Among the poems in the 13th-century collection known as Carmina Burana are several dealing with Fortune (the most famous being "O Fortuna," later set to music by Carl Orff), and they are accompanied by the illustration seen below.
At the top is a crowned king, dressed in royal robes and seated on a throne. In his right hand he holds a scepter topped with what may be a fleur-de-lis but almost looks more like a jester's cap and bells. With his left hand he points upward. While the other three figures around the wheel look as if they could be three versions of the same man, the king at the top appears to be a different person; his hair is a different color, and his face is differently shaped. It is not clear whether this difference is intended, or whether it merely reflects the limits of the artist's technical skill. Next to the king is the Latin label Regno, meaning "I reign."
On the right, holding the wheel as he falls, is the reigning king's predecessor, judging from the crown falling from his head and the Latin label regnavi, "I have reigned." He is no longer wearing the royal robes and red hose of the king, but he still appears to be better dressed than the other two figures on the wheel. His garment is embroidered or otherwise decorated, and he is wearing some kind of cape.
At the bottom, being crushed by the wheel, is a supine figure in the simple clothing of a peasant. His hair, unlike the curls of the other three figures, is matted and unkempt and may have blood in it. He appears to be older than the others; his leg muscles are wasted, and his hands look arthritic. His eyes are closed, and it is possible that he is dead or dying. He is labeled sum sine regno, "I am without reign."
On the left is a man climbing up the wheel, his legs wrapped around it. With his left hand he reaches up to grasp the dais on which the king is seated. His clothing is similar to that of the figure on the right, but without the cape or crown. His label reads regnabo, "I shall reign."
At the center of it all, staring straight ahead, is the real monarch of this scene, crowned and dressed in royal robes: my august ancestress Tyche or Fortuna herself, whose turning of the wheel causes the vicissitudes depicted along its rim. She is not actually shown turning or controlling the wheel, but rather holds what appear to be two long banners or scrolls, on which nothing is written. I am not sure what these signify but note that Fortuna as depicted on the arms of Glückstadt ("Fortune City"), Germany, appears to be holding something similar.
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| Arms of Glückstadt |
The banner held by the Glückstadt Fortuna looks like something that would blow in the wind, symbolizing fortune's unpredictable and fickle nature. We do tend to think of fortune as arbitrary, unpredictable, random -- a synonym for "chance" -- but the symbol of the Wheel seems to suggest the opposite: a regular cycle, predictable in principal, mechanically going through its foreordained motions. An intelligent agent (Fortuna herself) is shown controlling the motion of the wheel, but her options appear to be limited. She can make the wheel turn faster or slower, but turn it must. Can she even control the direction, unpredictably changing between clockwise and counterclockwise? Perhaps not. Of the figures on the two sides of the wheel, there doesn't seem to be any uncertainty as to which is going to rise and which is going to fall. Their fate is already written, right there in plain Latin.
The basic symbolism of the Wheel of Fortune, then, is that of the great, broadly predictable cycles of life. Chief among these is the life cycle of each individual person: from the ambitious "I shall reign" of youth, to the "I reign" of the prime of life, to the nostalgic "I have reigned" of old age, and then death. And then? Then, the Wheel seems to suggest, the whole process starts again. A human life has a beginning and an end, but a wheel does not. This could suggest reincarnation (of which the wheel of samsara is a standard symbol), or the eternal repetition of the same events as envisioned by Nietzsche and others, or it could simply mean that the process starts again with different people. After all, when the life of a holometabolous insect is represented as a life cycle, we do not mean that the adult insect becomes an egg again, but rather that it produces a new generation of eggs. However, the "final" stage in an insect life cycle represents sexual maturity, not old age or death. For organisms such as human beings, whose life includes a post-reproductive phase, that phase is not part of the life cycle properly so called. Old men and corpses do not produce the next generation.
In the Carmina Burana illustration, though, all four figures appear to be roughly the same age. There are no children on the wheel, and if the figure under the wheel does appear older than the others -- or perhaps just more weathered, more ravaged -- he still lacks the white hair, long beard, and cane which are the standard accoutrements of old age. The Wheel apparently represents not a biological life cycle but rather just what it says on the tin: the vicissitudes of fortune. A person could be born at any point along the wheel's rim, and the speed at which the wheel turns is unpredictable. Some pass through multiple complete cycles in a lifetime; others live and die without traversing more than a few degrees of arc. If some appear to have lived successful lives, this is only because they happen to have died at the right time, before the wheel had begun its downward turn -- to have quit while they were ahead. But even that advantage is illusory. Those who die "at the right time" still die, and Death -- as depicted on the 13th Arcanum, the one with no name -- is the great leveler. How dieth the wise man? As the fool. One event happeneth to them all.
