Themes of the Carmina Burana: Medieval and Modern

Stephen Metzger
HAB Capstone Thesis
1 April 2004

Metzger, 2

Introduction
In the early 1930s, the German composer Carl Orff searched for a text for which he could
write a choral cycle. His endeavors led him to the Carmina Burana, the largest collection of
medieval secular Latin poetry from the thirteenth century. As a result of his accomplishment, a
question arises whether Orff was true to thematic elements in the manuscript itself or whether he
gave those medieval melodies a thoroughly modern meaning. By looking at the structure of the
manuscript with an eye to the thematic arrangement of the poems therein, it becomes evident that
Orff maintains the theme of the fickle nature of Fortune.
This analysis is divided into four parts. It starts with a brief survey of the historical
development of Latin lyric poetry in order to give the reader some context as to the influences on
the poetry in the codex. The paper will then move into a discussion of Carl Orff and his music,
giving a brief biography and also a discussion of his relationship with the Nazi party. The last
two sections are the most important. The third chapter deals with the history of the manuscript,
followed by a discussion and explanation of six poems, five of which are present in various ways
in the musical composition of Carl Orff. The paper will finish with an investigation of the
music. This will be followed by a comparison of the piece with the manuscript as a whole and
the poems selected.
The purpose of all four sections is to show that there is a specific thematic structure to
both the manuscript as a whole and the music Orff composed. The idea of the capricious nature
of the goddess Fortuna is present in both works. While scholars admit that the manuscript of the
Carmina Burana is arranged in thematic sections, this paper posits that the theme of fickle
Fortune binds those three parts together as one. Similarly, an analysis of Orffs score
demonstrates that he saw such a plan in the manuscript.

Metzger, 3

This investigation therefore assumes that medieval manuscripts were compiled not ad
hoc, which continues to be the prevalent opinion in the field of paleography, but that the editor of
the text collected a variety of poems from all across Europe and placed them with a definite
order in mind. This paper acknowledges paleographic evidence that asserts that the codex as we
have it today was not completed in a day or even one year. By emphasizing the pervasive
appearance of the fickleness of Fortune throughout the entire text, however, the editors of the
manuscript were able to give the piece a particular order. The illuminations sustain this
assumption. Furthermore, the thematic meaning of the poems themselves provides the most
significant evidence for the idea of a thematic structure to the entire codex.
Whenever a discussion of the works of Carl Orff occurs, a question always arises as to
the nature of his political beliefs between the years 1933-45. Orff was an artist working in
Germany and the Carmina Burana premiered during the reign of Adolf Hitler, and these facts
demand an assessment of the extent the ideological tenets of Nazism influenced the piece. This
paper will attempt to show that while Orff neither participated in nor openly opposed the
political ideas of the Nazis, his Carmina Burana is devoid of any stain of National Socialism. It
is not a piece of Aryan propaganda, but rather a true setting of the themes present in the
manuscript itself and the Latin and German poems in particular.

I. Medieval Latin lyric poetry

Poetry provides a foundation for the history of Western literature, and sung verse
constitutes one of the oldest forms of human expression.1 A common misconception believes
that the period from the decline of Rome in the West to the Renaissance was devoid of culture or

Herodotus wrote his Histories in 440 BC in prose. This was roughly four centuries after scholars believe the Iliad
and the Odyssey were written down for the first time. (Martin 4.6).

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any form of literary expression. The dearth of surviving texts from the early Middle Ages allows
such a conclusion to be drawn, though careful research paints a far different picture. A wealth of
literary creativity existed in the Middle Ages, as the emergence of a secular Latin lyric
illustrates. The secular Latin poetry that appears in the Middle Ages rests upon an abundant
poetic tradition. The scholars at monastic schools and universities who composed these verses
were acquainted with both an oral and written tradition of poetry.2 The poetry they penned
reflects the converging influences that spurred its growth.
The classical tradition provided a significant influence on the development of medieval
poetry. Homer composed in verse not only because it was the proper medium in which to
discuss divine events, but also because it allowed for easy memorization. Memorization became
central to the oral tradition.3 Poetry transmitted the beliefs of Greek culture.4 Plato writes
against this monopoly of the poets on the ethical values of the Greeks in his Republic.5 A similar
tradition, associated with the Old English epic Beowulf, will be discussed later. Poetry grows
from beginnings such as these and the oral-based sources make particular developments
impossible to trace in detail.
The Middle Ages received ancient literary tradition through the Romans whom the
Greeks influenced greatly. This fact prompted F.J.E. Raby in his monumental and influential
work Secular Latin Poetry to posit that all of Western verse comes under Oriental influence.
This included Greek literature for Raby since Homer came from Asia Minor.6 The Romans drew
extensively from the Greeks, seen most notably in Virgils Aeneid, a poem that had a lasting
impact on the Middle Ages. Catullus drew from Greek predecessors such as Sappho. Ovid, also,
2

Wolf 75.
Havelock 11.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid. Plato criticizes the writings of Hesiod and Homer from 377b to 383c at the end of Book II.
6
Raby 4.
3

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enters into the fray with his Metamorphoses, taking Greek myths and transposing them into
Roman forms. Ovids imagery, thoughts, and diction significantly influenced the development
of medieval lyric partly because he was one of the few authors to see many of his works survive
to influence the Middle Ages.7 The history of Latin poetry is extensive and the poets are
numerous. All leave a certain legacy to the medieval world, but none more so than Virgil and
Ovid.8
A bridge between the Roman poets and the medieval lyricists can be constructed. Poetry
did not disappear because barbarians invaded Rome. In fact, the medieval poets drew upon
ancient authorities for their inspiration. As Winthrop Wetherbee states in regards to Bernardus
Silvestris Cosmographia, Bernardus masterpiece is a cosmology, modeled on Boethius,
Martianus Capella, Ovid, and others, and at the same time a highly self-conscious literary
exercise that amounts to an ars poetica.9 Boethius, who wrote in verse and prose, had a
tremendous influence on the thought, literature and music of the Middle Ages. Similarly, Ovid
influenced later poets and writers, who constantly used images from his poems to convey their
meaning. Yet the poet with the greatest influence on the Middle Ages from antiquity was
Publius Vergilius Maro. Dante grants him an important role in his Comedia, demonstrating that
the giants of the past were not only known but also revered in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries AD. As early as the fourth century AD, Christian authors such as Proba wrote in a
style known as a cento, in which the poet conveyed a Christian meaning in the guise of
Vergilian hexameters.10 Although the classical tradition filtered into the early medieval schools,

Dronke (1968) 163.

Reynolds 98.
9
Wetherbee 97.
10
Proba 111. This form of composition was immensely popular in late antiquity, as Raby notes: The centos
continued, however, to be admired and read. Isidore of Seville knew all about them, and the Carolingians can hardly
have overlooked them (44-5).
8

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knowledge of classical Latin dwindled as time drew Europe farther away from its Roman past.
This prompted Charlemagne to call for reform. He sparked a rebirth of learning in his court that
spread throughout his kingdom:
An important result of a rapidly developing and highly organized educational
program, spreading from the court to the monasteries and cathedrals, was the need
for books; these were produced on an unprecedented scale, in a flurry of activity
which salvaged for us the greater part of Latin literature.11
This renaissance firmly rooted Latin as well as Romes literary tradition in the education of
Europe.
Just as Latin had a long and distinguished poetic tradition, the poetry of the vernacular
languages, which is not as well known, had a definite influence on the rise of secular Latin lyric.
The emergence of historical lays and epics in a variety of languages, such as Beowulf, which was
written down around 1000 AD, reveals that the Greeks were not unique in the development of
verse over prose. Naturally, Beowulf does not appear out of a vacuum, but emerges from a wellestablished custom of song. P. S. Allen cites Tacitus as evidence for such a tradition of song
among the Germanic tribes of late antiquity: In the famous second chapter of his Germania,
Tacitus tells us that certain German tribes celebrated in ancient songsunum apud illos
memoriae et annalium genusthe birth of their clan and its founders, earth-sprung Tuisco, and
his son Mannus.12 This brief quotation from the illustrious Roman historian on the surface says
little about the poetic tradition among the barbarian tribes. However, just the mere mention of
such a custom confirms the fact that the non-Roman, barbarian regions of Europe also had an
oral tradition of poetry. The poets who created these songs benefited from the influence of
ancient poetic traditions.13

11

Reynolds 84.
Allen 6.
13
Ibid 7.
12

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This tradition does not lack famous tales and myths; indeed, some still influence the
modern world. From the fourth to the sixth century, European literature is far from extinct.
Allen speculates:
This is the period in which Gothic minstrels, singing to the harp at the courts of
German kings created the legendary tales which were to become the materials for
epic recital in later days, andpassing into the Eddas, the Nibelung Lay, and
other poemswere to preserve in dim outline the memory of certain great
historical chieftains who played their part in dismembering the empire.14
The tribes remembered their heritage in song much like Greeks and Romans. For example in the
epic poem, Beowulf, Hrothgars minstrel sings of the death of Grendel at the hands of Beowulf
immediately and then begins to recount the tale of Sigemund, the dragon-slayer.15
The tradition of song and verse in the vernaculars was not confined to the German tribes,
but permeated Europe. Musicians sang and played in all the courts of the continent from the
early fourth century. Dronke writes:
In the mid-fifth century the Hunnish Emperor Attila has two Gothic minstrels and
a Scythian buffoon performing at his court on the Danube; in 507 Emperor
Theodoric at Ravenna sends a singing lutanist to Clovis; at the Parisian court of
Clovis son Childebert we find a Celtic bard Hyvarnion, prized for his
composition of songs and lays.16
The presence of such a number of minstrels in varied places attests to their popularity. At this
point in history an interesting phenomenon occurs in the relationship between orality and
literacy. Poets in the court of Theodoric composed songs about events during his reign in
writing in order to give a mythic stature to the emperor.17 These lays eventually worked their
way into the vernacular oral tradition with the collapse of Gothic power.18 Consequently in the

14

Ibid.
Beowulf ln. 870ff.
16
Ibid 18-19.
17
Wolf 72.
18
Ibid.
15

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Middle Ages, Latin literature and the songs of the oral vernacular tradition influenced one
another, eventually producing the literature of the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD.
The tradition of poetry in Latin and the custom of songs in various vernacular dialects
each had an influence on the development of secular Latin lyric. Moreover, the Muslim invaders
of Christendom also shaped the content and style of poetry in Europe. Most students recognize
Arab influence in fields such as philosophy and theology. However, the Muslim invasions
brought with them other aspects of their culture, including poetry. By 1212, the Kingdom of
Castile had established itself in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, about half of which belonged
to various Christian kingdoms.19 Even though violence and conflict often characterize the
Middle Ages in Spain, the Christians and Muslims interacted with each other in this country far
more frequently than in any other part of Europe except perhaps Sicily and the Greek East. This
exchange led to the adoption of architectural styles as well as various philosophies and, of
course, literatures. The court of Sancho IV in Castile employed numerous poets and musicians
including Jews, Arabs and Christians.20 Not only does this offer an interesting observation
concerning Christian-Muslim relations but it also demonstrates a path through which the Arab
tradition of song entered and influenced European poetry.
With such a tradition of vernacular poetry to draw from, the question concerning the
origin of Latin lyric remains unresolved. It would seem natural enough for the vernacular to
become the dominant medium for poetry, leaving the antiquated Latin far behind. The Italian
poet Dante sheds light on the reason why Latin remained appropriate for secular poetry.
Between 1303 and 1305, Dante composed De vulgari eloquentia, a work designed to promote

19
20

Hollister 220.
Dronke (1996) 19.

