Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur

Subject: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 05:36 PM

GAUDEAMUS IGITUR

^^ (vers. C. W. Kindeleben 1781)

Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus
Post jucundam juventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.

Let us rejoice therefore, while we are young.
After a pleasant youth
After a troublesome old age
The earth will have us.

Ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere?
Vadite ad superos
Transite in inferos
Hos si vis videre.*

Where are they who were in the world before us?
You may cross over to heaven
You may go to hell
If you wish to see them.

Vita nostra brevis est brevi finietur.
Venit mors velociter
Rapit nos atrociter
Nemini parcetur.

Our life is brief it will be finished shortly.
Death comes quickly
Atrociously, it snatches us away.
No one is spared.

Vivat academia! Vivant professores!
Vivat membrum quodlibet!
Vivat membra quaelibet!**
Semper sint in flore!

Long live the academy! Long live the teachers!
Long live each male student!
Long live each female student!
May they always flourish!

Vivant omnes virgines faciles, formosae.
Vivant et mulieres
Tenerae amabiles
Bonae laboriosae.

Long live all maidens easy and beautiful!
Long live mature women also,
Tender and loveable
And full of good labor.

Vivant et republica et qui illam regit.
Vivat nostra civitas,
Maecenatum caritas
Quae nos hic protegit.

Long live the republic and they who rule it!
Long live our city
And the charity of benefactors
Which protects us here!

Pereat tristitia, pereant osores.
Pereat diabolus,
Quivis antiburschius
Atque irrisores.

Let sadness perish, let haters perish.
Let the devil perish.
Let whoever is against our school
Who laughs at it, perish!

From the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland:
(http://www.ces.uj.edu.pl/european/krakow/gaudeamus.htm)

"Gaudeamus Igitur is frequently sung at University functions all across Europe such as the opening of the academic year. Students traditionally stand while singing it.

"Although the text has been translated into most of the languages of the world (including Polish), it is usually sung in Latin. Where a shorter version is needed, verses 1 and 4 are usually sung without the rest.

"The oldest kernel of the song is the grim middle: Ubi sunt qui ante nos in mundo fuere? ("Where are they who before us went into the world?"). They are from a Latin penitential hymn dated to 1267, which was sung to a very different tune.

"In 1717, a poem by Silesian balladeer Johann Christian Günther includes a German translation of verses 2 and 3. However, they had already become wrapped in the happier sentiments of a song entitled Brüder, lasst uns lustig sein (Brothers, let's celebrate!) Although the printed version did not indicate a melody, the style of the music used today (a stately sarabande) suggests that it was written about the same time as Günther's lyrics.

"In 1781, Christian Wilhelm Kindelben first printed his version of the Latin text, which has become the standard used by most Universities today."

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

---

Click to play

---

*alternate:
Transite ad inferos, ubi jam fuere

** Vivat membrum quodlibet! Vivant membra (pl.!) quaelibet! = long live any member, long live any members

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 05:37 PM

The tune has been haunting me for days.

Midi sent to Joe Offer.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 06:16 PM

Hmmm. Haven't heard this one in many years. Mario Lanza version, I think. Now I know what he was singing about.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 06:18 PM

Surprised this wasn't already in Mudcat.

The first line of a verse is sometimes repeated in choral presentations.

Now I've got this earworm too.

Also printed in "Carmina princetonia" (with music) and other school songbooks.
In the "College Song Book," arr. C. Wistar Stevens, 1860, this old song is listed under Songs of Yale, where it appears "Arranged as a solo, and also as a quartet for two tenors and two basses." Neither volume gives the English translation.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 07:28 PM

I've seen this identified in more than one place as a "German Drinking Song." That seems strange, but as Gargoyle's notes indicate, it does appear to have German origins.
Cicero certainly didn't sing it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: masato sakurai
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 07:38 PM

