Le debat de Cuidier et de Fortune

Le debat de Cuidier et de Fortune by Olivier de La Marche is an allegorical debate poem written in the late 15th century.

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About this book

Le debat de Cuidier et de Fortune by Olivier de La Marche is an allegorical debate poem written in the late 15th century. The work stages a moral-philosophical contest between human self-confidence and the power of Fortune, exploring fate, free will, and the instability of earthly honors and pursuits.

The poem opens with a narrator, imprisoned after a disastrous battle, who hears a quarrel between Cuidier (presumption, bold self-belief) and Fortune, the blindfolded lady turning her wheel. Cuidier boasts that daring and resolve win love, glory, wealth, and renown; Fortune declares herself the heaven-sanctioned scourge who overturns such hopes. Before the narrator, set as judge, Cuidier tests every path—noble birth, learning, arms, trade, marriage, crafts, farming, courtly love, physical strength, hunting, travel, shepherding, heraldry, even the religious life—claiming will can secure success. Fortune rebuts each with classical and biblical exempla of sudden ruin (Hector, Samson, Absalom, Oedipus’s sons, Nebuchadnezzar, martyrs), showing that outcomes rest in her turning. The dispute remains unresolved; the vision breaks, and the narrator records it soberly, framed by his grief and captivity after his lord’s death at Nancy.

Format: EPUB
Language: French
Length: 12 pages