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the usage of a common Italian vernacular.21 In many respects, this book embodies his political
beliefs.22 After his expulsion from Florence, Dante wrote in both this work and in the De
Monarchia on behalf of the unification of Italy.23 To the end of unifying Italy under one lord,
the Holy Roman Emperor, Dante found that he must try to reconcile the various vernacular
dialects of Italian into one common, national vernacular, the Italian.
For such a project to be successful, Dante had to show how the vernacular language and
in particular poetry acted as the continuator of the tradition of Latin literature:24
From this we have another, secondary language which the Romans called
grammar. This secondary language is also possessed by the Greeks and others,
but not by all; and indeed few attain it because it is only in the course of time and
by assiduous study that we become schooled in its rules and art. Now of the two
the nobler is the vernacular: first because it is the first language ever spoken by
mankind; second because the whole world uses it though in diverse
pronunciations and forms; finally because it is natural to us while the other is
more the product of art.25
Although Latin was far from dead, it was no longer the common language of the people by the
time Dante wrote. Learning Latin required extensive study of grammar and a knowledge of the
greatest authors of antiquity such as Virgil and Ovid. This part of the medieval education aided
the growth of poetry. Furthermore, Dante makes an interesting comment in reference to Latin as
a product of art. The word ars has many meanings. It is the root of the English word
artificial, meaning not natural. Marianne Shapiro, whose translation of Dante is cited above,
translated the word in this sense, as she explains in her text. However, in Latin it also has the
meaning of a skill. It is something learned that takes time and effort to master. Consequently,
while Dante understood that a minority of people knew Latin, it was a useful medium for poetic

21

Federn 256.
Ibid.
23
Holmes 31.
24
Grayson 149.
25
Dante. De vulgari eloquentia. in Shapiro 47-8.
22

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composition only for those with knowledge of it. For Italian to become a national language, it
needed rules of grammar allowing stability. Dante says, Since it was regularized by the
common agreement of peoples, grammar then becomes independent of individual judgment,
hence incapable of variation.26 Because Latin already possessed those rules, it remained a
language in which to write.
Another reason secular lyric poetry appeared in Latin as well as in the vernacular lies in
the men who wrote it. By and large, the authors of medieval lyric poetry were either students at
the university or monks. The romantic view of these poets portrays them as wandering
vagabonds living according to some Bohemian ethic.27 These poets, however, were far from this
ideal and in fact worked as professors at some of the most famous universities in Europe.28
These men knew the tradition of classical poetry and felt more comfortable composing in Latin
than in their vernacular language. Dantes constant reference to classical poetry, most notably in
the Comedia but also in De vulgari eloquentia,29 demonstrates the symbiosis between vernacular
and Latin poetry. The influence of the study of grammar at the university as part of the seven
liberal arts is revealed in the Carmina burana, the largest collection of profane Latin lyric, which
mentions Roman gods and goddesses as well as alludes to episodes from known myths like Dido
and Aeneas in Book IV of the Aeneid.
Another reason why medieval poets chose Latin as a means for writing their secular
verses is because there existed a poetic tradition in Church hymns and religious verse. Scholars
in the Middle Ages knew of the sexual imagery present in the Song of Solomon and were quite
comfortable with bringing this sort of imagery into the Church. The authors of secular or

26

Ibid 57.
Dronke (1996) 21.
28
Ibid.
29
Dante, in Shapiro 74-5.
27

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profane poetry adapted this tradition to their own devices and many of their poems posses a
religious quality. In regards to the Carmina Burana, the most apparent relationship between
religious training and secular poetry appears in the melodies of the poems. Many poems in the
codex have neumes30 written above the words. Dronke demonstrates the correlation between the
melody of a poem entitled Exiit deliculo and the melody of a religious song, Surrexit de
tumulo in the Codex de Las Huelgas.31 The melody of these two poems is the same: the writer
of the Spanish manuscript borrowed from the Carmina Burana since the words of Exiit deliculo
fit the meter better than Surrexit de tumulo.32 Scholars at the university knew well the liturgies
of the Church with all the imagery and rhythm that the songs in those liturgies possess. The
exchange of melodies whether from profane to secular or secular to profane cannot be ignored.
In addition to metrical evidence, word choice also demonstrates a relationship between
religion and the profane lyric of the Middle Ages. The second stanza of poem 50 of the Carmina
Burana begins Pange lingua, a common expression in religious song.33 There are several songs
with this title in the Christians tradition.34 Furthermore, other secular poets, like the Archpoet,
make reference to famous Biblical passages. In his poem Estuans intrinsecus the Archpoet
includes the line, Cum sit enim proprium viro sapienti supra petram ponere sedem fundamenti .
. .35 The language alludes to the Gospel where Jesus says that he will build his Church upon a
rock. The secular lyric constitutes a continuation of Christian poetry used by the Church.36
A variety of factors merged to create a highly polished secular Latin lyric poetry that
appeared during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Classical, vernacular, Arabic, and religious
30

These are both metrical markings and indicators of pitch.

Dronke (1974) 121
32
Ibid.
33
Poem 50 in Schmeller 141.
34
These include the famous setting by Thomas Aquinas still sung in the Catholic Church on Holy Thursday.
35
Langosch 258.
36
Schnberger 121.
31

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verse each played a role in the development of these profane poems. Through many
manuscripts, such as that of Carmina Burana, the writings of known and anonymous poets were
preserved. On account of this preservation, the poetry of the High and Late Middle Ages has
taken its rightful place in the ranks of great literature.

III. Carl Orff

Carl Orff was born into a Bavarian military family on July 10, 1895.37 Orffs family
played music on a regular basis, introducing Orff to his lifelong passion at an early age.38 Music
dominated his youth and influenced his work at school. Because the Orff household loved
music, he learned the art of musical composition primarily outside of the classroom through
experimentation and study of famous musical works, writing music before attaining knowledge
of harmony.39
He began his preparatory education at the Ludwig-Gymnasium but transferred to the
Wittelsbach-Gymnasium, which provided a better environment for his musical interests.40 He
readily studied German essay, literature, botany, the natural sciences, Greek and Latin.41 The
latter two had a profound influence on his work. Before his graduation, he left the Gymnasium
and enrolled in the Akademie der Tonkunst starting in 1912.42 In the same year, he published his
first composition, a setting of the poetry of Karl Stieler.43 From 1915-17, Orff conducted music
at the Munich Kammerspiele.44

37

Gersdorf 17.
Ibid 16. As Orff himself mentions, Tglich spielten meine Eltern nachmittags oder abends vierhndig,
allsonntglich war nachmittags Klavierquintett oder abends Streichquartett.
39
Liess 12.
40
Thomas 3.
41
Liess 12.
42
Thomas 4.
43
Ibid.
44
Maier 4.
38

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During the war he served the emperor in the First Royal Regiment of Bavarian Field
Artillery in Poland. He was discharged from the service after being wounded.45 Orff
immediately returned to work, becoming the conductor of the National Theatre in Mannheim and
then the Court Theatre at Darmstadt from which he returned to Munich in 1919.46 During the
years of the Weimar Republic Orff met Dorothee Gnther and began collaboration with her on
his famous Schulwerk.47 The Schulwerk attempts to teach music to children through methods
very similar to that of the Montessori system.48 While continuing to work on the Schulwerk, Orff
conducted the Bachverein in Munich and composed a St. Lukes Passion that premiered in
1932.49 The period of the Weimar Republic allowed Orff to continue to develop his style of
composition, a style that bears first real fruits with the Carmina Burana in 1937.
In 1933 Otto von Bismarck sent for Adolf Hitler to be the new chancellor of Germany, a
political act that had immense consequences for the history of the world. Interestingly enough,
Orff began to research material for a new choral cycle in late 1933.50 This search led him to a
thirteenth century manuscript, the Carmina Burana.51 Because of the political situation in
Germany during which Orff composed this piece, a variety of views exist as to the meaning of
the music. Some see it as a representation of the Aryan ideal, an unbridled defense of the tenets
of Nazism.52 Naturally a counterview exists espoused by Orffs principle hagiographer, Werner
Thomas and supported with quotes from Orff himself. Thomas and others portray Orff as a saint

45

Ibid, 5.
Ibid.
47
Thomas 17.
48
Loney 6. Loney actually asks Orff if he is the Montessori of music, to which the answer is yes.
49
Gersdorf 50.
50
Briefe, 13.
51
Ibid 19.
52
Kater 113. Kater quotes many publications, mostly newspaper reviews, that have vilified Orff. The most heinous
of these is from 1988 in which Riccard Chailly reviews a performance of the piece by the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw Orchestra, calling it a Christmas greeting from Nazi Germany. This harsh criticism is also
mentioned in the speech by Hans Maier.
46

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thoroughly against the Nazis and in fact under persecution from them. Neither of these views is
wholly correct; the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Orff never formally became a member of the Nazi party.53 In his correspondence with
the archivist Michel Hofmann, Orff and Hofmann continually make subtle jokes about the new
political power. Orff closes the first letter in the collection, mit vershiedenen heilen, an
obvious pun on the form of greeting that the Nazis used.54 In a later letter from the spring of
1934, Hofmann tells Orff that if he were to arrive in Bamberg, Hofmann would greet him in the
manner of a subdued Nazi festival.55 Hofmann ridicules the pomp of the Party rallies. Orff
feared that his music would be censored, saying in a letter to Hofmann dated June 12, 1936,
Now indeed no one will print and perform the Carmina Burana. Un-German.56 Orff feared
that the Nazi would consider his music un-German and consequently ban him from composing
and working.
This should not imply that Orff had nothing but disdain for the Nazis and never
associated with them. In fact, Orff worked oftentimes at the behest of the government who in
turn paid him. Orff conducted music for the 1936 Olympic Games, the great display of German,
Aryan, and pagan supremacy.57 Perhaps the most significant interaction between National
Socialism and Orff occurred in relation to his Schulwerk. The Hitler Youth, upon the ascension
of the Nazi Party to national power, had taken over all forms of education, particularly the
preservation of German music.58 Observing this, Orff desperately tried to have the Hitler Youth

53

Ibid 119. This fact is attested to in every biographical source I have read.
Briefe, 13.
55
Ibid 24. Aber wenn Sie einmal nach Bamberg kmen, so wre das natrlich ein Fest von direkt
nationalsozialistischen Ausmaen.
56
Ibid 113. Nun wird ja nieman die Burana drucken und auffhren. ,Undeutsch.
57
Ibid 104. War fast stndig in Berlin, habe fr die Olympiafestspiele allerhand Musik auf Schallplatten dirigiert,
allerdings leider zuerst auch komponiert! (Letter dated: 1. Sept. 1935)
58
Kater 121.
54