See Johannes Brahms, Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 (orchestral score). Click on (Measure 290), and go to page 48 (or measure 379).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 08:23 PM

from this site, program notes

Academic Festival Overture (1880) Op. 80

Johannes Brahms
Brahms had already declined one honorary doctorate of music from Cambridge on account of being too busy to make the journey from Vienna, when he was nominated in 1879 for the same degree by the University of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), the chief city of Silesia, at that time part of the German empire. Apparently, the learned professors had little knowledge of this Brahms other than that he was from Hamburg, was a musician and, perhaps most significantly, had snubbed the great University of Cambridge! This time he was able to accept, since the degree could be conferred in absentia. The regents of Breslau did however expect some kind of thanks, typically in the form of a Latin address. Instead Brahms gave them one of his greatest compositions: the Akademische Fest-Overture. It employs the biggest orchestra of any of his works, and is a brilliant and decidedly irreverent arrangement of student tunes. It culminates in a hearty rendition of 'Gaudeamus igitur' (let us therefore rejoice) so that at least part of his thank you was based on Latin.

*******************************************

This thread about the Christmas Carol, "When Christmas Morn is Dawning," has a little more info about Brahms' Academic Festival Overture tunes. Masato has a link to Fuxenritt.

The posts are out of order, despite the dates. ???

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 09:13 PM

More verses, and a different English version, at ingeb.org, of this old university song. Gaudeamus
Also Esperanto, German and Finnish.
Sung at many university graduations.

Here it is in Castilian Spanish: Gaudeamus
Found in a Latin manuscript of 1287, now at the National Libary in Paris. A later, much different 18th c. version is in the library at Marburg. Kindleben, at Halle in 1871, in his Studentenlieder, student songs, p. 56, is responsible for the modern words.
The melody was first mentioned in the "Akademisches Liederbuch, 1782, by Nieman, a copy at Yale University. It is known from "Lieder fur Freude der Geselligen Freunde" edited in Leipzig, 1788, p. 24.
(translated from the Spanish in the reference linked above).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 10:59 PM

Mary - what is 1/2re?

---

Garbled text that I fixed.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 11:02 PM

Q

Like the Bible, it has been translated into virtually EVERY language. Take the time and post your Esperanza translation.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 11:58 PM

Ah, Esperanza! Esperanza
There was an Esperanto version but I will leave that to Haruo.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 12:07 AM

MIDI added, thanks to gargoyle.

---

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 12:22 AM

Joe, take a listen to the midi at ingeb.org: Gaudeamus
More like I have heard it sung.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 01:00 AM

The tunes appear to be same - Q - however, your example finishes the stanza with a florish - which most secondary students - cannot/did not accomplish (along with the Latin future-perfect-past-tense conjugations)

Sincerely,
Garoyle

Unfortunately, I did not steal my first year book with "Britania est insula" and "Picum Nicum" in the opening chapters...and the "Igitur" in the appendix - but a daily singing appended this tune/song to my immortal soul.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 03:33 AM

Corrections:
1 ... Post jucundam juventutem (iuventus = fem.!)
3 ... Transite ad inferos, ubi jam fuere
4 ... Vivat membrum quodlibet! Vivant membra (pl.!) quaelibet! = long live any member, long live any members
7 ... Quivis antiburschius = any foe of the students (Bursch, now used for a adolescent male, is the old name of the student, derived from the Latin bursa = [common] purse, the medieval college where students and professors lived together.)

The song was revised by Kindleben (not Kindeleben or Kindelben)

Title of the songbook: Lieder fuer Freunde der geselligen Freude (omit n), Leipzig 1788 [ed. 1799 with the add.: zunächst für Studierende oder Neues akademisches Liederbuch = Songs for friends of convivial joy [at first for students or new academic songbook]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 03:39 AM

Forgot it:
6 Vivat (omit n, sing.!) et res publica (2 words)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Haruo
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 04:50 AM

I was just going to copy-paste the Esperanto text (Kanto de Studentoj, incipit Ĝoju, ĝoju ni, kolegoj) from ingeb.org (since it looks basically correct and those are the four stanzas I'm familiar with) but on looking it up in the 1929 edition of Paul Bennemann's Internacia kantaro I see there are seven stanzas. Hopefully over the Fourth I'll have time to type it up properly.

