The house of Fortune on a hill is set Not on a level but a dangerous slope And it seems ever just about to fall In crumbling ruin down . . . One half the hall stands high, the other low. Man never saw a more ambiguous house. One part has gold and silver walls that shine . . . The other part has thick walls of mud And a roof of straw. If one part proudly rears Its height and beauty, marvelous and fine, The other part grovels, feeble and debased. With perforations making its walls Five hundred thousand crevices and gaps In this place tis Fortune makes her home Unstable, changeable and vagabond.
from The Romance of the Rose The Anticlaudian (Book 8 Chapter 1)