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adopt the Schulwerk in their teaching methods.59 He was not altogether successful at this, but he
did ensure that the idea would remain in publication until 1939.60 Orff also worked under the
protection of the Gauleiter in Vienna, who had commissioned him to write the Antigonae opera
for the Wiener Staatsoper in 1942; it was a three-year contract.61 After the success of the
Carmina Burana, the Nazis wanted Orff to write a more fitting arrangement of Shakespeares A
Midsummer Nights Dream, thus supplanting the composition of Mendelssohn, whose ethnic
background was distasteful to the Nazi regime.62 Orff agreed to it especially since he had once
tried to write such a piece in 1917.63 Perhaps the most interesting event in the relationship of the
Nazis and Carl Orff revolves around the premier of his most famous piece. The Carmina
Burana in June 1937 opened at the Tonknstlerfest series of the Allgemeiner Deutscher
Musikverein in Frankfurt thanks to the sponsorship of the mayor, Franz Krebs, who was a highranking SS officer and follower of Hitler since 1922.64
Orff did not condone Nazi ideology, but he also believed that as a German he could not
very well oppose it if he wanted to remain either alive or employed. Orff first and foremost saw
himself as a composer and conductor of music. In reality, his life was little affected by external,
significant events.65 In order to compose music and have it heard, Orff needed a patron. The

59

Ibid.
Ibid. Kater comments: . . . the Hitler Youth, his most hoped-for client, had occasionally mentioned it[Schulwerk]
in its literature but not officially adopted it because of its relative complexity, which was unsuited to the coarse
music culture of future Wehrmacht solders and SS killers trained by it.
61
Kater 130.
62
Kater 125.
63
Liess 15.
64
Ibid 124. There is some question as to whether Orffs maternal grandmother was Jewish with the idea that his
ethnic background would have a bearing on his political ideology in the 1930s. Michael Kater mentions this in his
chapter on Orff in Composers in the Nazi Era (142) with the idea that if this were true his political ambiguity would
no longer be a question. I take it that this fact, which only appears in this source of all the biographies I read, is
perhaps a myth invented to absolve Orff of any blemishes. Either way, it has no bearing on this investigation.
65
Thomas 19.
60

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best patron in Germany was the state. Therefore, he had to compromise with the political regime
to ensure that the public would hear his work.66
The Nazis criticized the Carmina Burana when it premiered. The piece did not fit in
with their ideals and ideologies. They liked the music but not the words. Goebbels wrote, . . .
his Carmina Burana exhibits exquisite beauty, and if we could get him to do something about
his lyrics, his music would certainly be very promising.67 One cannot, however, disengage the
text from the music when dealing with Orff. It was a product of his education to believe that the
Greeks and Romans formed the foundation of Western culture.68

He brought this appreciation

for language to his work, and the Carmina Burana stands as a great example of that. As Orff
himself said in an interview:
Some people think the Latin of Carmina, or the Greek of Antigonae and
Prometheus, is merely an artistic affect, but that isnt so. In the time, 1935-36, I
wanted to create a documentation. And I asked myself then: What was Europes
spiritual bond? Of course, several centuries before, it was the Latin language. In
that time, from St. Petersburg to Paris and Naples, they corresponded in Latin.
The Church was Latin. And it was a spiritual union for Europe. That was the
basic reason I wanted to use Latin. And I still say that today, that the ancient
languages of Latin and Greek are still the bond in European culture.69
If Orff desired to exalt the ideology of the Nazis, which stressed the Aryan, pagan origins of
German culture, a classical text would have been a more natural source for his composition than
a medieval one. Medieval secular lyric poetry is not a purebred art form, and it is most certainly
not Aryan. The content of the poems does not romanticize the pagan or the classical. Most
importantly Orffs Carmina Burana accepts the harsh realities of life.70 Nothing lasts forever

66

Maier 8.
Kater 132.
68
Thomas 3. His favorite subjects were the classical languages: reading Homer was like music to me.
69
Loney 8.
70
pace Schfer, who incorrectly argues If we had no other wok by Orff than Carmina Burana, we should know at
once that his music is powered by the vital, exciting, highly expressive rhythma rhythmic energy that is full of
defiance and rebellion, unruliness and opposition, and also of that which the Bavarians call Hetz und Gaudi (an
untranslatable expression meaning a jovial but unrestrained, uninhibited kind of revelry.
67

Metzger, 17

because Fortune and her wheel are controlling the affairs of humans. Fortuna is the thread that
weaves the piece together and on which everything hangs. As will be discussed later, her fickle
nature can both aid mankind but also cause it great ruin. There will be no thousand year Reich.
Following the war, Orff continued to compose music, arranging scores for several Greek
tragedies and pieces of German literature. He was a Professor of Composition at the Hochschule
fr Musik in Munich from 1950-1960.71 He earned numerous honors in his lifetime, including
an honorary doctorate from the University of Munich, the Grand Cross of Merit with star and
sash from the German Federal Republic in 1972,72 and the Romano Guardini Prize from the
Catholic Academy of Bavaria in 1974.73 He lived his entire life predominantly in his beloved
city of Munich. He died on 29 March 1982 and was laid to rest in the Capella Dolorosa in the
church of the Andechs Monastery.74

IV. Clm 4660 and 4660a: The Songs of Bendiktbeuern

In 1803, with the secularization of the monastery of Benedictbeuern, Baron Christoph
von Aretin discovered a manuscript, dubbing it Codex latinus monacensis 4660 and placing it in
the collection of the Court and Central Library in Munich.75 Forty years later, Johann Andreas
Schmeller published the first complete edition of the poems in 1847, christening them the
Carmina Burana. In the early part of the twentieth century, three scholars, Alfons Hilka, Otto
Schumann and Wilhelm Meyer, combined to work on the publication of a critical edition of the

71

Werner 19
Ibid.
73
http://www.helmut-zenz.de/hzguard1.htm Award winners include: Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar and
Werner Heisenberg.
74
Werner 21.
75
Blodgett xviii. Also found in: Schnberger 121.
72

Metzger, 18

Carmina Burana.76 The first volume of this three volume work appeared in 1930. Meyer joined
the project because in 1901 he had discovered that the Fragmenta Burana (Clm 4660a) belonged
with the rest of the manuscript.77 This massive project of textual criticism finally ended when
Bernhard Bischoff published the third volume in 1971.
Bischoff deduced that the manuscript was compiled around 1230, believing that the
codex originated from Carinthia or the Tyrol.78 Modern scholarship has proven this hypothesis,
ascertaining through linguistic and paleographic evidence that the manuscript was compiled in
the Southern Tyrol and then moved to the abbey of Benedictbeuern.79 There are two main
scribes, designated h1 and h2 by Schumann, who show a marked Italian influence.80
The manuscript stems from an interesting epoch in European history, the rise of the
university in the eleventh and twelfth centuries AD. Students in religious orders of some kind
and from all regions of the continent flocked to the new intellectual centers of Europe to be
trained in the art of letters. Because of the diversity of their region of origin, they shared a
common academic tongue, Latin.81

These students frequently wrote verse not only as a

medium of expression but also as a way to solidify the tenets of Latin composition. The
students ability to write in poetry demonstrated both his technical skill in Latin and his ability as
a scholar.82 The Carmina Burana provides the best evidence for this unbridled passion for
writing Latin verse. This does not mean that the poems in the codex do not possess beauty or
that they were composed without a sense of aesthetics. The songs cannot be thought of as

76

Carmina Burana: mit Benutzung der Vorarbeiten Wilhelm Meyers ; kritisch herausgegeben von
Alfons Hilka und Otto Schumann Vol. 1-3. Heidelberg : C. Winter, 1961.
77
Edwards 43.
78
Bischoff 30.
79
Sayce 3.
80
Sayce 3, and Bischoff 28.
81
Duggan 4.
82
Ibid 12.

Metzger, 19

school-exercises because they are not mechanical reproductions of classical meter and style.83
While the student wrote these poems in a learned language, he still instilled in them passion and
loveliness.84 Consequently, some of the most beautiful love-poetry ever written is contained
within the 119 leaves of the largest manuscript of secular lyric to survive to this day.85 The
religious nature of the education of these scholars has left an indelible mark upon the manuscript
itself. Dronke makes clear that there is a reciprocal relationship between the poems in the
Carmina Burana and medieval religious songs.86 The language and imagery of these poems
draw heavily upon Christianity as noted in the first chapter.
Not unlike modern university students, medieval scholars constituted a wild bunch. The
history of medieval institutions of higher learning is rife with town and gown disputes.87
Students notoriously engaged in the pleasures of the brothel and the tavern. The university
trained these men to become competent leaders in society in either the secular or religious
sphere. The term Goliards is often used to describe the students who wrote secular Latin verse
in the Middle Ages. The origin of this name provokes much debate. On the one hand, some
scholars believe that the name refers to a mythical poet named Golias, who was the founder and
head of the wandering order of poets.88 On the other hand, the name often is used to refer to
Peter Abelard because students called him Goliath and Golias could be the Latin form of the
name. Abelard, perhaps, had the greatest influence on the rise of the type of lyric that appears in
the Carmina Burana specifically and in the Middle Ages in general. Of course, Goliath was the

83

Dronke (1974) 129.

Ibid.
85
Dronke (1968) 300.
86
Dronke (1974) 120. This is the discussion of the poem Exiit diluculo and a hymn from the Spanish manuscript
Codex de Las Huelgas, which was mentioned prievously.
87
Baldwin 49.
88
Ibid 50-51.
84

Metzger, 20

great enemy of the Jewish people whom David had to slay with the help of God.89 Abelard often
found himself at odds with the leaders of the Church. He was even placed on trial under
suspicion of being a heretic. Thus, the connection of Golias to Abelard is not a dubious one.
The allusion to such a well-known figure suited the nature of this mythical band of
wandering poets. They too suffered the censure of the Church, . . . the clericus found vagus is
henceforth clericus no longer: he is to be shaven, so that no trace may be left of that order to
which he is a disgrace . . .90 The Church believed that because these scholars, who were all
members of some form of religious orders, had dishonored the Church by following a life of
revelry and lewdness, and dedicated themselves not to the noble pursuits of scholarship but to
debauchery.
Abelard naturally drew the respect and admiration of the wandering scholars on account
of his brilliance as well as the events surrounding his tragic love of Heloise. Indeed, he penned
love poetry to Heloise, and the story of his tragedy struck the poets as much as did the great
classical poets, Ovid and Virgil. Heloise described Abelard as possessing the talent to make
women swoon, He had two gifts, to win any womans heart, said Heloise, gifts rare in a
philosopher, of making and singing, making both in the classic meters and the new rhyming, and
setting them to airs so lovely that even the unlettered knew his name.91 Because people far and
wide had heard of his poetic expertise, it naturally influenced the poems in the Carmina Burana.
Men similar to Abelard in nature and conduct composed these songs:
So the Carmina Burana reflect a youth culturea privileged, ambitious, selfconfident youth culture, which crossed social and political barrier, upwardly and
geographically mobile. The collection is full of that excitement, that daring, that
laughing-at-convention which characterizes independently minded youth.92
89