Ĝis tiam...

Haruo
=====
Repeal the language tax — Learn and use Esperanto
Mia propra TTTejo

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 04:52 AM

Oh thank you so much!!!!

Now I've got Tom Lehrer's 'Fight Fiercely Harvard' going round my head....

Hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth!
Six parts gin to one part vermouth!

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,Mrs.Duck
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 03:58 PM

Brings back memories 'Gaudeamus Igitur' was one of our two school songs. The other one was 'Forty Years on'. Neither ever seemed particularly suited to an all girls school but sing them we did every school birthday and end of term.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,Uncle DaveO
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 07:55 PM

I can't pretend to be an expert on this song, or on Latin in general. But I have heard the one line as:

Vivat academicus. Vivant (or viva) professorium

Rather than "Vivat academia! Vivant professores!"

I know nothing of the Latin grammar, but the "professorium" scans better, for whatever that's worth.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jun 05 - 09:55 PM

Professores is sung pro-fes-so-o-res, giving it 5 syllables.
Some of the verses given by Gargoyle (and in ingeb.org) differ from those in "Carmina princetonia" (1894), but I think the latter has changed a few words to suit Ivy league ideas.
Verse 4 in the "Carmina" has Vivat Universitas, rather than Vivat academia, in the first line.
Some of the English translation given by Gargoyle is incorrect, as pointed out by Wilfried. In the same verse 4, ingeb has this translation:

Long live our academy,
Teachers whom we cherish;
Long live all the graduates,
And the undergraduates;
Ever may they flourish.

This is not exactly what is meant by the next-to-last line (long live the whole) but it certainly better than the 'male-female' mistake in the translation provided by Gargoyle.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,Terry K
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 03:20 AM

This was my school song. I recall we used to sing it with great gusto - one of only a very few pleasant memories of six years wasted at Sir William Turner's Grammar, Coatham, Redcar.

No bitterness there then.

cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 10:48 AM

The second stanza as we had it at Caltech in the 1950s went

Ubi sunt qui ante nos

In mundo fuere,

Abeas ad inferos,

Transeas ad superos,

Quos si vis videre?

Probably corrupt. The incorporation of the answer to the question in a dependent clause seems odd; but I don't know much Latin.

_Traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest Songs_ (Conrad Bladey, Ed., Hutman Productions, Linthicum, MD, 2004), while admitting that this is not an Oktoberfest song, nevertheless includes it, with the following three additional stanza:

Quis confluxis hodie

Academicorum?

E longinquo convenerun,

Protinusque successerunt

In commune forum.

*

Vivat nostra societas,

Vivant studiosi.

Crescat una veritas,

Floreat fraternitas,

Patriae prosperitas.

*

Alma Mater floreat,

Quae nos educavit;

Caros et commilitones,

Dissitas in regiones

Sparsos, congregavit.

The last of these we also had at Caltech.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Don't Run Away from a Fight married Don't Walk Away from a Mess. :||

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: GAUDEAMUS IGITUR
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 10:50 AM

"Vivat academicus. Vivant (or viva) professorium" doesn't work in Latin, Dave - even if it does scan better.
"Vivat academia! Vivant professores!" is what appears in most sources.

As for those next two lines:

Vivat membrum quodlibet!
Vivat membra quaelibet!

- What would be an accurate translation?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 01:46 PM

Quodlibet means everywhere
membrum means a part of the whole, a limb (pl. membra).
The problem is trying to compose a translated version that is singable; quite a job to fit words to music without shifting meaning.

Approximately: Live well, members everywhere, each and every one!

In the Castellano version linked above, the verse becomes:

Viva la Universidas,
Vivan los professores.
Vivan todos y cada uno
de sus miembros,
resplandezcan siempre. (May they flourish always!)
(Hmmm, I remember, from Dickens: 'Bless us, each and every one!')