It is interesting to note that none of the figures on the wheel appears to be bound to it. They climb -- or perch atop, or cling to -- it of their own free will. Only the one being crushed underneath it seems to have no say in the matter, and even he appears to be reaching up, attempting to grasp the wheel even as it rolls over him. What about just not grasping the wheel? What about letting go? Is that an option? Not for those who have risen to any great height. If they let go, they fall -- hardly a fate to be preferred over being crushed by the wheel. But for those who are still on the ground, do they have the option of just staying there, of not getting onto the wheel to start with? It would mean remaining earthbound, but also uncrushed.
The answer to that question depends on what we take "grasping the wheel" to mean. Does it mean clinging to a particular way of life -- one of worldly ambition, for example? Or does it just mean clinging to life itself? (All those who live do so because they cling to life, because they keep doing day after day those things that are necessary to stave off death. Death is what happens by default, if we do not actively choose to go on living.) On the former interpretation, those on the wheel are fools reaping, sooner or later, the fruits of their hubris, when they would have been wiser to rest content with their allotted station in life. On the latter interpretation, though, those who refuse the wheel are Dante's "wretched ones who never were alive" (on whom I have written before), who never did anything either good or bad and are thus disdained by heaven and hell alike; or the devils of Mormonism, spirits who could have been human but, preferring Satan's promise "that one soul shall not be lost," declined to undergo the risks inherent in incarnation.
All in all, the Wheel presents a pretty grim picture, with no desirable options -- which is why Valentin Tomberg insists that, despite its medieval provenance, it is essentially a pre-Christian image. Riding the wheel only brings you right back to where you started, and is thus clearly an exercise in futility; but just staying where you started hardly seems preferable. Any meaningful life must somehow transcend the Wheel altogether.
In the Carmina Burana illustration, though, all four figures appear to be roughly the same age. There are no children on the wheel, and if the figure under the wheel does appear older than the others -- or perhaps just more weathered, more ravaged -- he still lacks the white hair, long beard, and cane which are the standard accoutrements of old age. The Wheel apparently represents not a biological life cycle but rather just what it says on the tin: the vicissitudes of fortune. A person could be born at any point along the wheel's rim, and the speed at which the wheel turns is unpredictable. Some pass through multiple complete cycles in a lifetime; others live and die without traversing more than a few degrees of arc. If some appear to have lived successful lives, this is only because they happen to have died at the right time, before the wheel had begun its downward turn -- to have quit while they were ahead. But even that advantage is illusory. Those who die "at the right time" still die, and Death -- as depicted on the 13th Arcanum, the one with no name -- is the great leveler. How dieth the wise man? As the fool. One event happeneth to them all.
It is interesting to note that none of the figures on the wheel appears to be bound to it. They climb -- or perch atop, or cling to -- it of their own free will. Only the one being crushed underneath it seems to have no say in the matter, and even he appears to be reaching up, attempting to grasp the wheel even as it rolls over him. What about just not grasping the wheel? What about letting go? Is that an option? Not for those who have risen to any great height. If they let go, they fall -- hardly a fate to be preferred over being crushed by the wheel. But for those who are still on the ground, do they have the option of just staying there, of not getting onto the wheel to start with? It would mean remaining earthbound, but also uncrushed.
The answer to that question depends on what we take "grasping the wheel" to mean. Does it mean clinging to a particular way of life -- one of worldly ambition, for example? Or does it just mean clinging to life itself? (All those who live do so because they cling to life, because they keep doing day after day those things that are necessary to stave off death. Death is what happens by default, if we do not actively choose to go on living.) On the former interpretation, those on the wheel are fools reaping, sooner or later, the fruits of their hubris, when they would have been wiser to rest content with their allotted station in life. On the latter interpretation, though, those who refuse the wheel are Dante's "wretched ones who never were alive" (on whom I have written before), who never did anything either good or bad and are thus disdained by heaven and hell alike; or the devils of Mormonism, spirits who could have been human but, preferring Satan's promise "that one soul shall not be lost," declined to undergo the risks inherent in incarnation.
All in all, the Wheel presents a pretty grim picture, with no desirable options -- which is why Valentin Tomberg insists that, despite its medieval provenance, it is essentially a pre-Christian image. Riding the wheel only brings you right back to where you started, and is thus clearly an exercise in futility; but just staying where you started hardly seems preferable. Any meaningful life must somehow transcend the Wheel altogether.
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