Waddell 118.
Ibid 203-4.
91
Ibid 214-15.
92
Duggan 11.
90

Metzger, 21

The collection, therefore, reflects the ideas and style of Abelard. Abelard acted as more
than just an inspiration to those who followed him. He influenced them with his poems
about love and the subsequent losing of that desire, and was also a true leader for these
scholars, the first of his and their kind.
Noting this background, the manuscript itself is divided thematically. The first section of
the codex contains moral and satirical poems.93 The manuscript then moves to its larges part
comprised of love songs.94 The last two sections contain songs of drinking, gambling and
goliards, which are followed by some religious plays.95 It appears that this structure was
deliberate. Bischoff believed that since the manuscript was compiled over a number of years
between 1230 and 1250 AD, whenever the editor discovered a suitable poem he included in the
appropriate section.96 Consequently, the manuscript possess moral and didactic structure similar
to the moralizing encyclopedias common during the Middle Ages, which also contained rhymes
and verses.97 This fact solidifies the notion of a plan behind the ordering of the poems. The
compiler of the manuscript placed the poems based solely on where they fit thematically in the
codex. This idea of a structure according to one theme is sustained by the supremacy that the
goddess Fortune has over the entire work.
Famously the illumination of the goddess Fortune and her wheel emblazes the first page
of the manuscript.98 Under that picture lies the poem O Fortuna. Hilka and Schumann
designate this poem as number seventeen in their critical edition, citing textual criticism as to the

93

Bischoff 21.
Ibid.
95
Ibid.
96
Bischoff 23.
97
Ibid.
98
Carmina Burana, Ed. Schmeller 1.
94

Metzger, 22

reason for this change.99 Sayce, paraphrasing Hilka and Schumanns work, believes that this
Fortuna miniature acted as a conclusion to a section of poems on fortune.100 Julia Walworth has
this to say on the subject of the placement of the miniature:
A convincing explanation of the unusual placement of the miniatures is proposed
by Peter and Dorothee Diemer in their commentary in Vollmanns 1987 edition of
the Carmina Burana: the scribe allocated space for a miniature when he was
coming to the end of a particular group of texts and could see that space would be
available, often on the verso of a folio or, in at least two cases (the forest and the
pair of lovers), at the end of a gathering.101
This does not diminish the idea that the theme of the fickleness of fortune exists throughout the
manuscript. If the editor originally intended the Fortuna miniature to be placed at the end of the
section, it still has a position of influence over the entire work because it serves as a break
between themes, stands as a witness to what just preceded, and foreshadows themes in the rest of
the codex on account of its size.102
The fact that the goddess Fortune holds such an influential place in the manuscript
testifies to the preservation of the classical past by intellectuals in the face of revelation.
Because of the pervasiveness of reference to all kinds of classical figures and ideas, the writers
of the poems in this codex obviously possessed a familiarity with the literature of antiquity.103
They used the idea of the fickleness of Fortune, which the philosopher, theologian, and musician
Boethius preserved for them.104 To them, fortune constitutes the personification of disorder.105

99

Carmina Burana, Ed. Hilka and Schumann 35.

Sayce 5.
101
Walworth 80.
102
I shall no longer refer to the Hilka and Schumann text in this section when referring to the poems. Instead, I will
be using the Schmeller edition of 1847 because that is the text that Orff used when he wrote his music. The critical
edition with its emphasis on the placing of the poems has minimal bearing on the thematic structure of the
manuscript as a whole.
103
Schnberger 122. Diese Dichter beherrschten das Lateinische sehr gut, kannten die Bibel fast auswendig,
zitierten aber auch Horaz und Ovid souvern.
104
Ibid 123-24. Die antike Tradition der Tyche-Fortuna kam ins Mittelalter besonders durch das Fortuna-Bild in
der Consolatio Philosophiae des Boethius (2,1), das brigens auch in den Boethius-Handschriften durch Miniaturan
untermalt ist.
100

Metzger, 23

The drinking songs of the Carmina Burana support this supposition because they talk about the
harsh luck of the gaming tables. This is seen most profoundly in the poem, Ego sum abbas
where the abbot laments his luck in the tavern.106 Consequently, the Carmina Burana are filled
with references to the goddess Fortune and her capricious nature.107
The illumination, which emblazes the first page of the Schmeller text, demonstrates one
of the primary understandings of the goddess Fortune.108 She sits in the center of her wheel.
One hand is raised with palm upward; the other holds the palm down, portraying the motion of
the wheel.109 Patch demonstrates that the ancients consider the right hand of Fortune to dispense
good and the left apportioned ill.110 In this illumination, Fortune holds her right hand palm up,
helping the king rise to power and it is her left hand that casts him to ruin. On the outside of the
wheel, a monarch goes through the four moments of life from a time without a kingdom, to the
period of reign. In the person of the ruler, the cycle of life and the whim of Fortuna are
brilliantly portrayed. Fortuna also wears a crown, demonstrating her power. As the largest of
all the figures in the miniature, Fortuna is also reminiscent of images of Christ or of temporal
rulers, and although her power may be limited to the terrestrial, this Fortuna is undoubtedly an
ineluctable force.111 The entire manuscript sustains the theme of the inability to overcome the
caprice of the goddess.

105

Patch, Howard R 15. Her chief characteristic as the personification of disorder is presented steadily in the
numerous accounts, which are found in many types of literature, from Martianus Capella down to the drinking-songs
of the Carmina Burana and Nigellus Virekers Speculum Stultorum, and even afterward.
106
Carmina Burana, poem 222 (in the third volume of the Hilka and Schumann edition). Ego sum abbas
Cucanienisis et consilium meum est bibulis et in secta Decii voluntas mea est, et qui man me quesierit in taberna,
post vesperam nudus egredietur et sic denudatus veste clamabit: wafna, wafna! quid fecisti, sors tupissima! nostre
vite gaudia abstulisti omnia.
107
Poems with references to Fortuna: (Numbers refer to Hilka and Schumann edition) 14, 16, 17, 18, 26, 59, 61, 69,
70, 73, 77, 84, 87, 88, 92, 93, 97, 101, 102, 103, 106, 107, 108, 110, 122, 127, 139, 148, 151, 166, 179, 191, 195,
203.
108
This is the same illumination which I placed on the title page of this work.
109
Walworth, 73-4.
110
Patch 44.
111
Walworth, 74.

Metzger, 24

The first poem in the codex, as it stands without textual criticism, is perhaps the most
famous setting of Fortuna in all of medieval literature. O Fortuna brilliantly and succinctly
describes the characteristics of the goddess. The poet describes Fortune as being like the moon,
always changing in state (O Fortuna velut luna statu variabilis).112 She is never steadfast but
always decreases or increases her gifts dependent solely on how she feels. Therefore, Fortuna
acts on a whim according to her nature. The second stanza remains much like the first,
continuing the description of Fortune. The poet changes the name of Fortuna to Sors but the
theme of the poem remains unchanged. The bard uses brilliant metaphor, much more striking in
the original Latin but roughly translated as, you are a turning wheel, evil state, empty health,
and always dissoluble (rota tu volubilis, status malus, vana salus, semper dissolubilis).113 But
this marks a profound change in the text. The tone shifts from an objective description of
Fortuna to a personal lament, which leads the reader into the third stanza. The transition acts
brilliantly because it keeps the strain of thought about the characteristics of the goddess and
brings them down to the personal level. You, wrapped and veiled, attack me also . . .
(obumbratam et velatam mihi quoque niteris).114 The final line of the second stanza begins the
idea of what Fortuna does to the individual. The poet stresses the fact nothing will change the
whims of fate. It is very much a classical concept where not even the gods can overcome the
fates. Fate or Luck saps man of his strength to overcome; his strength to live. The final line is
an invitation for everyone to weep for their common condition with him.
As hinted at above, the medieval poet received a certain idea of the goddess Fortuna from
antiquity. The writings of Boethius, specifically his Consolatio Philosophiae, had the greatest

112

Carmina Burana 1. For complete text, see appendix. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
Ibid.
114
Ibid.
113

Metzger, 25

impact on the medieval idea of Fortune.115 In Book II, Lady Philosophy describes to Boethius
the nature of Fortuna.116 She portrays Fortune as a turning wheel who is a precursor to disaster
always bringing misery by nature.117 Philosophy says:
As thus she turns her wheel of chance with haughty hand, and presses on like the
surge of Euripus's tides, fortune now tramples fiercely on a fearsome king, and
now deceives no less a conquered man by raising from the ground his humbled
face. She hears no wretch's cry, she heeds no tears, but wantonly she mocks the
sorrow which her cruelty has made. This is her sport: thus she proves her power;
if in the selfsame hour one man is raised to happiness, and cast down in despair,'
tis thus she shows her might.118
In this passage, Boethius describes Fortuna in the exact same terms that the medieval author and
illuminator will portray in the Carmina Burana. Yet Boethius builds his work on the firm
foundation of the classical past, relying on both Greek and Roman authors. The idea of Fate of
course was well known in Greek literature in authors ranging from Homer to Euripides.119 The
Roman authors who transmitted to the Middle Ages the nature of Fortune were Ovid, Pliny,
Horace, Seneca, Plutarch, Livy and Juvenal.120 The goddess appears in medieval literature with
classical characteristics because of both the scholars knowledge of classical works and their
familiarity with Boethius. Ovid characterizes her as inconstant.121 Horace delves into her fickle
nature.122 Obviously, Christianity attempted to annihilate the goddess because she was pagan as
part of the debate between Athens and Jerusalem made famous by St. Jerome.123 Boethius saved
her from this destruction with his influential work and preserved her for the medieval writers.

115

Schnberger 123.
Boethius in Cooper 25.
117
Ibid 27-8.
118
Ibid 28.
119
OCD 589.
120
Patch 11-13.
121
Tristia V, viii, 15-18 as cited in Patch 11.
122
Odes, III, xxix, 51f. as cited in Patch 12.
123
Patch 26.
116

Metzger, 26

A poem with the incipit Fas et Nefas ambulant is situated directly above O Fortuna
but underneath the illumination of Fortune. The poem begins with the idea that Fas and
Nefas,124 Right and Sin, are very much a like. When they walk together, their strides are nearly
equal (Fas et Nefas ambulant passu fere pari).125 It then admonishes the reader on how to live
according to the principles of Fas. However, the reader should always be careful because Fas
and Nefas are in fact so similar. The text urges the reader to remember the advice of the Roman
jurist Cato to live ethically, walk with good (ambula cum bonis),126 which is reminiscent of the
Thomistic or Aristotelian notion that one should do good and avoid evil, betraying the scholastic
nature of the writers education. Also present is the idea that these virtues will lead the scholar
to a high place in the affairs of the world. You will be able to give to worthy ones and to earn
safely the fame of the office (dare dignis poteris et mereri tute famam muneris).127 Therefore,
following the precepts of Divine Law constitutes the best way to achieve success in this life.
The poet believes that if one follows these precepts and acts justly, he will become more
compassionate and giving than the Athenian king Codrus.128 The Greek orator Lycurgus told the
story of Codrus in his speech Against Leocrates.129 Codrus was king of Athens when the
Peloponnesians attacked the city. They learned that if they killed Codrus, they would lose.
Codrus heard of this oracle through a traitor and disguised himself so that he would be killed to
save the city. The poet believes that if the reader performs justice, he will be more worthy of
praise than Codrus, a very lofty statement. The poem advises the reader to act morally.
However, its position on the folio between the miniscule of Fortuna and the poem describing her
124

Carmina Burana 2. In antiquity the word Fas meant right but it also had a connotation of Divine Law.
Nefas should be thought of as whatever is opposite to Fas.
125
Ibid.
126
Ibid.
127
Ibid.
128
Carmina Burana 3.
129
Lycurgus. Against Leocrates.