The Spanish site I linked far above has three midis: 1. instrumental, 2. choral, 3. a fragment of the Overture by Brahms. Again, for convenience:
Gaudeamus Igitur

I remember women's lib students at universities complaining about the verse beginning "Vivant omnes virgines,..." I can't remember the verse that they proposed as a substitute.
I don't know what they were complaining about; in the days of the Roman Empire they might have had to contend with a seller of virgins- Virginisvendonides.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jul 05 - 02:04 PM

Noun gender - membrum - UM - = masculine member

Noun gender - membra - A - = feminem member

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Haruo
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 03:52 AM

One song I'm still trying unsuccessfully to find is the school song of my old elementary alma mater in Japan, Rekisen Shōgakkō. At one point I had the words relocated (but now I've misplaced them again), and I remember bits and pieces of the tune from time to time, but never the whole thing. I think I already tried to get Masato to come up with it for me, I'm not sure... anyhow, I'll be in Yokohama in 2007 for the Universal Congress of Esperanto, and will try to run up to Bunkyō-ku and hope it's not total summer vacation...

Haruo
=====
Repeal the language tax - Learn and use Esperanto!
My website

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: fat B****rd
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 06:17 AM

We used to sing this at my old Grammar School in Cleethorpes.
Always reminds me of dust motes in the main hall in the afternoon sun.
Poetic bugger inni ?
Also I recall Mario Lanza singing this in (I think) The Student Prince.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 01:28 PM

Guest apparently flunked Latin. Membrum is Neuter.

I picked up the Mario Lanza "Student Prince" recording at a goodwill store recently. Brought back memories of being in the chorus long ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 01:51 PM

I think the contrast between membrum & membra is not between male & female but between (neuter) singular & plural. Thus, the meaning is "Long live any member; long live any members". That is not idiomatic English, but I think the idea is emphatic redundancy, as we might say "each & every member".

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons. :||

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 02:14 PM

Re membrum, as Wilfried Schaum correctly pointed out way, way above.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 02:34 PM

Thanks, Q - you seem to be one of the few interested readers of all posts. Otherwise one could despair. For the other ones again: Long live any member, long live any members (verbatim, not best English. Thanks, Joe F.)
Membrum = member, pl. membra = members. The relative quilibet, quaelibet, quodlibet = anyone (m., f.) or anything (n.) you like. The form quaelibet might be nom. sing. f., nom. pl. f. or nom. or acc. pl. n. Here it is nom. pl. n. as related to membra.

And you can be assured I know what I'm writing about here,
1. This song is one of the seven academic hymns I was forced to learn as a freshman, and
2. I hold my Master's degree not only for Semitic languages, but for Latin also (did it nine years at school and five years at university).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 02 Jul 05 - 02:49 PM

Gargoyle - the song Brüder, la�t uns lustig sein consists of 6 stanzas; the first 4 are a translation of Kindleben's stanzas 1-3 (Latin stanza 2 translated in German stanza 2-3). G. stanza 5 calls to drinking, stanza 6 to carnal love [but relatively decent].
The first line la�t uns lustig sein = let us rejoice = gaudeamus!
The melody of Günther's song is not that of the Gaudeamus, but a much more earnest in minor key. You may find it in
Sperontes [i. e. Johann Sigismund Scholz]: Die singende Muse an der Plei�e (= the singing muse at the Plei�e = the river flowing through Leipzig), Leipzig 1736, with a parody of Günther's song starting: Brethren, let's stop rejoicing becauses our purses are empty ... and admonishing students to go back to hard work over their books [horrible!]

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: pdq
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 11:37 AM

If I may digress from this erudite discussion, I submit,
for your edification, a modern variant from the pen of
Allan Sherman, as per "The Dropouts March":

Ignoramus there you are,
Sitting in your hopped-up car,
And your brains ain't up to par,
And your ears stick out too far.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Haruo
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 06:13 PM

Wilfried, I don't know what encoding use were using on that last post, but two of the letters show on my screen as bizarre sequences.

