crucified
Even by those who ought to give her praise,
Giving her blame amiss, and bad repute.But she is blissful, and she hears it not;
Among the other primal creatures gladsome
She turns her sphere, and blissful she rejoices.[”]
— Dante, Hell, VII, 61 ff.
O worthy Petro, king of Cypre, also,
That Alisaundre wan by heigh maistrye,
Ful many a hethen wroghtestow ful wo,
Of which thyn owene liges hadde envye,
And, for no thing but for thy chivalrye,
They in thy bedde han slayn thee by the morwe.
Thus can fortune hir wheel governe and gye,
And out of Ioye bringe men to sorwe.
— Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, lines 3581–3588 (see also 925–926)
But al to litel, weylaway the whyle,
Lasteth swich Ioye, y-thonked be Fortune!
That semeth trewest, whan she wol bygyle,
And can to foles so hir song entune,
That she hem hent and blent, traytour comune;
And whan a wight is from hir wheel y-throwe,
Than laugheth she, and maketh him the mowe.From Troilus she gan hir brighte face
Awey to wrythe, and took of him non hede,
But caste him clene out of his lady grace,
And on hir wheel she sette up Diomede;
Quaketh for drede of that I moot endyte.
— Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, IV, 1–14 (see also: I, 834–854; IV, 323–329)
The werre bringth in poverté at hise hieles,
Wherof the comon poeple is sore grieved.
The werre hath set his cart on thilke whieles
Wher that Fortune mai noght be believed;
For whan men wene best to have achieved,
Ful ofte it is al newe to beginne:
The werre hath no thing siker, thogh he winne.
— John Gower, In Praise of Peace, 113–119
The Remede de Fortune[, by Guillaume de Machaut († 1377),] is concerned with bad fortune in an amour, and the remedy is really ultimate success. It is remarkably rich in detail, but the detail is chiefly drawn from predecessors:
The lover is afraid to declare his love. One of his poems falls into his lady’s hands. She asks who the author is, and he, abashed, runs away without answering. He goes to the Park of Hesdin to complain: Fortune controls love. She never stops turning her wheel; high becomes low, and low becomes high. The joyous becomes sad. She is not firm, stable, just, loyal, or true. When one thinks her charitable, she is avaricious, hard, strange, fearful, traitorous, and deceiving. What seems friendly and honey-sweet becomes the incurable sting of a viper. She would betray her own father. Fortune loves only from a distance. She always fails at need. She has regard for no person, good or bad. [...]
Remember that none of Fortune’s goods is dependable. Hold her power base, for happiness comes from endurance and patience. Despise the changes of Fortune. Reason will prove that Fortune was never treasonable. She must change or she would not be Fortune. Her wheel cannot be stopped for you. If you put a boat on the sea, you know it will go as the wind takes it. So with Fortune. As a mother she fed you with her milk, and yet you now complain. Hasn’t she done enough? You would see all this if Love had not made you blind. [...]
— Howard R. Patch, Fortuna in Old French Literature
[Federigo] Frezzi’s Quadriregio, an allegorical poem in imitation of Dante, includes a long descriptive passage placing Fortuna in the realm of Satan:
The author arrives by going through an aspero cammin. He sees Fortuna from a distance: “Mirabil si, ch’ancor men maraviglio” (p. 147). Minerva warns him to be on his guard against the goddess when Fortuna smiles. She is the lady who tricks many in the world. See how treacherous her demeanor is; her face becomes cloudy, when from on high a man is sunk to earth. “I then saw how tall the lady was, taller than any column. She turned seven large wheels with her hand (like spheres in this world). The fourth was as high as the place from which Jove strikes with his arrows. The rest were smaller. The parts of the wheels that go upward were gilded and precious and fair. Two men sang with lightness of heart at the top, and two sang a contrary song below.” Fortuna speaks: “I move the wheel. None have faith in me. He who goes up and down is Ixion and suffers such penance because he wished to ravish Jove’s wife. Bernabo of Milan is on the third circle; his nephew is on another; Renzo Tribune is on the second.” The traveller leaves the scene by climbing a monte ruinoso.
— Howard R. Patch, The Tradition of the Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Philosophy and Literature, ch. 3
The minor poetry of the Italian vernacular includes some instances of fuller treatment. We have a remarkable example of something between the Ecclesiastical remedy and the Christian conception in the Ballata della Fortuna. The poem runs as follows:
For the little that Fortune has given me, I thank Him who created the moon; I thank the King of the universe, who exalted Troy and Rome. Fortune made the Pisans great; and putting them down, again raised them. Thus Fortune has turned many on her wheel. We must get used to her, for:
Fortuna nonn’ e nulla al mio parere,
anz’ e ’l piacier di Dio in tutte cose.She guides the Church, and is responsible for much harm (as, presumably, God permits evil.)