Metzger, 27

nature gives the reader the impression that following the advice to right living comprises an
impossible endeavor. Above the poem stands a picture of a monarch at the complete mercy of
the goddess. Below it, a person laments about the nature of Fortune and the horrible things that
he suffers because of her. Therefore, acting ethically constitutes an impossible endeavor.
The love songs also contain this ever-present concern about the instability of Fortuna.130
In the poem Tempus est iocundum the pangs of being in love assail the lover. He is in love,
and he asks that the other young men join him in rejoicing. The refrain provides the clearest
description of what he is experiencing, O, o, I bloom completely, now I burn completely on
account of the virgin love. It is the new, new love on account of which I perish (O, o, totus
floreo, iam amore virginali totus ardeo, novus novus amor est quo pereo).131 This new desire is
torturing the young man. His greatest joy is also his greatest pain. In the next two stanzas, he
repeats the phrase, I burn within (intus caleo).132 His passion for the beloved consumes him
with a burning desire. Fortunes wheel contains good and bad things as the illumination of the
first page of the codex shows. In this poem, the new love acts the exact same way as Fortuna.
The boy and girl discuss the problems of being in love in Estatis florigero tempore.
The young lady and her lover are sitting under a tree and she describes to him the nature of
Venus and how she helps lovers like the two of them. He calls her my Thisbe (mee Thisbes
adoptato freubar eloquio colloquens de Veneris blandissimo commercio).133 Thisbe appears in
Ovids Metamorphoses in a story much like Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet of several centuries
later.134 Thisbe loves Pyramus, but their parents forbid the relationship. They converse through
130

My discussion of these poems is ordered as they are in the score of Carl Orff. However, that is just for
convenience, and it should be noted that these poems are not placed in the same way in the manuscript. What is
important for this discussion are the themes and tones of the poems individually, separate from the others.
131
Carmina Burana, 140.
132
Ibid.
133
Carmina Burana, 43.
134
Ovid. Met. 4. 55-166.

Metzger, 28

the wall and eventually kill themselves as result of drawing wrong conclusions. The fact that the
poet refers to his beloved as Thisbe means that he realizes the impossibility of the affair. In view
of Ovids popularity in the Middle Ages, it seems probable that an allusion to such a well-known
character from his Metamorphoses was deliberate and designed to evoke a particular reaction.
The girl is hesitant to fall in love with her suitor. She admits that she would like it if
Venus deemed to smile on their relationship. The boy, in typical male fashion, does not
understand the problem and tells her, Fortune favors the brave.135 This line comes right out of
Book X in the Aeneid when Turnus is trying to rally his companions.136 It is interesting to note
that in the Middle Ages poets and writers referred to Fortuna as the bane of lovers: As we see
here, Fortune is generally at the last unfavorable to one or both of the lovers. She is hardhearted, envious, positively hostile, and torments them. It was she who was so cruel to Pyramus
and Thisbe.137 The man desires to act on their love immediately. The young lady thinks that
they should not rush into anything and begins a list of dangers that they will have to overcome.
Her family scolds her on his account and sends people to spy on them. She calls these spies
Argus, reminding the reader of Io and her plight at the hands of Zeus.138 She suffered because of
the affection of another and the obvious allusion demonstrates that the young lady fears such a
fate as well. In fact she fears more the gaze of this spies than the physical pain of torture.
Rumor terrifies her. The suitor is more rash, flouting the weapons of Fate, such as separation
and death, in order that his beloved may deem it acceptable to engage in this romance. The boy
makes one last attempt to convince her and she agrees to it. While not explicit, the specter of the
goddess Fortuna is ever present in this poem. Not merely in the chance invocation of her name,
135

The following translations of poems 43 and 50 were taken from: The Love Songs of the Carmina Burana. Trans:
E.D. Blodgett and Roy Arthur Swanson. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987
136
Virgil. Aeneid 10. 284.
137
Patch, 95-6.
138
Carmina Burana 133.

Metzger, 29

but also the nature of their discussion shows that the young woman feared the consequences of
their love. Why should they be timorous? Fortunas mind always changes. The girl knows that
if they go against the wishes of the goddess, they will inevitable suffer the consequences.
The next poem also deals with Fortuna indirectly. Si linguis angelicis continues
multiple instances of Christian references. The first line of the poem brings to mind Christian
imagery, which continues throughout the piece. The opening stanza concludes with the phrase,
through which I am preferred rightly over all Christians moreover over those envious
exhausting wickedness (per quam recte preferor cunctis Christianis tamen invidentibus emulis
profanis). The next one begins Pange lingua which is a common opening line in religious
prayers, most famously the explanation of the Eucharist set by Thomas Aquinas starts with
Pange lingua gloriosi.139 The poet worries as in poem 43 that people will discover the name of
the beloved. Scholars believe that this may be because the object of the poem is Eleanor of
Aquitaine.140 The ruin associated with an affair between commoner and monarch could be
linked to the goddess Fortune. As in Greek mythology, mortals should not cause the gods to
know of the deeds on earth because such knowledge could bode ill for them. The lover knows
that a guard of some sort keeps his beloved from him.141 He then proceeds to describe her in
terms often associated with the Virgin Mary. Mary is the Queen of May and the Church
dedicated the entire month in her honor. The young man writes that she is the rose of May
more beautiful than all (rosam madii, cunctis pulchriorem).142 He goes on to call her, radiant
star brighter than all (stellam splendidam cunctis clariorem).143 Several prayers refer to Mary
as Mary, Star of the Sea. The lover than gets a glimpse of his beloved and hails her in divine
139

Manual of Prayers 378.

Love Songs., note 62.
141
Carmina Burana 141.
142
Ibid.
143
Ibid.
140

Metzger, 30

terms. Fortuna is mentioned by name later in the song. After he has met and talked with his
beloved, he experiences the pains of love. He suffers, saying, Therefore my spirit is deeply
wounded and my luck is profoundly cursed (Ergo meus animus recte vulneratur, ecce mihi
graviter fortuna novercatur).144 He judges that Fortuna has cursed his life because he has to
remain separated from his love. Fortunas verdict is unrelenting in that he laments to Christ
himself for the pain he perceives. For him, the wheel has turned and Fortune has not been kind.
In the end, the woman takes pity on him and agrees to their relationship. Fortunas presence in
the life of this man, however, is undeniable.

V. Orffs Carmina Burana

Orff stands at an interesting crossroads of music history. Western music shifted away
from the Romantic period in a variety of ways. Some artists went into different tonalities,
breaking with tonal convention. Others became more nationalistic or impressionistic. Orff
reached back to the musical past.145 Specifically in the Carmina Burana, there are several
instances where he drew inspiration from Gregorian chant. He cared most about the unity of text
and music and how they augment and support each other. He renewed the practical and
productive idea of the ancient Greek musician: in the connection of word and tone, movement
and scene and their integration into the new art of the music theater.146 This emphasis of word
and music had a third dimension for Orff, the stage. Orff planned for the Carmina Burana to be
performed with a tableau of actors. These thespians would visually represent what occurred in

144

Ibid.
This will be discussed later in relation to the Carmina Burana itself.
146
Wiora 7 Er hat die Idee des altgriechischen ,Mousikos praktisch und produktiv erneuert: im Zusammenhang
von Wort und Ton, Bewegung und Szene und ihrer Intergration zu neuen Arten des Musiktheaters.
145

Metzger, 31

the score. Orff knew that the most important thing he could do with his art was convey to the
audience the meaning of the text. To do this he created a new era in music theater.
Orff did two things with the Carmina Burana. He wrote a score that brilliantly augments
the text without overshadowing it, and he used the ancient language because he saw it as the
European heritage. This was not some Germanic ideal, but the personal expression of a lover of
ancient poetry.
In the fall of 1933, Orff decided to find a piece for which he could compose a choral
cycle. He had already set the poems of the Roman poet Catullus and now wanted to find a
similar work.147 He began to correspond with an archivist in Bamberg for help.148 Hofmann
possessed a familiarity with ancient writings, which Orff lacked. From the correspondence
between them, it seems that Orff struck upon the idea of using the Carmina Burana when he
discovered Schmellers edition.149 He then in the spring of 1934 purchased a copy from a
bookstore in Wurzburg.150
For three years, Orff and Hofmann exchanged letters in attempt to try to give the
medieval text the best rendering they could. To this end, Hofmann consulted Schumann, one of
the editors of the critical edition.151 The new work premiered in Frankfurt on June 11, 1937.
The variety of forms the text took in those four years are very interesting and will be discussed
later.
Orff gave Fortuna a position of importance similar to that in the manuscript. On the first
page of the score, Orff immediately describes her dominance over this piece, calling her

147

Briefe 13.
Ibid.
149
Ibid 21.
150
Ibid.
151
Briefe 76. Mit Schumann (der bedeutend mehr kann als Hilka!) trete ich gerne in Beziehung.
148

Metzger, 32

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi.152 He places two poems about Fortune at the start. The one
completes the other and intensifies Fortunas constant presence in the lives of men. The manner
in which he sets the text is evocative of the texts meaning.153 The piece begins with an
invocation of Fortuna by the choir. Orff wrote that the dynamics of this phrase should be
fortissimo, i.e. very loud. However, after the first phrase, the volume shifts from fortissimo to
pianissimo, i.e. very soft. Merwald writes that this transition evokes the image of mankind
trembling in apprehension and fear of the nature of Fortuna.154 Through the dynamics of the
choir and orchestra, Orff is able to convey the awesome power of Fortuna. Furthermore, the
accents on the words and the rhythm of the piece evoke a sense of motion. The listener
envisions the wheel turning as any man, commoner or noble, is tossed from a state of good
fortune to a state of ruin much like the illumination on the first page of the manuscript.155 The
wheel turns and mans plight continues. He emphasizes the wheel aspect of Fortune when he set
the piece as a cycle. Not only is the ring structure symbolic of the wheel of Fortune, but it is also
casts Fortunes shadow over every movement even when the goddess is not mentioned directly.
Because of time constraint, he could not investigate all the subtleties present in the manuscript.
He did keep the basic thematic structure intact. Not only does the wheel surround the entire piece
because of the placement of O Fortuna at beginning and end, but also because in the music
more cycles are found.
Orff does not merely leave the circular structure to the placement of the poem O
Fortuna. Inside the score there are found cycles within cycles. As will be discussed later, the
piece begins and ends with songs about love. The score moves from love to tavern songs and
152

