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The Latin reading blog: Carmina Burana 75: enjoy youth as long as you can!
I found this song in a book with Mediaeval Latin texts. It has been set on music by the American composer David Comte (born 1955) and by Tóth Péter (no information found, but my Hungarian is non-existent). At the age I have now reached, I must have been a very old man in the eyes of the anonymous poet, full of diseases and only intended on serious things. Fortunately times have changed! Still, I wish I had read this poem 35 years ago….
. . . . . . . . . . .
res est apta: it is fitting for
etas preterit = aetas praeterit
aetas aetatis (m): time, age, lifespan
praeter –eo: to pass by
areo: to be dry
hebeo: to be dull
morborum familia: apposition to senectus
Imitemur superos! An allusion to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where the gods are passing their time with love affairs. This is also the mos numinum – the habit of the gods
et amoris teneros / iam venantur retia: and the nets of Amor are already hunting after the youthful.
platea: a broad way
choreas: both dance and song
Ibi, que fit facilis, / est videndi copia =  there (at the plateas and choreas), where it easily happens, is an abundance to see,. (In Mediaeval Latin que is used for quod, quae, quam and quo)
lascivia: playfulness, frolicsomeness, jollity
asto videns, et videndo / me michi subripiunt: I stand watching (them), and by watching they (the girls) steal me away from me (i.e. I am completely enchanted by them and lose my senses)
Translation and adaptation by Hellen Waddell:
LET'S away with study,
Treasure all the pleasure
Of our youth :
Time enough for age
To think on Truth.
So short a day,
And life so quickly hasting
And in study wasting
Youth that would be gay !
'Tis our spring that slipping,
Life itself we're losing,
And this sorry cheer
Dries the blood and chills the heart,
Age and all its crowd of ills
So short a day,
And life so quickly hasting,
And in study wasting
Youth that would be gay !
Let us as the gods do,
‘Tis the wiser part:
Leisure and love's pleasure
Seek the young in heart
Follow the old fashion,
Down into the street !
Down among the maidens,
And the dancing feet!
So short a day,
And life so quickly hasting,
And in study wasting
Youth that would be gay !
There for the seeing
Gay go the dancers,
I stand and see,
Gaze, till their glances
Steal myself from me.
So short a day,
And life so quickly hasting,
And in study wasting
Youth that would be gay !
A musical setting by David Conte (It follows a slightly different text.)
And a setting by Peter Toth:
Posted by Leo Tepper at 04:49
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