Oddly, the ü in Brüder comes out fine, but starting with the next word we have

l a ï ¿ ½ t — surely it should be laßt

and then Leipzig's river is called the

P l e i ï ¿ ½ e — so (though I was never up on my DDR rivers) it must be the Pleiße, nicht wahr?

Haruo

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 06:24 PM

Html characters work for posts, but I understand that they cannot be used in the DT. Perhaps it would be better to use ss rather than ß and ue than ü, etc.
I don't know what Wilfried is using, or what works if he has a German keyboard.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Haruo
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 06:28 PM

Whatever he's using it looks odd. Maybe a Baltic or Turkish keyboard of some sort (or maybe since it came back to life it's Mudcat that's doing weird things to the letters).

I will say I think not being able to use non-ASCII letters in the DT is a major design flaw. A folksong site that can't make Gaelic or German or French look right has problems. Let alone Japanese or Esperanto ;-)... Unicode being what it is these days, none of this should be a problem.

Haruo

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 05 Jul 05 - 02:52 AM

Haruo - the odd characters can be explained easily: Instead of typing the line anew I copied and pasted from Gargoyle's post. This made havoc out of the charcode I normally use (Western, ISO-8859-1). A following post with corrections and dissolving the umlauts and ligatures was not accepted by the 'cat.

Brüder = Brueder; laßt = lasst; Pleiße = Pleisse

If I may believe the preview, now it works well.

And now something totally different:
The Gaudeamus as a drinking song has a typical theme known since antiquity, as St Paul expresses it in his 1st epistle to the Corinthians, 15:32: "let us eat and drink, for to morrow we die" [King James version].

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: Haruo
Date: 05 Jul 05 - 03:48 AM

How true, how true, if, as St Paul also says, the dead rise not!

Okay, here goes ... the seven-stanza'd Esperanza version ;-) —

Kanto de studentoj
Translation by L. L. Zamenhof

1. :|: Ĝoju, ĝoju ni, kolegoj, dum ni junaj estas! :|:
        Post plezura estanteco,
        Post malgaja maljuneco
   :|: Sole tero restas. :|:
   


2. :|: Vivo estas tre mallonga, kuras netenate, :|:
        Kaj subite morto venos
        Kaj rapide ĉiun prenos,
   :|: Ĉiun senkompate. :|:
                    
   
3. :|: Kie niaj antaŭuloj en la mondo sidas? :|:
        Iru al la superuloj,
        Serĉu ilin ĉe l' subuloj —
   :|: Kiu ilin vidas? :|:
   
   
4. :|: Vivu la akademio kaj la profesoroj! :|:
        Vivu longe kaj en sano
        Ĉiu akademiano,
   :|: Vivu sen doloroj! :|:
   
   
5. :|: Vivu ĉiuj la knabinoj belaj kaj hontemaj! :|:
        Vivu ankaŭ la virinoj,
        amikinoj kaj mastrinoj,
   :|: Bonaj laboremaj. :|:
   
   
6. :|: Vivu, floru nia regno kaj regnestro nia :|:
        Kaj amikoj mecenataj,
        Protektantoj estimataj
   :|: De l' akademio. :|:
   
   
7. :|: Mortu, mortu, malgajeco, mortu la doloro! :|:
        Mortu ĉiu intriganto,
        Kaj malamon konservanto
   :|: Longe en la koro. :|:

These correspond to the first seven stanzas in ingeb.org's (upper-left) Latin column, and appear to be translated from the Latin rather than the German. (Ingeb.org's Esperanto text is missing vv. 3, 4, and 6; on the other hand, Bennemann's text, which I have transcribed, places the girls in penultimate position. I have moved them to v. 5 after ingeb.org.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Gaudeamus Igitur
From: masato sakurai
Date: 05 Jul 05 - 04:48 AM

Through Internet Archive Wayback Machine (no images appear):

De brevitate vitae - Gaudeamus igitur...: Verschiedenes zum "Gaudeamus" (STADTVERBAND der Kremser MKV-Verbindungen)

- Wortspielereien