Bona Fortuna on the AP Latin Exam

For all those students taking AP Latin Exams, Vergil speaks:

Aeneid, 1.238–241

“Now this same fortune still pursues these men driven by dangers
What end do you permit for their labors, great king?”

nunc eadem fortuna viros tot casibus actos
insequitur. Quem das finem, rex magne, laborum?

6.95–97

“Don’t yield to evils, but go boldly forward
Where your fortune bids you. The first path of safety
Which you might imagine the least, leads through a city of Greeks.”

tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito,
qua tua te Fortuna sinet. via prima salutis
(quod minime reris) Graia pandetur ab urbe.’

10.282–4

“….Let’s charge to the other side across the wave
While they take their first steps in fear.
Fortune favors the brave.”

…ultro occurramus ad undam
dum trepidi egressisque labant vestigia prima.
audentis Fortuna iuvat.'[….]

CarminaBurana wheel.jpg
Bavarian State Library, Munich, Codex Buranus (Carmina Burana) Clm 4660; fol. 1r with the Wheel of Fortune

Simonides, Fr. 17: Don’t Say Anything About Tomorrow

“Since you are a human being, never mention what happens tomorrow
Nor, if you see a lucky man, say how long he will be so.
For not even the flick of a wide-winged fly
Is as swift as this

[in some texts the following is added]

Everything comes to a single, dreadful Charybis—
The great virtues and wealth the same.”

 

ἄνθρωπος ἐὼν μή ποτε φάσηις ὅ τι γίνεται 〚αὔριον〛,
μηδ’ ἄνδρα ἰδὼν ὄλβιον ὅσσον χρόνον ἔσσεται·
ὠκεῖα γὰρ οὐδὲ τανυπτερύγου μυίας
οὕτως ἁ μετάστασις.
πάντα γὰρ μίαν ἱκνεῖται δασπλῆτα Χάρυβδιν,
αἱ μεγάλαι τ’ ἀρεταὶ καὶ ὁ πλοῦτος.

Upon correcting beginning Greek exams, I wish I had taken Simonides’ advice when getting a little too excited yesterday.

If only Fleetwood Mac had read this poem, we might have been spared this: