Gaudeamus igitur

The story

"Gaudeamus igitur" (Latin for "So let us rejoice"), also called "De brevitate vitae" ("On the Shortness of Life") or simply "Gaudeamus", is an academic commercium song, a song of student gatherings, sung across Europe. Its claimed origin is a Latin manuscript of 1287 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France: a poem in it has two verses close to two of the later song's, though neither the first verse nor the words of the title appear, and its music has nothing to do with the present tune. A German translation of these verses was made in about 1717 and published in 1730 without music. A Latin version in a handwritten student songbook of between 1723 and 1750, now in the Berlin State Library, differs considerably from the text sung today.

The modern Latin words were published in Halle in 1781, with a German translation, in Christian Wilhelm Kindleben's Studentenlieder ("Students' Songs"), and Kindleben admitted that he had changed the text considerably. The melody first appeared in print in Leipzig in 1782, in Lieder für Freunde der Geselligen Freude, with Kindleben's German words, but it was evidently well known before. The Latin text and the present tune were probably first printed together in Ignaz Walter's operatic setting of Goethe's Faust in 1797.

The song was long a beer-drinking song at many universities. It praises the disorder of student life while keeping in view that everyone will die, in the tradition of carpe diem and memento mori, and it makes ironic jokes about sex and death. Many versions soften the text for public ceremonies, while students in private have sung ruder words. Over the centuries this has produced many slightly different versions.

Composers took up the tune as a sign of student life: Berlioz in La Damnation de Faust, Strauss in his "Studenten-Polka" for the students' ball at the Vienna Hofburg on 24 February 1862, Suppé in the overture of his operetta Flotte Bursche (1863), Liszt in a paraphrase and a humoresque (1870), Tchaikovsky in an arrangement for male chorus (1874), and Brahms in the full-orchestra close of his Academic Festival Overture. Romberg used it in the operetta The Student Prince, set at Heidelberg.

Today it is sung mainly at graduation ceremonies, even though it is a light-hearted song that pokes fun at university life. It is the official song of many schools, colleges, universities and student societies, and the official anthem of the International University Sports Federation. In the United Kingdom it is sometimes called "The Gaudie".

What it says

A student song of the shortness of life: since youth passes and death comes to all, the singers resolve to enjoy the time they have. It then turns to toasts in praise of the university, its teachers, its students and the city, mixing jokes with a real awareness of mortality.

The words