The Student Life of Germany Part 25

Vita nostra brevis est, Brevi finietur; Venit mors velociter; Rapit nos atrociter; Nemini parcetur.

Vivat academia, Vivant professores, Vivat membrum quodlibet, Vivant membra quaelibet; Semper sint in flore.

Vivant omnes virgines, Faciles, formosae; Vivant et mulieres, Vivant et mulieres Bonae, laboriosae.

Vivat et respublica, Et qui illam regit; Vivat nostra civitas, Mecenatum caritas, Quae nos hic protegit.

Pereat trist.i.tia, Pereant osores; Pereat diabolus, Quivis anti-burschius Atque irrisores.

CHAPTER XV.

DRINKING CUSTOMS OF STUDENT LIFE, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Seize the glittering wine-cup there!

See ye not, no purply winking, Blood of nature, rich and rare?

Let us grasp it, boldly drinking, That a fire-strength may glow Through each vein--a new creation!

Sacred is of wine the flow-- Is of youth the glad elation!

_Uhland_.

Have the G.o.ds drunk nectar!--the G.o.ds, exempt from all the cares of mortal existence, and shall then poor mankind be envied the enjoyment of their earthly nectar? No; not without cause was it celebrated by all the ancient poets. Even the great Reformer himself joined in its praise; and Horace says--

Narratur et prisci Catonis, Saepe mero caluisse virtus.

Then come the moralists truly and say, "You should not purposely throw yourselves into an artificial gladness; the true gladness comes from within." Very true; and the genuine healing of sickness comes from within, and you shall and cannot subdue it by art? It is therefore that the Turks believe that you ought not to a.s.sist nature in her marvellous operations by a healing means. If that be your faith, do as the Turks do, and drink no wine. But have we not thus a thousand things which are to a certain degree necessary to our well-being, necessary to preserve the proper tone of mind and body? And would you blindly condemn all these? Wherefore then do you imagine that wine was made? Would you banish all poetry out of life, and say

Who then would cheat himself with phantom shapes, That with a borrowed charm do clothe existence, And with a false possession follow Hope?

_Schiller_.

Will you do that? Then, indeed, must you banish wine; for it is, so to say, an incarnate poetry. For if it were not that, it were nothing to us; and to whomsoever it is not that, him counsel we to refrain, and to hand it over to other and happier mortals. But think well on it ere you banish all poetry out of the world.

The roseate-tinted veil of dreams Falls from Life's countenance of pallid gloom, And the world showeth as it is--a tomb.

_Schiller_.

Who, then, would wish to live in such a world? No; we value the wine which calls forth the poetry of the inner man of him who is not totally abandoned of the Muses. But you, perhaps, reprobate the enjoyment of wine as too ign.o.ble and material. But is it then the material portion of the wine which confers on us its witchcraft? No; it is the fine spirit, and that ethereal life which the German calls the flower of the wine. They ascend to the exhausted brain, and brace the relaxed chords.

Know you then whether the strength which gives to life poetry and fresh grace, may not be one and the same? Whether the strength which is here bound to the material substratum, be not the same which there seizes thee mightily in the creations of Shakspeare? whether it be not the same which lives in the accord of the violoncello; whether it be not the same which dwells so entrancingly in the voice of the beloved? Yes, the spirits of the wine are related to others; and when they discover their brothers in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men, so combine they vigorously, and bursting their bonds, rush forth into active operation. All those n.o.ble feelings which had long, perhaps, by their possessor, who had experienced the bitter deceits of life, been beaten down and slept in obscurity--now, touched by the magic wand of wine, start again from their tomb. But when the spirits of the wine find there only strange and ign.o.ble a.s.sociates, then raise they with them a fierce conflict, in order from such guests of h.e.l.l to free man; whose difference from all other beings, says Goethe, consists in this--that he be n.o.ble, helpful, and good! Therefore despise not wine, which is capable of accomplishing such rare ends, which can raise phantasies such as were dreamed in the Rathskeller at Bremen.[36] No; we acknowledge the wisdom of him who gave the wine to mankind, and of the good old patriarch who so thankfully received it.

