Gaudeamus! Humorous Poems Part 1

Gaudeamus!

by Joseph Victor Scheffel.

PREFACE.

This volume contains the greater portion of the poems which const.i.tute the Gaudeamus--'Let us be jolly'--of Joseph Victor Scheffel, who is at present the most popular poet in Germany. Without being presented as such, these ballads, though complete in themselves, form in their connection a droll history of the world and of humanity--advancing from the early outburst of Granite and Basalt, through the boulder of Gneiss to the Ichthyosaurus and Megatherium. Man then appears as a dweller in the pre-historic Swiss-Lacustrine-dwelling on poles, where he bitterly bewails the misfortune of being a pioneer of civilization, and as one born before the invention of modern comforts.

'In stocks I would gladly grow wealthy, But exchange is not yet understood: A good gla.s.s of beer would be healthy, But never a drop has been brewed.'

The Early Ph[oe]nician is set forth in a droll song (originally published under the t.i.tle of Jonah) which describes the disasters that befell a guest who could not pay his bill,--presented in arrow-head or cuneiform characters on six tiles. The old Etruscan era and that of the ancient German are also painted in a style which, could the truth be known, would probably be found as genially true to life as it is to the world-old, infinite spirit of Humour, which moved man in the same measure in ancient Egypt as in modern England. In these, as in his serious poems of a more ambitious nature, Joseph Victor Scheffel manifests a remarkable insight into the inner real life of the past.

Like a geologist, or poet, he infers from trivial relics the probable feelings and habits of obscure beings or races, or at least imagines them, and a.s.similates them to modern usages with rare tact. These ballads have been printed, sung, and imitated in Germany of late years to a great extent. Scheffel has in fact founded a school of humorous poetry--that of the burlesque-scientific and historical--which, though by no means pretentious, has at least made the world laugh heartily. I sincerely trust that the following translations will induce the reader to become familiar with the original.

I have omitted a few poems from the Gaudeamus, as deficient in the peculiar spirit of _fun_ which characterises all that are here given; but should the public manifest its approbation of this work, they may be found in another edition. In their place I have given translations of a number of eccentric German-student songs of the new school, nearly all of which have found their way into the popular German song-books of late years.

CHARLES G. LELAND.

_London, October_, 1871.

JOSEPH VICTOR SCHEFFEL.

AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.

_Joseph Victor Scheffel_ was born in the year 1826, at Karlsruhe, in Baden, where his father, a veteran officer, had taken up his residence.

He received his first instruction in the 'Lyceum' of his native place, a high school which enjoyed at the time a splendid reputation, and was considered the best in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Whatever may have been said against one or the other of the professors, the majority were remarkable men, knowing how to awaken the mental activity of their pupils. The social life of the 'Lyceists' was free from ordinary constraints; and the merry youths enjoyed many privileges, which at other places were strictly reserved for University students.

Nor did they lack any opportunities for intellectual improvement in the capital of Baden. The theatre was then excellent, and the 'Lyceists'

visited it regularly. Eyen politics agitated the mind of this young generation. It must be remembered that thirty years ago Baden was the focus of political life, to which the eyes of every German patriot was directed; and although Mannheim was the seat of the agitation, the chamber united at Karlsruhe a number of men, whose names will ever be held in respect in Baden: Itzstein, Welcker, Ba.s.sermann, Hecker, Mathy, Soiron.

Joseph Victor pa.s.sed with all the honours, and as one of the best pupils, all the cla.s.ses of the Lyceum, and then devoted himself to the study of law at the University of Heidelberg. There he joined a so-called academical society of progress, without, however, taking part in the Baden revolution, which drove so many of his comrades into exile.

After having pa.s.sed the Government examination we find our young poet as '_Rechtspractikant_' (pract.i.tioner of law) in the little town of Sackingen. Well might the little provincial place appear dull to a student coming from the liveliest university of Germany. Still the splendid scenery of the environs of Sackingen compensated for many shortcomings. With the numerous friends he won there, Scheffel made frequent excursions through the valleys which stretch in all directions from the Feldberg and the Rhine. He proved to be a bold and even reckless swimmer, pa.s.sing many a time through the bridge of Sackingen, saluting the bystanders as he accomplished this daring feat.

In the office of his court, located in an old convent of nuns, Scheffel found a number of old doc.u.ments and MSS., and there his first poem was written, based on one of them: '_Der Trompeter von Sackingen. Ein Sang vom Oberrhein_.'

The success of this first production was complete. It was published at the time when the 'incense perfume of the pious soul,' as Scheffel calls the poems of Oskar von Redwitz, had its firmest hold on the misguided taste of the public. In comparison with this sickly, effeminate poetry, the simple, natural, and yet intensely poetic production of Scheffel afforded something like the enjoyment of fresh mountain air after that of a hot-house. It is true, Scheffel was at first entirely ignored by the Berlin and Leipzig critics who a.s.sume to sit in judgment over modern German literature (he has, up to the present day, not even found a place in Brockhaus's _Conversations-Lexicon_), but the unsophisticated public recognized the kernel of pure poetry in Scheffel's unpretentious verses; and his 'Trompeter' is at present the most popular poem in Germany. Its story is told with extreme simplicity and humour, in blank trochees with interspersed rhymed poems; it leads us to the forest-town of Sackingen during the second half of the 17th century, and into the neighbouring castle of a baron, whose only daughter is wooed and, at last, won by a young musician, a merry youth, who had been expelled from the University of Heidelberg on account of his noisy behaviour.