Carmina Burana (musical score) 1. I have included selections from the score in an Appendix for convenience.
Remember how closely text and music are related for Orff.
154
Merwald 49. . . . auf den mchtigen stoartigen Fortissimo-Anfang folgt pianissimo das Zittern und Beben des
Menschen unter der Fortuna.
155
This picture adorns the first page of this paper.
153

Metzger, 33

back to the idea of love. There is a shift in tenor but the theme of a cycle remains intact.
Furthermore, Orff cleverly constructed the piece in such a way that the progression of the vocal
parts is cyclic.156 In the last section of love songs, starting with Veni, veni, venias, the whole
chorus sings.157 After three movements which switch from a soprano solo to chorus plus soloist
to another soprano solo, the piece returns with Ave Formossima to a full chorus. The texts
allow for the various voices to carry the tune. The thematic content of the poems allows for
them to be connected in this manner. It can only be assumed that this was done deliberately. By
ordering these various elements in this manner, Orff with great subtlety hints at the cyclic nature
of life in general, recalling Fortunes wheel in the process.
After the songs on the nature of Fortuna, Orff placed love songs concerning spring.
Spring is the beginning of new life. Easter lies in spring, and with the idea of rebirth is the
budding of love. Virginal and pure love exists in spring. The whole piece therefore is a
progression of a man and a woman through the throes and development of their affections. As
Anthony Hopkins says in Shadowlands playing the lead character C.S. Lewis, The most
intense joy is not in the having but in the desiring. This idea comes through in both the first and
the second section on love.
Between these two movements sits a third, the gambling and drinking songs. The
fickleness of Fortuna appears most notably in the tavern where drink can get a man into trouble.
Dice tables were also present in the tavern and the connection of Fortune to the luck of a roll of
dice is obvious. The tavern constitutes the prime location to witness Fortune causing disorder
and this theme appears numerous times in the drinking-songs of the Carmina Burana.158 Orff
brings forth this theme in the music for the drinking-songs he included in his composition. Most
156

Ibid 66.
Ibid.
158
Patch 15
157

Metzger, 34

notably are the laments of the goose who is being slowly roasted in Olim lacus colueram.159
This theme of lamenting bad fortune occurs also in Estuans interius and the farce, Ego sum
abbas. In a move of brilliance, Orff brings out the parodies and satire against the Church with
his setting of the lament of his luck at the dice tables, Ego sum abbas, that eerily recalls the
modes and modulations of Gregorian chant. Hofmann and Orff had discussed making the setting
of this poem a liturgical parody.160 There are many expressions of grief in this section about luck
and the effect drinking has on an individual. All of them tie into the reign of Fortuna.
The third section of the piece contains the last of the love songs. This fulfills the early
desire of the lovers in the first section. This section possesses parts of all four pieces already
discussed in their entirety above. The third to last song is an amended version of Tempus est
iocundum. Orff sets it as a discussion between the lover and the beloved with a general lament,
which includes a childrens chorus. The effect is that both lovers are feeling the pain of being in
love. Orff maintains the sense of the actual text. The refrain, where the singer talks about how
this new love kills him moves from female to male and then to the entire choir. Orff then puts a
line from poem 43 Sweetest one, I give myself totally to you (Dulcissime, toto tibi subdo
me).161 It is as if the coloratura answers and relieves the plight of the lover. Even with this one
phrase, Orff echoes the meaning of this particular poem as it appears in the manuscript.
Therefore, the preceding song, Tempus est iocundum, both remains true to the meaning found
in the manuscript and connects to the following song. The two together then plus the song Ave
formosissima relate to one another and allow for the reprise of O Fortuna to demonstrate the
goddess fickle nature.

159

Carmina Burana (musical score) 49

Briefe 44. Das hatte ich schon von Anfang an im Auge, wute nur nicht, welche Bearbeitung inch anraten
sollte, ob als liturgische Parodie (grieforianische Antiphon mit folgendem Hymnus . . . Hofmann.
161
Carmina Burana 43. I have also included music in the appendix.
160

Metzger, 35

The second to last movement is the hymn to the beautiful maiden, Ave
formosissima.162 The setting of the piece, accentuating the text, demonstrates the shear
gratitude of the lover and retains the meaning from Si linguis angelicis where the young man
acts as if he has seen the young lady for the first time. Six times a glockenspiel plays at the
beginning of a phrase, particularly on the word ave. The sound echoes the bells played during
the Sanctus or during the prayers of Consecration at a Catholic Mass. Hofmann suggested that
Orff compose this piece as if it were a Corpus Christi procession.163 He adds several weeks
later that it should be a hymn to the Virgin Mary.164 To continue with the religious imagery, Orff
writes in the second to last measure of the movement the exact four notes of the beginning of the
plainchant hymn Dies Irae. This was sung as a sequence during the pre-Vatican II funeral
mass.165 Not only do the notes in the bass staff evoke the allusion to the melody of the chant, but
Orff also hints at such an intention in an early letter to Hofmann when he writes his preliminary
plan for the arrangement of the poems.166 He wanted to write after the closing O Fortuna
music for two more songs one of which he thought should paraphrase the melody of Dies
Irae.167 The hymn begins as a description of the events that will unfold on the day of the Last
Judgment. The world will dissolve into ashes on the day of wrath. This is significant because
after one measure the cycle continues, and Fortuna spins her wheel. The young man who was

162

The music of the opening of this piece is in the appendix.

Briefe 59. Hofmann suggests to Orff, Jedenfalls Ave mu so eine richtige Fronleichnamsprozession werden,
mchtige Akkorde und Tingeltangel dazwischen; man mu Se. Eminenz Kardinal Faulhaber in seiner tunica rufea
direkt leibhaftig sehen. Bitte steigern Sie sich recht in sddeutsche barocke Katholizitt hinein!.
164
Ibid 93. Wie steht es mit dem Ave Formosissima? (Frechheit!) Der Stimmungsanstieg der Strophe ist doch
ganz meisterhaft: Mit einem weltlich klingenden Liebesgru geht es an (1.u.2. Zeile), lenkt zu religiser Sphre
(Madonnenhymnus) hin (3.u.4. Zeile), wird weltweit (mundus) in der 5.u.6. Zeile, nennt die groen typischen
Liebesgestalten und Liebesideale des Altertums und Mittelalters . . .
165
See appendix.
166
Ibid 29. Schluteil 1 O Fortuna (wie Anfang) 2 Iste mundus (Die irae paraphr.) . . .
167
Ibid 36.
163

Metzger, 36

strived so long to attain his beloved, right at the moment of his fulfillment is denied this by the
goddess.

Conclusion
When Orff wrote music for the Carmina Burana, he maintained the theme of the fickle
nature of Fortune, as he found it in the manuscript. At first glance such a conclusion comes from
the illumination on the first page of the Schmeller text. Critical analysis performed by
Schumann and Hilka has shown that the position of that picture of Fortuna is incorrect. This
does not detract from the conclusion that there is a constant theme of the capricious nature of
Fortune in the entirety of the codex. An examination of the poems provides the best evidence for
this belief. Orff accomplished a similar thematic structure in his composition both by the order
of the songs and by the music, which beautifully complements the meaning of the text. He was
true to the plan of the medieval editor of the manuscript who compiled his work with a thematic
structure in mind.
The poetry found in the Carmina Burana stems from a tradition of poetry that has roots
in antiquity. The characteristics of Fortuna described and portrayed in the poems draw from
such classical authors as Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, and Horace. Boethiuss influence and importance
in relation to the Carmina Burana cannot be underestimated. The men who composed these
songs and collected them into one edition were part of a growing class of scholars in the late
Middle Ages. They became known as Goliards or wandering scholars, and a romantic view
paints them as a group of vagabond Bohemians. But they were intellectuals of the first order,
holding teaching posts in some of the most famous universities in Europe. Their skill in Latin

Metzger, 37

and artistic talent produced some of the most beautiful love poems and scathing satires in all of
Western literature.
Orff effectively conveys the idea of Fortuna present in the manuscript in his music.
Unfortunately, because of the political climate of the decade in which the piece was written, it is
necessary to defend Orffs Carmina Burana from attacks that say it is Nazi propaganda. The
easiest way to deflect this assault is by citing the text used. Because of its medieval nature,
Orffs music is free from the stain of National Socialism, an ideology to which he did not adhere.
To support their Aryan ideology, the Nazis looked to classical texts and classical models to
ground their thinking. The 1936 Olympics provide evidence for their melding of classical and
Germanic ideals. The Christian Middle Ages did not fit into their idea of Germanic perfection.
Furthermore, Hitler believed that his kingdom would last for a thousand years. But as the image
of Fortuna reminds us, nothing lasts forever and all things come to an end. Just when a person
thinks that he has achieved everything and has attained success, Fortune spins her wheel and the
person is cast down. This is the great message of the manuscript and the music.

Metzger, 38

Appendix I

This is the first page from the score of the Carmina Burana. Note the fortissimo beginning and
then the progression to pianissimo. Also notice the use of accent marks and staccato rhythm
denoting movement.

Metzger, 39

Notice the chanting of the same note over many bars as well as the sudden changes in notes over
a very short space, which is common in chant.

Metzger, 40

Notice the tessiratura of the opening phrase. Orff conveys the idea of the self-less gift of the
beloved to the lover who has been burning with passion for her.

Metzger, 41

The glockenspiel plays the circled notes in the first measure. This part of the piece is arranged as
a tremendous fanfare.

Metzger, 42

Notice that the four notes which I have circled are on the beat whereas the sung notes are not,
showing the emphasis on the bass line as foreshadowing doom.

Metzger, 43

Here are the four notes which are exactly the same as the notes for Dies irae in the Gregorian
chant of the same name.

Metzger, 44

Appendix II
168

I.

et virtutis

1. O fortuna

mihi nunc contraria,

velut luna

est affectus

statu variabilis,

et defectus

semper crescis

semper in angaria;

aut decrescis;

hac in hora

vita detestabilis

sine mora

nunc obdurat

cordia pulsum tangite,

et tunc curat

quod per sortem

ludo mentis aciem,

sternit fortem

egestatem,

mecum omnes plangite.

potestatem

II. (but before O Fortuna in the facsimile

dissolvit ut glaciem.

edition of the manuscript)

2. Sors immanis

Fas et Nefas ambulant

et inanis,

passu fere pari; (pene passu pari)170

rota tu volubilis,

prodigus non redimit

status malus,

vitium avari;

vana salus

virtus temperantia

semper dissolubilis,

quadam singulari

obumbratam*

debet medium

et velatam*169

ad utrumque vitium

mihi quoque niteris,

caute contemplari.

nunc per ludum

2. Si legisse memoras

dorsum nudum

ethicam Catonis

fero tui sceleris.

in qua scriptum legitur:

3. Sors salutis

ambula cum bonis,

cum ad dandi gloriam

168

The following Latin text is from the 1847 Edition

of the Carmina Burana as compiled by Schmeller
169
*obumbrata et velata

170

This variation comes from the critical edition of

W. Meyers, A. Hilke, and O. Schumann.

Metzger, 45

animum disponis,

quia Codro codrior

inter171 cetera

omnibus abundas.175

hoc primum considera,

140

quis sit dignus donis.

