[발췌] Rota Fortunae, and the goddess Fortuna

WOF, chapter 1

※ 발췌 (excerpts):

출처 1: 위키피디아

1. Tyche (English: /ˈtaɪki/; from Greek: Τύχη, meaning "luck"; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelqry deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. She is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes. In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite, or considered as one of the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, or of Zeus. She was connected with Nemesis and Agathos Daimon ("good spirit").

The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no cause can be discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche. ( ... ... ) Tyche appears on many coins of the Hellenistic period in the three centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean. ( ... ... ) In medieval art, she was depicted as carrying a cornucopia, an emblematic ship's rudder, and the wheel of fortune, or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate. ─ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyche

2. Fortuna (Latin: Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) was the goddess of fortune and personification of luck in Roman religion. She might bring good or bad luck: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Lady Justice, and came to represent life's capriciousness. She was also a goddess of fate: as Atrox Fortuna, she claimed the young lives of the princeps Augustus' grandsons Gaius and Lucius, prospective heirs to the Empire. ( ... ... )

The earliest reference to the Wheel of Fortune, emblematic of the endless changes in life between prosperity and disaster, is from 55 BC. In Seneca's tragedy Agamemnon, a chorus addresses Fortuna in terms that would remain almost proverbial, and in a high heroic ranting mode that Renaissance writers would emulate: ( ... ... )

The ubiquitous image of the Wheel of Fortune found throughout the Middle Ages and beyond was a direct legacy of the second book of Boethius's Consolation. The Wheel appears in many renditions from tiny miniatures in manuscripts to huge stained glass windows in cathedrals, such as at Amiens. Lady Fortune is usually represented as larger than life to underscore her importance. The wheel characteristically has four shelves, or stages of life, with four human figures, usually labeled on the left regnabo (I shall reign), on the top regno (I reign) and is usually crowned, descending on the right regnavi (I have reigned) and the lowly figure on the bottom is marked sum sine regno (I have no kingdom). ( ... ... )  ─ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna


3.  In medieval and ancient philosophy the Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a symbil of the capricious nature of Fate. The wheel belongs to the goddess Fortunam who spins it at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel─some suffer great misfortunem other gain windfalls. Fortune [Fortuna ?] appears on all paintings as a womanm sometmes blindfolded, "puppeteering" a wheel. ( ... ... )

William Shakespeare in Hamlet wrote of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and, of fortune personified, to "break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel." And in Henry V, Act 3 Scene VI are the lines: ( ... ... ) ─ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rota_Fortunae



출처 2:  Exploratory Shakespeare (John Gilmore, July 14, 2015)

In ^The Merchant of Venice^, Portiam an affluent and quick-witted heiress from Belmont, aids in rescuing Antonio from hie legal plight with Shylock. ( ... ) Portia's actions through the play embody Fortuna's whimsical interest in humanity.

In order to compare Portia and Fortuna, we need a little background on this mythical figure and her famous wheel. In Roman mythology, Fortuna was the goddess of Luck, Fate, and Fortune. She watched over the fate of the individual as well as the state. In her left hand, Fortuna usually held a cornucopia , a symbol of all good things flowing in abundance. In the other hand, Fortuna held a ship's rudder, which implied her power to steer the delicate lives of mortals. By using both objects she was able to either bring happiness to the person's life, or completely destroy the individual's life instead.

Associated with Fortuna was her Rota Fortunae (Latin for "wheel of fortune"), which was a medieval concept that involved the use of a wheel that a person symbolically rode during his or her life. At the top of the wheel, a person's lifestyle was full of happiness and leisure. An individual at the level would live like a king. However, the wheel would eventually rotate and the person would begin to endure a miserable existence, full of pai and tragedy. Someone at the bottom hoped that Fortuna would eventually spin her wheel often enough for the individual to come back on top, both metaphorically and financially.

Portia, true to her allegorical figure, jumps at the opportunity to rescue Antonio from Shylock during the trial scene, spotting it as a situation where she can spin her metaphorical wheel and dramatically alter the fates of the people involved. By indirectly offering to pay more than triple the amount Bassiano borrowed from Shylock, Portia’s act symbolizes the cornucopia in Fortuna’s left hand.

( ... ... )

Today, the “wheel of fortune” is probably most well known to people as the popular television show hosted by Pat Sajak. While the element of luck will not have much of an effect on a person’s life, the game show does at least guarantee a brief period of pleasure for the winning contestant, either through fabulous vacations or enormous sums of money. But who knows, maybe the spirit of Fortuna does grease the wheel of “fortune”  of the winners, imbuing them with success.


출처 3: The Iconography of Fortuna (브라운 대학, 데카메론 웹)

The ubiquitous and ominous wheel of Fortune was a legacy to the Middle Ages from the second book of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. ( ... ... ) The wheel is frequently absurd in its mechanics: Fortuna may propel it with a graceful touch of a spoke or with an awkward-looking crank; each revolution may be swift or require a full life-time.

The wheel characteristically bears on its rim four shelves of "stages" with four human figures.

• The figure rising on the left is usually labeled regnabo (I shall reign), 
• the one at the top is marked regno (I reign) and is often crowned, 
• that descending on the right is regnavi (I have reigned), and 
• the writhing figure at the lowest point is sum sine regno (I have no kingdom). The victim is sometimes depicted as thrown from the wheel by gravity and centrifugal force, and sometimes as crushed under a wheel fit for a heavy cart.

Medieval representations of Fortune emphasize her duality and instability. She often displays two faces, either side-by-side, or back-to-back like Janus; with one black face and one white, or one smiling and one lowering. Sometimes one eye is beaming and one weeping. She may appear blindfolded, like Justice, but without the scale: she is, so to speak, impartial in injustice. Sometimes her head is bald behind but has a long forelock for seizing, like Opportunity. Her clothing may be of changeable colors or sharply divided into dark and bright or rich and beggarly. Occasionally her vivid clothing and bold bearing suggest the prostitute.

(A. K.) Richard Leighton Greene. s.v. "Fortune." Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol.3, Joseph R Strayer, ed. New York: Scribner's, 1983. pp. 145-147.

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