Content
The lyrics reflect an endorsement of the bacchanalian mayhem of student life while simultaneously retaining the grim knowledge that one day we will all die. The song contains humorous and ironic references to sex and death, and many versions have appeared following efforts to bowdlerise this song for performance in public ceremonies. In private, students will typically sing ribald words.
The song is sometimes known by its opening words, "Gaudeamus igitur" or simply "Gaudeamus". In the UK, it is sometimes affectionately known as "The Gaudie". The centuries of use have given rise to numerous slightly different versions.
Johannes Brahms quoted the hymn in the final section of his Academic Festival Overture. Sigmund Romberg used it in the operetta The Student Prince, which is set at the University of Heidelberg. The hymn is also quoted, along with other student songs, in the overture of Franz von Suppé's 1863 operetta Flotte Burschen (the action being once again set at the University of Heidelberg).
Read more about this topic: Gaudeamus Igitur
Famous quotes containing the word content:
“The content of a thought depends on its external relations; on the way that the thought is related to the world, not on the way that it is related to other thoughts.”
—Jerry Alan Fodor (b. 1935)
“Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,—to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)