1. Tempus est iocundum

3172. Dare, non ut convenit,

o virgines,

non est a virtute,

modo congaudete

bonum est secundum quid,

vos iuvenes.

et non absolute;

Refl. O. o. totus floreo,

dare dignis poteris173

iam amore virginali

et mereri tute

totus ardeo,

famam muneris,

novus novus amor

si me prius noveris

est, quo pereo.

intus et in cute.

2. Cantat philomena

4. Vultu licet hilari,

sic dulciter,

verbo licet blando

et modulans auditur;

sis qualis omnibus,

intus caleo.
O. o. totus floreo.

unum tamen mando:

si vis recte gloriam

3. Flos est puellarum,

promereri dando,

quam diligo,

primum videas,

et rosa rosarum,

granum inter paleas

quam spe video

cui des et quando.

intus caleo.
O. o. totus floreo.

5. Si prudenter triticum
paleis emundas, famam emis munere;

4. Mea mecum confortat

sed caveto, cum174 das,

promissio,

largitatis oleum

mea me deportat

male non effundas.

negatio.
O. o. totus floreo

In te glorior,

5. Mea mecum ludit

171

This line reads supra cetera in ibid.

Ibid has stanzas three and four reversed.
173
digne dare poteris
174
dum
172

virginitas,
175

cum sim Codro Codrior, omnibus habundas

Metzger, 46

mea me detrudit

sic prelucet.

simplicitas.

O inducet

O. o. totus floreo.

hanc nostra ratio,

6. Sile philomena

ut dignetur suo

pro tempore,

nos beare consortio!

surge cantilena

Nil ergo restat sanctius176,

de pectore.

quam ccam mentis flammam

O. o. totus floreo.

denudare diffusius.

7. Tempore brumali

Audaces fortuna iuvat penitus.

vir patiens,

His ergo sit introitus.

animo vernali

2. Ignem ccam177 sub pectore

lasciviens.

longo depasco tempore,

O. o. totus floreo.

qui vires miro robore

8. Veni , domicella,

toto diffundit corpore,

cum gaudio,

qu meum semivivere

veni, veni pulchra,

felici ligans fdere

iam pereo.

quem tu sola percipere,

O. o. totus floreo.

si vis potes extinguere.

43

3. Amoris spes est dubia,

1. Estatis florigero tempore

aut verax aut contraria,

sub umbrosa residens arbore,

amanti necessaria

avibus canentibus in nemore,

virtutis est constantia.

sibilante serotino frigore,

Sed ceteris virtutibus

me Thisbes adoptato

est patientia

fruebar eloquio,

amoris famulantia.

colloquens de Veneris

Sed et ignem, qui discurrit

blandissimo commercio.

per prcordia,

Eius vultus,

fac extinguat alia.

forma, cultus

Noster amor non furtiva,

pr puellis,
ut sol stellis,

176
177

satius
cecum

Metzger, 47

non fragilia

Argum, sopore

amplexatur gaudia.

premam oculis clausis centenis.

4. Ignis quo crucior,

7. In trutina mentis dubia

immo quo glorior,

fluctuant contraria

ignis est invisibilis.

lascivus amor et pudicitia.178

Si non extinguitur

Sed eligo quod video,

a quo succenditur,

collum iugo prbeo;

manet inextinguilis.

ad iugum tamen suave transeo.

Est ergo tuo munere

8. Non bene dixeris

me mori vel me vivere.

iugum secretum Veneris,

5. Quid refert pro re pendula

quo nil liberius,

vil pati pericula?

nil dulcius, nil melius.

Est pater, est mater,

O quam dulcia

est frater, qui quater

sunt hc gaudia!

die me pro te corripiunt,

Veneris furta sunt pia.

et, vetulas per cellulas

Ergo propera

et iuvenes per speculas

ad hc munera:

deputantes, nos custodiunt,

carent laude dona sera.

Argumque centioculum

9. Dulcissime,

plus tremo quam patibulum.

totam tibi subdo me.

Est ergo dignum

50

virum benignum

1. Si linguis angelicis

vitare signum,

loquar et humanis,

unde malignum

non valeret exprimi

murmur cursitet per populum.

palma nec inanis,

6. Times in vanum

per quam recte prferor

tam est arcanum,

cunctis Christianis,

quod nec Vulcanum

tamen invidentibus

curo cum sophisticis catenis.

mulis prophanis.

Stilbontis more

2. Pange lingua igitur

letheo rore
178

This sentence is also in Orffs score.

Metzger, 48

causas et causatum;

dum moraret icta.179

nomen tamen domin

6. Vidi florem floridum,

serva palliatum,

vidi florum florem,

ut non sit in populo

vidi rosam madii,

illud divulgatum,

cunctis pulchriorem,

quod secretum gentibus

vidi stellam spledidam

extat et celatum.

cunctis clariorem,

3. In virgultu florido

per quam ego degeram

stabam et amno

semper180 in amorem.

vertens hc in pectore,

7. Cum vidissem itaque

quid facturus ero;

quod semper optavi,

dubito, quod semina

tunc ineffabiliter

in arena sero;

mecum exultavi,

mundi florem diligens

surgensque velociter

ecce iam despero.

ad hanc properavi,

4. Si despero merito,

hisque retro poplite

nullus admiretur,

flexo salutavi:

nam per quandam vetulam

8. Ave formosissima,

rosa prohibetur,

gemma pretiosa,

ut non amet aliquem,

ave decus virginum,

atque non ametur,

virgo gloriosa,

quam Pluto subripere

ave mundi luminar

flagito dignetur.

ave mundi rosa,

5. Cumque meo animo

Blanziflor et Helena,

verterem prdicta,

Venus generosa.

optans, anum raperet

9. Tunc respondit inquiens

fulminis sagitta,

stella matutina:

ecce retrospiciens,

ille qui terrestria

vetula post relicta,

regit et divina

audias quid viderim,

179
180

Dum morarer ita:

lapsus

Metzger, 49

dans in herba violas

cpi tunc mirari,

et rosas in spina

dicens: ecce mulier

tibi salus, gloria

digna venerari,

sit et medicina.

hc exscendit virgines

10. Cui dixi: dulcissima,

cunctas absque pari,

cor mihi fatetur,

hc est clara facie,

quod meus fert animus,

hc est vultus clari.

ut per te salvetur,

14. Visus tuus splendidus

nam ego quondam didici181,

erat et amnus,

sicut perhibetur,

tanquam aer lucidus

quod ille qui percutit

nitens et serenus;

melius medetur.

unde dixi spius:

11. Mea sic ldentia

deus, deus meus,

iam fuisse tela,

estne illa Helena,

dicis; nego; sed tamen

vel est dea Venus?

posita querela,

15. Aurea mirifice

vulnus atque vulneris

coma dependebat,

causas nunc revela,

tamquam massa nivea

vis182, te sanem postmodum

gula candescebat,

gracili medela.

pectus erat gracile,

12. Vulnera cur detegam,

cunctis innuebat,

qu sunt manifesta?

quod super aromata

stas quinta periit,

cuncta redolebat.

properat en sexta,

16. In iocunda facie

quod te in tripudio

stell radiabant,

quadam die festa

eboris materiam

vidi; cunctis speculum

dentes vendicabant,

eras et fenestra.

plus quam dicam speciem

13. Cum vidissem itaque,

membra geminabant:
quidni si hc omnium

181
182

nam a quodam didici

ut

mentem alligabant?

Metzger, 50

17. Forma tua fulgida

taliter perire,

tunc me catenavit,

sed dignare misero

mihi mentem, animum

digne subvenire.

et cor inmutavit,

21. Has et plures numero

tibi loqui spiritus

pertuli iacturas,

illico speravit;

nec ullum solatium185

posse spem veruntamen

minuit186 meas curas,

nunquam roboravit.

ni quod spe spius

18. Ergo meus animus

per noctes obscuras

recte vulneratur

per imaginarias

ecce mihi graviter

tecum sum figuras.

fortuna novercatur183,

22. Rosa, videns igitur,

nec quis umquam aliquo184

quam sim vulneratus,

tantum molestatur,

quot et quantas tulerim

quam qui sperat aliquid,

per te cruciatus,

et spe defraudatur.

tu, si placet, itaque187

19. Telum semper pectore

fac, ut sim sanatus,

clausum portitavi,

per te sim incolumis

millies et millies

et vivificatus.

inde suspiravi,

23. Quod quidem si feceris,

dicens: rerum conditor,

in te gloriabor,

quid in te peccavi?

tanquam cedrus Libani

omnium amantium

florens exaltabor.

pondera portavi.

sed si, quod non vereor,

20. Fugit a me bibere,

in te defraudabor,

cibus et dormire,

patiar naufragium

medicinam nequeo

et periclitabor.

malis invenire.

24. Inquit Rosa fulgida:

Christe, non me desinas

multa subportasti,
185

183

ecce, vita graviter michi novercatur

184
quis umquam, quis aliquo tantum molestatur

solacium
munit
187
dicens placet! itaque
186

Metzger, 51

nec ignota penitus

et quod mstis gaudium

mihi revelasti,

donat luculentum.

sed qu per te tulerim

188

numquam sompniasti

28. Quicquid velis, talia

;

nequeo prscire,

plura sunt qu sustuli

tuis tamen precibus

quam qu recitasti.

opto consentire;

25. Sed omitto penitus

ergo quicquid habeo,

recitationem,

sedulus inquire,

volens talem sumere

sumens id quod appetis

satisfactionem,

potes invenire.

qu prstabit gaudium

29. Quid plus? Collo virginis

et sanationem,

brachia iactavi,

et medelam conferet

mille dedi basia,

melle dulciorem.

mille reportavi,

26. Dicas ergo iuvenis,

atque spe spius

quod in mente geris,

dicens affirmavi:

an argentum postulas,

certe certe illud est

per quod tu diteris,

id quod anhelavi.

pretiosos lapides,

30. Quid ignorat amodo

an quod tu ameris189;

cuncta qu secuntur?

nam si esse poterit,

Dolor et suspiria

dabo quicquid quris.

procul repelluntur,

27. Non est id quod postulo

paradisi gaudia

lapis nec argentum,

nobis inducuntur,

immo prbens omnibus

cunctque delici

maius nutrimentum,

simul apponuntur.

dans inpossibilibus

31, Hic amplexus gaudium

facilem

est centumplicatum,

eventum,

hic meum et domin

pullulat optatum,

188
189

somniast
an quod tu orneris

hic amantum bravium

Metzger, 52

est a me portatum,
hic est meum igitur
nomen exaltatum.
32. Quisquis amat itaque,
mei recordetur,
nec diffidat illico,
licet non ametur190;
illi nempe aliqua
dies ostendetur,
qua penarum gloriam
post adipiscetur.
33. Ex amaris equidem
amara generantur191,
non sine laboribus
maxima parantur,
dulce mel qui appetunt
spe stimulantur,
sperent ergo melius
qui plus amarantur.