— Howard R. Patch, The Tradition of the Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Philosophy and Literature, ch. 3
Folk han afforn seyn the fundacioun
Bi remembraunce off old antiquite
Off myhti Troye and off Ylioun,
Afftir destroied bi Grekis that cite,
To vs declaryng the mutabilite
Off fals Fortune, whos fauour last no while,
Shewyng ay trewest whan she will begile.So variable she is in hir delites,
Hir wheel vntrusti & frowardli meuyng,
Record I take off the Madianytes,
Ther vnwar fall ful doolfully pleynyng,
Which shewed hemsilff [ful] pitousli wepyng
To Iohn Bochas, as he in writyng souhte
How that Fortune a-geyn ther princis wrouhte,Which that gouerned the lond off Madian,
Trustyng off pride in ther gret puissaunce;
And a-geyn Iewes a werre thei be-gan,
Purposyng to brynge hem to vttraunce:
But God that holdeth off werre the balaunce,
And can off pryncis oppresse the veynglory,
Yeueth wher hym list conquest & victory,Nat to gret noumbre nor to gret multitude,
But to that parti where he seeth the riht;
His dreedful hand, shortli to conclude,
So halt up bi grace and yeueth liht
The hiere hand, where he caste his siht;
List his power and his fauour shewe,
Be it to many or be it onto fewe.
— John Lydgate, The Fall of Princes, book I, lines 3018–3045
Fals fortune infect of countenaunce and of face
By hir iyen clowdy and varyable vysage
Hath many for a whyle taken to hir grace
Whiche after by hir whele vnstable and volage
Hath brought them to wo mysfortune and damage
She ruleth pore and riche without difference
Lewdnes exaltynge and damnynge innocenceThus is that man voyde, of all intellygence
Whom fortune fedyth, with chaunche fortunable
If he therin haue ouer large confydence
And thynke that sure that euer is mutable
That fole is sonne, to the fende abhomynable
That foloweth ryches, and fortune that is blynde
His sauyour lefte, and clene out of myndeWhan the foule fende, father of vnhappynes
Pore man purposyth by falshode to begyle
He sendeth hym welth worldly, and fals ryches
And causeth fortune, awhyle on hym to smyle
Whiche with hir blyndenes doth mankynde so defyle
That whyle they trust in hir fauour to sore.
They damme theyr soules in hell for euermore[...]
That man whiche hopyth hye vp to ascende
On fortunes whele, and come to State royall
If the whele turne, may doute sore to descende
If he be hye the sorer is his fall
So he whiche trustyth nat therto at all
Shall in moste eas and suerty hymselfe gyde
For vnsure Fortune can in no place abydeWe dayly proue by example and euydence
That many be made folys mad and ignorant
By the brode worlde, puttynge trust and confydence
In fortunes whele vnsure and inconstant
Some assay the whele thynkynge it pleasant
But whyle they to clym vp haue pleasour and desyre
Theyr fete them faylyth so fall they in the myrePromote a yeman, make hym a gentyl man
And make a Baylyf of a Butchers son
Make of a Squyer knyght, yet wyll they if they can
Coueyt in theyr myndes hyer promosyon
And many in the worlde haue this condicion
In hope of honour by treason to conspyre
But ofte they slyde, and so fall in the myreSuche lokys so hye that they forget theyr fete
On fortunes whele whiche turneth as a ball
They seke degrees for theyr small myght vnmete
Theyr folysshe hertis and blynde se nat theyr fall
Some folys purpose to haue a rowme Royall
Or clym by fortunes whele to an empyre
The whele than turneth lyuynge them in the myre[...]
Of worldly worsyp no man can hym assure
In this our age whiche is the last of all
No creature can here alway endure
Yonge nor olde, pore man nor kynge royall
Unstable fortune tourneth as doth a ball
And they that ones pas can nat retourne agayne
Wherfore I boldly dare speke in generall
We all shall dye : ce monde est choce vayne.
— Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools, p. 126, 186–187, 269
Then Sir Launcelot sighed, and therewith the tears fell on his cheeks, and then he said thus: Alas, most noble Christian realm, whom I have loved above all other realms, and in thee I have gotten a great part of my worship, and now I shall depart in this wise. Truly me repenteth that ever I came in this realm, that should be thus shamefully banished, undeserved and causeless; but fortune is so variant, and the wheel so moveable, there nis none constant abiding, and that may be proved by many old chronicles, of noble Ector, and Troilus, and Alisander, the mighty conqueror, and many mo other; when they were most in their royalty, they alighted lowest. And so fareth it by me, said Sir Launcelot, for in this realm I had worship, and by me and mine all the whole Round Table hath been increased more in worship, by me and mine blood, than by any other. And therefore wit thou well, Sir Gawaine, I may live upon my lands as well as any knight that here is. [...]
— Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur, 20, §16
Alas! the foolish people cannot cease,
Nor ’void her train till they the harm do feel,
About her alway busily they press;
But Lord! how he doth think himself full well
That may set once his hand upon her wheel.
He holdeth fast; but upward as he sty’th,
She whipp’th her wheel about, and there he li’th.Thus fell Julius from his mighty power,
Thus fell Darius, the worthy king of Perse,
Thus fell Alexander, the great conqueror,
Thus many more than I may well rehearse.
Thus double Fortune, when she list reverse
Her slipp’ry favour from them that in her trust,
She fli’th her way and li’th them in the dust.She suddenly enhanceth them aloft
And suddenly mischieveth all the flock,
The head that late lay easily and full soft
Instead of pillows li’th after on the block,
And yet, alas the most cruel proud mock
The dainty mouth that ladies kissed have
She bringeth in the case to kiss a knave.In changing of her course the change shew’th this,
Up start’th a knave and down there fall’th a knight,
The beggar rich and the rich man poor is,
Hatred is turned to love, love to despight;
This is her sport, thus proveth she her might.
Great boast she mak’th if one be by her pow’r
Wealthy and wretched both within an hour.
— Thomas More, To them who trust in Fortune
Of quhich the name is clepit properly
Boece, eftir him that was the compiloure,
Schewing the counsele of Philosophye,
Compilit by that noble senatoure
Of Rome, quhilom that was the warldis floure,
And from estate by Fortunes quhile
Forjugit was to povert in exile,
— James I of Scotland, The Kingis Quair, §3
Machiavelli[, in the Capitolo di Fortuna,] voices a triumphant paean to the majesty of the goddess, and he includes a brief description of her dwelling-place. So, materialist and skeptic, he subscribes with full accord to the traditional pagan view:
With what verses shall I sing of Fortune's realm, and her prosperous and adverse chances? How injuriously she judges us below, all the world which is gathered beneath her throne! Giovanni Battista, thou canst not and need'st not fear any blows but hers. She is often accustomed to oppose with greater force where she sees nature is of most power. She sways all; she is ever violent unless unusual virtue extinguish her power. Consider these verses, and let the cruel goddess also read what I write of her.
Many call her omnipotent. Often she holds the good under her feet and exalts the wicked. She gives the unworthy a throne, subjects Time to her will, and does not continue her favor to any one. We know not what her ancestry is, but everyone including Jove is afraid of her power. Above is a palace (which is described). She gives to him whom she loves. (A curious conception of several wheels of Fortune is introduced here.) Fortune changes the course of the world. Few have been happy in the past, and those died before their wheel turned back or, whirling, bore them low.
— Howard R. Patch, The Tradition of the Goddess Fortuna in Medieval Philosophy and Literature, ch. 3
And every other night, to come, a solemn oath he makes,
By one self mean, and eke to come at one self hour:
And so he doth, till Fortune list to sauce his sweet with sour.
But who is he that can his present state assure?
And say unto himself, thy joys shall yet a day endure?
So wavering Fortune's wheel, her changes be so strange;
And every wight y-thralléd is by Fate unto her change,
Who reigns so over all, that each man hath his part
(Although not aye, perchance, alike) of pleasure and of smart.
For after many joys some feel but little pain,
And from that little grief they turn to happy joy again.
But other some there are, that, living long in woe,
At length they be in quiet ease, but long abide not so;
Whose grief is much increased by mirth that went before,
Because the sudden change of things doth make it seem the more.
Of this unlucky sort our Romeus is one,
For all his hap turns to mishap, and all his mirth to moan.
And joyful Juliet another leaf must turn;
As wont she was, her joys bereft, she must begin to mourn.
The summer of their bliss doth last a month or twain,
But winter's blast with speedy foot doth bring the fall again.
Whom glorious Fortune erst had heaved to the skies,
By envious Fortune overthrown, on earth now grovelling lies.
She paid their former grief with pleasure's doubled gain,
But now for pleasure's usury, tenfold redoubleth pain.
