Please turn up the volume of your loud speakers
Our tour began when Seneca the younger wrote 'De Brevitata Vitae' (The Shortness of Life) more commonly known by its first words, 'Gaudeamus igiture' (Therefore let us rejoice). It is sung in Latin in many Europian nations as an anthem at university graduation ceremonies. The melody was inspired by a medieval hymn by Stroda, Bishop of Balogna in 1267. Although the music sounds very dignified, the song has been adopted by students as a form of prank and the lyrics are not very dignified.
It has been known as a beer drinking song in Italian, German, Swiss, British, Belgian, Dutch, Finnish and Australian iniversities. The Lyrics endorse the bacchanalian mayhem of life whilst retaining humorous and ironic references to sex and death. Students have been known to sing ribold versions, of course, in many languages.
Johannes Brahms quoted the hymn in the final section of his Academic Festival Overture and Sigmund Romberg used it in the operetta, "The Student Prince".
A respectable eighteenth century version (C. W. Kindleben 1781) is shown below with each verse translated into English.
This version uses the convention that consonantal i and u in the Latin are written as j and v respectively. The word antiburschius ("anti-student") is not really Latin, but has been invented based on the German word Bursch or Bursche, meaning "young fellow" or "student".
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Gaudeamus igitur Juvenes dum sumus. |
Let us rejoice therefore While we are young. |
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Ubi sunt qui ante nos In mundo fuere? |
Where are they Who were in the world before us? |
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Vita nostra brevis est Brevi finietur. |
Our life is brief It will be finished all too soon. |
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Vivat academia! Vivant professores! |
Long live the academy! Long live the teachers! |
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Vivant omnes virgines Faciles, formosae. |
Long live the virgins Easy and beautiful! |
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Vivant et res publica et qui illam regit. |
Long live the state as well And he who rules it! |
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Pereat tristitia, Pereant osores. |
Let sadness perish! Let haters perish! |
Interesting enough in its own way you may say, but now the Wiktour becomes more serious. The Lisbon Treaty swept away our agreed EU anthem, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. It’s gone and we need to replace it quickly with something less formal and preferably more accessible, less solemn and more popular!
So you are invited please, to contribute little snatches of doggerel fitting the old hymn and making fairly polite references to each of the member states. These might be written in Latin, English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Welsh, Cornish or whatever language lubricates your doggerel flows. Take your pick but lay off Turkish and Albanian for the moment.
The first two lines might be:
Gaudeamus igitur
citoyens de l’Europe.
This might be an appropriate acknowledgement of Jean Monnet’s visionary design for peace in Europe. (Or perhaps not in your version)
Note that when sung, the first two lines and the last line in each stanza in the Kindleben version are repeated and presumably this is required by the tune.
The only rule which I think should be respected is that nothing insulting or spiteful should be included. Otherwise anything could go, sport, Euro song contests, famous artists, writers, politicians, foibles, scientists, engineers, the climate, countryside, mountains, rivers, historical events, national customs, anything!
So be inspired by your favourite versifier, Hilaire Belloc, McGonnigle, John Betjeman. Micheal Flanders, George Formby……?
Send us your gems and we will display them below and canvas endorsement. You only need offer one or two stanzas but if you manage one for each member state you might be nominated for President.
