January, 2001 Monthly Feature : Each month I have been putting together some of my favourites to share with you. Archives
Rota Fortuna
[ No mortal power may stay her spinning wheel. The nations rise and fall by her decree. None may foresee where she will set her heel: She passes, and things pass. Man's mortal reason cannot encompass her She rules her sphere as the other gods rule theirs. Season by season her changes change her changes endlessly, and those whose turn has come press on her so, she must be swift by hard necessity. |
Inferno VII 82-90
Dante ]
Heraclitus spoke honest words when he said, "Nothing endures but change."
The Wheel of Life was designed to teach and take us to new places. Bound as we are to rota Fortuna, we are tempted to cry, Perdita-like, "O Lady Fortune, Stand you auspicious!" It is said, however, that the gods have ordained a solemn vow: it is only through suffering that we can achieve wisdom. In our turn at the bottom of the wheel we are stripped bare of our illusions and here we learn true self-reliance and mastery. In accepting experiences as the vehicle of transformation, we begin to realise our divine nature and see deeper, more axial truths, the laws of the universe, that remain untouched by Fortune's waxing and waning.
Boethius shows us that the only safe place on the wheel is the centre - the only part of the wheel that does not move or change. Short of death, it is the only place where one can truly be protected from Fortune's fickle touch. Just so, true happiness, true love, true goodness all come only from within. Because earthly goods and stations can decay and disappear, they cannot bring true happiness (which must, by its very nature, be eternal and immutable); it cannot be given to us nor taken away from us. True love is immune to Fortune's waxing and waning, and goodness has an unchanging face. So whether rota Fortuna raises us high or brings us low, we have only to remember the centre, and we will be recipient to the true blessings in life - love, wisdom and happiness.
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K.M.G.
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What is it, therfore, O man, that hath throwne the down to wo and wayle? Thou hast seene, I beleue, som new vnwonted thing. Thou,yf thou thinkest that toward the fortune be changed, art deceaud. This was euer her manner, this was her nature. She hath euer kept toward the rather her own constancy in her mutabilitie. Such one was she, when she beguild the, and did deceaue with allurementes of false felicitie. Thou hast vnderstode now, the doutfull face of the blynde Goddesse, which though she hyde her self to others, hath made her self to the manifest. Yf thou allow her vse her fashon, complayne not therof; yf thou hatest her treason, skorne her and cast her of, that so falsely beguylde the; for she that now is cause of thy woe, the self same ought be of thy quyett. She hath left the, whom no man can be sure that will not leave him. Elizabeth I |
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