190
191

licet amaretur
grata generantur

Metzger, 53

Appendix III
192

I.
1. O Fortune
like the moon
you are varying in state, always
waxing or decreasing;
abominable life now persists
and then attends
the keenness of the mind by a game.
She melts poverty and poverty like ice.

2. Fate, huge and empty, you are

a turning wheel,
evil state, empty health,
always dissoluble,
You, wrapped and veiled, attack me also,
Now on account of a game of your impious
action, I bear my naked back to you.
3. Fate of health and virtue
you are now against me,
Luck is zeal and defeat
always in your service;
In this hour, without delay
touch the beating in my heart.
Because through this lot
Luck strews about my strength.
Weep everyone with me!
II.
Divine Law and Sin are walking almost
with equal strides;
The excessive one does not redeem the vice
of greed;
Virtue with a sort of singular temperance
ought to contemplate
cautiously about both vices.

2. If you call to mind that you have read

the ethics of Cato in which the law is read:
Walk with good,
When for the glory of giving you arrange your mind,
consider this first among the rest
192

These English translations are numbered as they appear in the 1847 Edition of the Carmina Burana as compiled
by Schmeller. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.

Metzger, 54

what would be worthy of gifts.

3. To give, when not agreed,
is not from virtue,
the good is often that, and not completely;
You will be able to give to worthy ones
and to earn safely the fame of the office,
if you knew me first within and in the skin.
4. It is allowed to be cheerful
in the face, granted that you would be
equal with flattering word to everyone.
Moreover I order one:
If you wish to produce (?) glory by right giving,
you would see the first grain among the chaff
from which you would give and when.
5. If you clean prudently the wheat from the chaff,
and indeed beware, when you give, you would not pour
out the oil of liberality badly.
In you, I glory
because you overflow for everyone more
codrusly than Codrus.
140
1. The time is pleasing,
o virgins,
you youths rejoice in this manner.
Refrain: O.o. I bloom completely
Now I burn completely
on account of the virgin love.
It is the new, new love
for which I perish.

2. Philomena sings thus more sweetly

and she is heard playing.
I burn within.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom . . .
3. It is the flower of girls
which I love
and the rose of roses
which I see often.
I burn within.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom . . .

Metzger, 55

4. My promise delights with me,

my denial carries me away.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom . . .
5. My virginity plays with me,
My stupidity thrusts me down.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom . . .
6. Be silent Philomena
as the time demands,
Rise old song from the breast.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom . . .
7. The man suffering in the winter time,
being wanton with a spring soul.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom. . .
8. Come, little mistress, with joy,
Come, come beautiful one,
Now I perish.
Refrain: O. o. I bloom . . .
43193 (70194)
1. In the flowering season of summer,
sitting beneath a shady tree.
while the birds sang within the wood
in cool whispering dusk,
I savored my Thisbes choice eloquence,
discussing Venuss seductive trade.

2. Her face, style and shape

surpassing other girls,
as the sun the stars
she more brightly shines.
O will my plea
persuade her
that she might deign to cheer us with her company?
3. Nothing, then, remains more needful
than to reveal fully my spirits blind flame.
Fortune favors most the brave.
May this, then, be prelude:
193

The following translations of poems 43 and 50 were taken from: The Love Songs of the Carmina Burana. Trans:
E.D. Blodgett and Roy Arthur Swanson. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987.
194
This number comes from the edition of the entire Carmina Burana, divided into three thematic volumns, by
Wilhelm Meyers, Alfons Hilka and Otto Schumann in 1941.

Metzger, 56

4a. The blind fire within my breast

has long nourished me
strength of amazing hardiness
it spreads through my body everywhere.
4b. The man of whom you alone, if you wish
to cast a glance, can bank the fire,
and me, barely alive,
you can bind with a happy knot.
5a. But among the virtues patience is
the slave of love.
5b. But the fire that rages through the heart,
another must put out!
5c. Neither furtive nor fragile, our love
embraces joy.
6a. The fire that torments me
and wherein I truly glory,
is invisible.
6b. If its not put out
by her who kindled it,
it will stay lit forever.
7a. Its your gift whether
I live or die.
7b. Why do you propose this dangerous affair
in which Ill risk my life?
8a. My father, my mother
and brother four times each
scold me everyday on your account.
8b. Duennas in chambers
and girls on the watch
are sent to look after us;
9 From Argus hundred-eyed
I shudder more than from the rack.
10 He is thus a kind

Metzger, 57

and worthy man

to shun the sign
that starts an evil
rumor running through the crowd.
11a. You fear in vain!
It is so secret
that even Vulcan
with all his tricky nets I disregard.
11b. Like Mercury
with Lethes dew
Argus in sleep
Ill seal, and close his hundred eyes.
12a. In the minds tipping scale
opposites are at war
whether my love is wanton or chaste.
12b. But I choose what I look at askance
my neck I offer to the yoke,
In spite of all I ever upon the easy yoke.
13. You have not spoken well
of Venuss secret yoke:
nothing is freer than it
or sweeter or more honeyed.
14a. O how sweet
are these joys!
Venuss thefts are just.
14b. Therefore hasten
toward her gifts!
Late gifts are unpraiseworthy.
15. Sweetest man!
I surrender my whole self to you.
50 (77)
1. If I should speak with the tongues of men and angels,
it would not be enough to tell of my great prize
by which Im rightly raised above all who share my faith,
as well as those who envy me, grudging men of wicked ways.

2. Celebrate in song, my tongue, the causes, then, and deeds!

Metzger, 58

But keep my Ladys name well disguised

so that to the people it might not be revealed
which is a secret to the nations and remains hidden away.
3. In a flowery, pleasant grove I stood,
thinking to myself: What shall I do?
I am unsure whether I sow my seed upon sand,
loving the flower of the world: thats how desperate I am.
4. If I despair, no one truly ought to be surprised;
for the rose is guarded by some old crone
neither may she love nor may she be loved in return.
O Pluto, I entreat, deign to carry off the creature!
5. While I was considering what I just said,
desiring that he seize the hag with a thunderbolt,
behold, looking back upon the meadow left behind,
hear what I saw while I lingered thus.
6. I saw the blossoming flower, I saw the flower of flowers,
I saw the rose of May more beautiful than all,
I saw the radiant star brighter than all,
for whom I have lived once fallen in love.
7. Thus when I saw the creature Ive always loved,
without the help of words I exulted within myself,
and quickly leaping up I ran towards her,
and genuflecting greeted her:
8. Hail, most beautiful, precious jewel,
hail, grace of virgins, virgin glorious,
hail, light of lights, hail rose of the world,
Blancheflor and Helen, noble Venus!
9. Thus she answered, this star of morning, saying:
He, Who all things earthly rules and things divine,
scattering violets in the grass and roses on the thorn,
may He be your grace, your fame and health.
10. To whom I said: Sweetest, my heart affirms
what my soul conveys: through you salvation lies.
For I have learned from someone, as its said,
that he who wounds provides the better cure.
11. Thus, the arms I bear cause such wounds
is this what you say? No I say, but, complaints aside,

Metzger, 59

the wounds and the wounds cause, now reveal,

that I might heal you afterwards with some sort of cure!
12. Why shall I hide my wounds which are obvious enough?
Five summers have passed, the sixth hastens on,
that I saw you dancing it was a holiday
you who were to all a window and a mirror.
13. And thus while I looked, I then began to be amazed
and said: Thats a woman worthy of devotion!
She surpasses every virgin, shes without peer,
her shape is perfect, her looks resplendent!
14. Your face was splendid, a plain delight,
as brilliant air glistening and serene.
How often I said: God, my God!
Would this be Helen or holy Venus?
15. Wonderfully golden her hair flowed down,
as a rise of snow her neck brightly shone,
her breasts were small, hinting to all
how sweet was the odor there, better than all perfume.
16. And in her charming face twin stars glowed,
the substance of ivory her teeth surpassed,
her limbs embrace beautys bloom, more than I can say:
could it be she who binds as one the soul of all?
17. Then your dazzling shape bound me in chains;
it changed my mind my soul and heart.
To speak with you, then and there, was what my spirit hoped,
but never did it have the hope that this would ever be.
18. So my soul is deeply wounded.
My life, as you can see, is profoundly cursed.
Who, I ask you, who could ever harm another so,
that he would hope and of his hope be cheated?
19. Forever a dart within my breast Ive carried enclosed.
Twice a thousand times since Ive sighed,
saying: Maker of all, how have I sinned against You?
Of all lovers I have borne heavy burdens.
20. Drink does not help me, nor food, nor sleep:
a remedy I cannot find against my ills.
O Christ, do not decree that so I die,
but deign to succor me, a worthy wretch.

Metzger, 60

21. These harms Ive endured and many more in number,

and no solace shields me from my pain,
no matter how often the gloomy nights
I am with you in fancied shapes.
22. Rose, now that you see how wounded I am,
how much I have deeply borne, crucified for you,
say I am content! Do this that I be cured,
that I be saved through you, restored to life again!
23. If in fact you will do this, in you I shall be honored,
as the flowering cedar of Lebanon, I shall be praised,
but if, which I do not fear, I am betrayed by you,
I shall be wrecked and put in peril of life.
24. The shining rose spoke: You have raised many things;
you have revealed to me things I know quite well.
But of things Ive borne for you youve never dreamt;
the things Ive borne are more than those you have recited.
25. But I omit a recital of them all,
wishing to get such satisfaction
as holds the promise of joy and healing
and offers a cure sweeter than honey.
26. Tell me, then, young friend, what you have in mind!
Is it money you require by which you might be rich,
or a precious gem with which you might adorn yourself?
For if its possible, Ill give you whatever you want.
27. Thats not what I want, neither gems nor silver;
giving them to someone else would be better nurture
giving easy resolution to impossible affairs
and which confers upon the gloomy a bright joy.
28. Whatever it is you want I cant divine,
yet with your prayers I want to come to terms.
Thus whatever I have, look it over carefully,
and take it if you can find what you want!
29. What more was needed? I threw my arms around her neck,
I kissed the girl a thousand times and got a thousand more,
and over and over I said with certainty:
Truly, truly this is what I was panting for!

Metzger, 61

30. Who does not know what happened next?

Grief and sigh are driven far away,
the joys of paradise come over us
and all delights are furnished at once.
31. Now my embrace is joy a hundred-fold,
now for my Lady and me, what we longed for thrives,
now the lovers prize is borne by me,
now therefore is my named raised on high.
32. Whoever loves, keep me thus ever in mind
and dont despair instantly, although you may be full of bitterness!
Surely for you some day will come
when praise for pains will finally be achieved.
33. Surely from gall grace is born,
and only with labor are great things accomplished,
those who desire sweet honey are often goaded on.
May they hope for better, those who deeply suffer.

Metzger, 62

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