Nothing can be more humorous than the account of the ex-student's life at Heidelberg, of his duels and his libations beneath the big tun of the castle,

Bei dem Wunder unserer Tage, Bei dem Kunstwerk deutschen Denkens, Bei dem Heidelberger Fa.s.s,

or the historical episode of the foundation of Sackingen by Saint Fridolin, an Irish apostle, sent by Chlodwig with the following message to convert the Allemannic Germans:

Hatt' sonst nicht die grosste Vorlieb Fur die Kutten, fur die Heil'gen, Aber seit mir die verfluchten Scharfen Alemannenspiesse Allzunah um's Ohr gepfiffen, Seit der schweren Schlacht bei Zulpich, Bin ich and'rer Ansicht worden, --Noth lehrt auch die Konige beten.

Schutz drum geb' ich, wo ihr hinzieht.

Und empfehl' hauptsachlich Euch am Oberrhein die Alemannen.

Diese haben schwere Schadel, Diese sind noch trotz'ge Heiden, Macht mir diese fromm und artig--

or the meditations of the cat of the castle, which, as silent witness of the caresses of the two lovers, thus broods over the enigma of the kiss:

Warum kussen sich die Menschen?

S'ist nicht Ha.s.s, sie beissen sich nicht, Hunger nicht, sie fressen sich nicht.

S'kann auch kein zweckloser blinder Unverstand sein, denn sie sind sonst Klug und selbstbewusst im Handeln; Warum, also, frag' umsonst ich, Warum kussen sich die Menschen?

Warum meistens nur die Jungern?

Warum diese meist im Fruhling?

Ueber diese Punkte werd' ich Morgen auf des Daches Giebel Etwas naher meditiren.

In the delineations of the various characters of the 'Trompeter'

Scheffel exhibits a gift of true poetical conception, a warmth of feeling, and a power of description, equalled by few of our modern poets; indeed, the characters rise before our mind with such truthfulness, as the idealized types of the people in that corner of Germany, that one might almost believe one had met all of them during one's wanderings in the Black Forest, whether it be Werner, the merry trumpeter, or the crusty old baron, or Anton, the respectable 'Hausknecht.'

Scheffel did not remain long in Sackingen. He quitted the Government service, and, after pa.s.sing some time in travels in South Germany, settled at Donaueschingen as Keeper of the Archives of Prince Furstenberg. This town is likewise exceedingly small, the environs are bare and not to be compared with the romantic scenery of the Upper Rhine; but at the court of the refined princes of Furstenberg there were at all times remarkable men, and the library afforded, in MSS. and doc.u.ments, ample means for the study of Old German history, language, and literature.

To this study Scheffel now devoted himself, and, in combining his qualities as a poet with that of an historian, created his famous novel Ekkehard. Based chiefly on the Chronicles of the Monastery of St.

Gallen, it gives us a faithful picture of the social life in South Western Germany--the most ancient seat and nucleus of German civilization during the tenth century,--in retaining and reproducing all the navete, freshness, and simple-minded views which are the charms of these celebrated chronicles, whilst the poet's figures are marked with that distinct individuality which raises the dry chronicle to a skilful and poetical tale of human pa.s.sions and conflicts.

Ekkehard may be compared with the best of Sir Walter Scott's novels.

Another fruit of Scheffel's researches in mediaeval literature is his charming little volume '_Frau Aventiure_,' and likewise, although published much later, '_Juniperus_,' the history of a German Crusader, and his most recent work, '_Die Bergpsalmen_.' Both these latter works (the last one is written in verse) exhibit the same merits as Ekkehard, but they are laid out on a smaller scale, and are of a more fragmentary character. '_Frau Aventiure_' is a collection of songs, partly jocose, partly inspired by the most tender feelings, in the spirit of the poems of the Minnesinger and wandering scholars of the Middle Ages, and is based on a subtle knowledge of mediaeval culture and poetry.

But to his second residence in Heidelberg we must trace the origin of his most popular work, the collection of songs known under the t.i.tle of 'Gaudeamus.' A small circle of friends, who met every Wednesday evening at a supper in the Hollander Hof, near the bridge (and amongst whose most conspicuous members were the celebrated historian Ludwig Haeusser, and the venerable pastor of Ziegelhausen, Fr. Schmezer), kindled those sparks of unequalled humour and merriment--the Rodensteiner, 'Im Schwarzen Wallfisch zu Askalon,' and the geological songs, which delighted readers of every cla.s.s, and found their way into every student's songbook of Germany. The geological songs owe their origin to a course of lectures on geology which Pastor Schmezer delivered at the time. Scheffel regularly attended these lectures of his friend, and the latter was certain to find as regularly on the following morning of his lecture a poetical resume of it on his desk, in the form of a humorous poem.

What gives such a high value to these songs, and indeed to all the poetry of Scheffel, is the fact that they, in depicting the joyous vein in human nature, set forth a faithful abstract, a true poetical substratum, of the popular life and thought of South-Western Germany.

If any one should fail to comprehend the spirit of Scheffel's poetry let him go to the 'joyful Palatinate,' and to its ancient capital, Heidelberg. There he will find the frank, merry, and humorous characters of Scheffel's poems, and especially the prototypes of that thirsty soul, the Rodensteiner who p.a.w.ned his three villages during the revelries 'Zu Heidelberg im Hirschen,' and finally bequeathed his thirst to the students. And looking from the ruins of the castle over the beautiful valleys of the Neckar and the Rhine, he will perhaps understand the enthusiasm which our poet has for this blessed spot, in singing:

Und stechen mich die Dornen, Und wird mir's draus zu kahl; Geb' ich dem Pferd die Sp.o.r.nen, Und reit' in's Neckarthal.

GRANITE.

In unterirdischer Kammer Sprach grollend der alte Granit: 'Da droben den wa.s.s'rigen Jammer Den mach' ich jetzt langer nicht mit.'

In his lair subterranean, grumbling Old Granite said: 'One thing is sure, That slopping and slippery tumbling Up yonder, no more I'll endure.