— The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, lines 930–954
This solemne tryumph boing once ended, the assembly taking their leave of Pandosto and Bellaria: the young sonne (who was called Garinter) was nursed vp in the house to the great ioy and content of the parents. Fortune enuious of such happy successe, willing to showe some signe of her inconstancy, turned her wheele, and darkned their bright sunne of prosperity, with the misty cloudes of mishap and misery. For it so happened that Egistus King of Sycilia, who in his youth had bin brought vp with Pandosto, desirous to shew that neither tracte of time, nor distance of place could diminish their former friendship, prouided a nauy of ships, and sailed into Bohemia to visite his old friend and companion, who hearing of his arriuall, went himselfe in person, and his wife Bellaria, accompanied with a great traine of lords and ladies, to meet Egistus: and espying him, alighted from his horse, embraced him very louingly, protesting, that nothing in the world could haue hapned more acceptable to him then his comming, wishing his wife to welcome his olde friend and acquaintance, who (to showe how she liked him whom her husband loued) intertayned him with such familiar curtesie, as Egistus perceiued himselfe to bee very well welcome.
— Robert Greene, Pandosto: The Triumph of Time
[FIRST PLAYER:][...]
Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod, take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2
PISTOL: Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate
And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,
That stands upon the rolling restless stone, —FLUELLEN: By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is plind: and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.
PISTOL: Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stol’n a pax, and hanged must a’ be,
A damned death!
Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate.
But Exeter hath given the doom of death
For pax of little price.
Therefore, go speak; the duke will hear thy voice;
And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach:
Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
— William Shakespeare, Henry V, act 3, scene 6
See also these other mentions in Shakespeare:
King Lear, act 2, scene 2; Henry VI, part 3, act 4, scene 3; As You Like It, act 1, scene 2; Antony and Cleopatra, act 4, scene 13; Locrine, act 2, scene 5; Lord Cromwell, act 4, scene 2; Edmund Ironside [pdf], act 2, scene 2.3; The Rape of Lucrece, line 952
And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference.
— Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, Query 18, p. 175 of 1853 ed.
[...] So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
It chanced the song that Enid sang was one
Of Fortune and her wheel, and Enid sang:‘Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.‘Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.‘Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate.‘Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.’
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King
After an hour’s thought a name [for her novel] did occur to her, and she wrote it down, and with considerable energy of purpose framed her work in accordance with her chosen title, “The Wheel of Fortune!” She had no particular fortune in her mind when she chose it, and no particular wheel;—but the very idea conveyed by the words gave her the plot which she wanted. A young lady was blessed with great wealth, and lost it all by an uncle, and got it all back by an honest lawyer, and gave it all up to a distressed lover, and found it all again in the third volume. And the lady’s name was Cordinga, selected by Lady Carbury as never having been heard before either in the world of fact or in that of fiction.
— Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now, §89
“With the breakdown of the Medieval system, the gods of Chaos, Lunacy, and Bad Taste gained ascendancy.” Ignatius was writing in one of his Big Chief tablets.
After a period in which the western world had enjoyed order, tranquility, unity, and oneness with its True God and Trinity, there appeared winds of change which spelled evil days ahead. An ill wind blows no one good. The luminous years of Abélard, Thomas à Becket, and Everyman dimmed into dross; Fortuna’s wheel had turned on humanity, crushing its collarbone, smashing its skull, twisting its torso, puncturing its pelvis, sorrowing its soul. Having once been so high, humanity fell so low. What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale.
[...]
As a medievalist Ignatius believed in the rota Fortunae, or wheel of fortune, a central concept in De Consolatione Philosophiae, the philosophical work which had laid the foundation for medieval thought. Boethius, the late Roman who had written the Consolatione while unjustly imprisoned by the emperor, had said that a blind goddess spins us on a wheel, that our luck comes in cycles. Was the ludicrous attempt to arrest him the beginning of a bad cycle? Was his wheel rapidly spinning downward? The accident was also a bad sign. Ignatius was worried. For all his philosophy, Boethius had still been tortured and killed. Then Ignatius’s valve closed again, and he rolled over on his left side to press the valve open.
— John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces, §2.1
2. Pictures
I made this image by editing the image from the Hortus Deliciarum at Wikimedia Commons. Please check out their “Wheel of Fortune in art” category for more great pictures. I won’t put any more artworks here that are already there, unless I edited them, like this one. |
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| Taken from cufflinkcatholic. |
Promotional image for the Nintendo Switch game based on the game show, containing its logo in the middle. |
Rider-Waite tarot card. I took the image from this website, where you can read about its meaning. |
Wheel of Fortune painting from the Rochester Cathedral. I took the image from this website. At the moment, you can read a little bit about it in the cathedral’s official website.  |
3. Music
| O Fortuna, in Carmina Burana – Carl Orff |
| Fakenham Fair – Peter Bellamy |
| Roda Viva – Chico Buarque |
| Throw Your Hatred Down – Neil Young |
| Hymn Of The Big Wheel – Massive Attack |
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