The second is a jovial Song of the Open Road, throbbing with the exhilaration of young life and madcap impudence. We must imagine that two vagabond students are drinking together before they part upon their several ways. One addresses the other as frater catholice, vir apostolice, vows to befriend him, and expounds the laws of loyalty which bind the brotherhood together. To the rest of the world they are a terror and a nuisance. Honest folk are jeeringly forbidden to beware of the quadrivium, which is apt to form a fourfold rogue instead of a scholar in four branches of knowledge.
The Latin metre is so light, careless, and airy, that I must admit an almost complete failure to do it justice in my English version. The refrain appears intended to imitate a bugle-call.
A SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD.
No. 4.
We in our wandering,
Blithesome and squandering,
Tara, tantara, teino!
Eat to satiety,
Drink with propriety;
Tara, tantara, teino!
Laugh till our sides we split,
Rags on our hides we fit;
Tara, tantara, teino!
Jesting eternally,
Quaffing infernally:
Tara, tantara, teino!