OLD NOAH.

Noah from the ark had got, The Lord came to him on the spot; He smelt his offering in the wind, And said to thee I will be kind.

And since a pious house thou art, Thyself shall name the gracious part.

Then Noah answered, as he stood, "Dear Lord, this water smacks not good.

Therefore I, poor old man, would fain Some different kind of drink obtain, Since that there hath been drowned therein All sinful beasts, and men of sin."

To Paradise, G.o.d stretched his hand, And gave him thence a vine-stock grand; He gave him counsel good and right, Said, "Tend thou this with all thy might."

He him instructed,--so, and so,-- Till Noah's joy no bounds did know.

Both wife and child did Noah call, His servants and his house-folks all.

He planted vineyards all about-- For, trust me, Noah was no lout; Built cellars then, and pressed the wine, And tunned it into hogsheads fine.

Old Noah was a pious man; Soon to a row his barrels ran.

To G.o.d's high praise he drained each cask, Nor deemed it, faith, a heavy task.

He drank, thereafter, as appears, Three hundred yet and fifty years.

A knowing man thence see it will, That wine well used, can do no ill.

And farther,--that no Christian more Into his wine will water pour,-- Because there hath been drowned therein, All sinful beasts, and men of sin.

The Germans never despised their cups. Tacitus, in his time, said of them--"To drink day and night brings disgrace to no one." Tacitus might, in truth, have said pretty much the same of his own people. If in the beginning they mixed their wine with water, this is not to be taken as the fact in an after period. Who does not recollect the son of Cicero, the most celebrated drinker of his time, with whose exploits in tippling scarcely the Germans could match themselves, stout drinkers as they were? It is well known that the ancient Germans transacted their most important affairs when they were elate with Bacchus, and reconsidered them, the next day, with a sober understanding. This custom they retained, in many places, during the Middle Ages, and this was the case in the free city of Bremen. Wine and song have maintained their standing in every true Brotherhood, and this still continues to be the practice in Germany. This ancient German custom then, least of all could be expected to be abandoned in Burschendom, and their songs are, for the most part, sung over the cup.

We may here find a place for some words of Schluck's persiflage on the _Burschen-Comment_.

"The songs which are sung by the Commerses are called Burschen songs, and besides the students, n.o.body may sing them--since they,

"1. Are only composed in honour of the studentship; and,

"2. Are chiefly composed in Latin, as the language belonging to the learned."

(This is no longer the case. Latin songs become daily rarer yet some still remain in use, as--_Mihi est propositum_.)

"Should a Knote dare to sing a student song, he is to be well cudgelled; not so much on account of the excellence of the song, as on account of the audacity of the Philistine, presuming to desecrate songs sacred to the students especially as it is impossible that he can have so much feeling as to appreciate the elegance and beauty of such songs."

As the occasions on which men sing are very different, it is natural that the contents of the songs should be so too. Some contain--

_Firstly_.--An incitement to joy. Amongst these I reckon "Up Brothers, let us joyful be;" or, an Exhortation to Friendship, as that _bonne amitie_ song, with which a Commers is always opened, and whose object is solely to create a friendly feeling in the Old Burschen towards the Foxes.

_Secondly_.--Others are Freedom and Fatherland songs; amongst which, high above all, stands "The Landsfather."

_Thirdly_.--Songs which express the spirit and bravery of the students; as--"The Bursch of genuine Shot and Corn;" or "The Sword on my left side:" "Know ye the happy way to conquer;" "Brave 'tis 'neath the free blue Heaven," etc. One of these we may here give at length, as a

PICTURE OF THE OLD-FASHIONED BURSCH.

The Bursch of real shot and corn, His courage still doth bloom; On heavy boot the spur is worn, From hat doth sway the plume.

The huge hat makes a gallant show, With the sword cut through;[37]

It guards him more from thrust and blow, Than were it sound and new.