CONTENTI ABEAMUS.
Come, jocund friends, a bottle bring,
And push around the jorum;
We’ll talk and laugh, and quaff and sing,
Nunc suavium amorum.
While we are in a merry mood,
Come, sit down ad bibendum;
And if dull care should dare intrude,
We’ll to the devil send him.
A moping elf I can’t endure
While I have ready rhino;
And all life’s pleasures centre still
In venere ac vino.
Be merry then, my friends, I pray,
And pass your time in joco,
For it is pleasant, as they say,
Desipere in loco.
He that loves not a young lass
Is sure an arrant stultus,
And he that will not take a glass
Deserves to be sepultus.
Pleasure, music, love and wine
Res valde sunt jucundæ,
And pretty maidens look divine,
Provided ut sunt mundæ.
I hate a snarling, surly fool,
Qui latrat sicut canis,
Who mopes and ever eats by rule,
Drinks water and eats panis.
Give me the man that’s always free,
Qui finit molli more,
The cares of life, what’er they be;
Whose motto still is “Spero.”
Death will turn us soon from hence,
Nigerrimas ad sedes;
And all our lands and all our pence
Ditabunt tune heredes.
Why should we then forbear to sport?
Dum vivamus, vivamus,
And when the Fates shall cut us down
Contenti abeamus.