”Gaudeamus Igitur”

Summer’s here. The school year’s over and many of our siblings, friends, children and grandchildren are graduating from university. Just imagine the opportunities before them. What will they do next? Where will they go? Whom will they meet? As their new lives embark, we wish them the best. May their dreams come true.

Some of us may forget, however, that the exuberance of youth comes also with a good deal of anxiety. With so much potential and possibility, how will they live fully and get the most out of youth while they are still young? Exciting though it may be, young adulthood can be a troubling and murky experience.

Even so, we can still approach this darker side of youth with humor and charm. The traditional European graduation song “Gaudeamus Igitur”  (“So Let Us Rejoice”) or “De Brevitae Vitae” (“On the Shortness of Life”) does just this. With carpe diem as its central message, the song tells us to enjoy life while we can because someday we all will die. Yet it delivers its dark message through lighthearted lyrics that celebrate the debauchery of university life and the vigor of youth.

Credit: fluidr.com

Written in the early 18^th century, “Gaudeamus Igitur” traces a line of inheritance that connects our college graduates today with hundreds of generations of young, energetic people just like them. Since the original song is in Latin, today I chose an anonymous, literal translation dating back to the 18^th century. Many people have since written their own lyrics, but here is a sense of what college kids have been singing for hundreds of years:

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

Our life is brief
Soon it will end.
Death comes quickly
Snatches us cruelly
To nobody shall it be spared.

Long live all girls,
Easy [and] beautiful!
Long live [mature] women too,
Tender, lovable,
Good, [and] hard-working.

Let sadness perish!
Let haters perish!
Let the devil perish!
And also the opponents of the fraternities
And their mockers, too!

Listen to the original in Latin:

More from “A Rite of Passage”:

• Funeral Music: “Today’s The Day” by Lucy Kaplansky
• Memorial Music: “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel
• Memorial Music: “The Show Must Go On” by Queen