University of Virginia Library

SALZBURGENSIS VAGABUNDUS.

(THIRTEENTH CENTURY.)

Pax Dei vobiscum! We are, by your leave, friends,
Three poor travelling scholars. All the more we grieve, friends,
That now-a-days good wine's so dear, and learning still so cheap, alas!
O ghost of good Archbishop Reinhold, you for us would weep Alas!
But you have left this wicked world, and you are gone to glory.
Mihi est propositum in tabernâ mori!
All the way from Salzburg here, in this season blowy,
Bitter blue the hill tops were, bleak the roads and snowy.
Sure, a man must warm his wits when the weather pinches,
And the snow's above his boots some half dozen inches!
We from hostle on to hostle, thirsting to replenish
Empty bellies and dry throttles with a flask of Rhenish,
Set the Muses up for sale,—liquor begg'd for learning,
Not a doit for all our pains from the numskulls earning.
Little favour did'st thou get, great Horatius Flaccus,
Of our thick-skull'd Thaliarchs swilling German Bacchus!
Folly's citadel resists each classic catapulta,
Penitus inutilis, penitusque stulta!
Lord! you should have seen the looks of those unlatined laics,
Hail'd in choice hexameters, and sued to in alcaics!
Hairy Jews with money bags: troopers from Pavìa:
Hamburgers, and Bambergers . . . . Herr Josef! Frau Maria!
Zum Teuffel! groans my yellow Jew: the trooper growls va via!
Zounds! I wish those Jews, with all my heart, into . . . . Judæa!
Bare-foot trots the begging Muse among this harum-scarum.
Loca vitant publica quidam poetarum.
Snug as hedgehog hid in hedge, most comfortably curl'd up,
And looking not a whit less proud than if it wrapp'd the world up,
Safe upon the mountain side, secured from all infraction,
And reckless how the plain may fare, in high self-satisfaction
Smiled this blessèd burg;—resolved we three should make a climb of it,
And cool as Lot's small city when the rest had a hot time of it.
‘Vides,’ then ‘ut altâ’ . . . there . . . ‘stet nive’ . . . shouted Hax to us,
And Fritz . . . ‘'Tis not good wine, I trust, the little city lacks!’ to us.
‘Deprome,’ then, ‘quadrimum,’ I . . . so here we are among you,
Praying the Lord, good gentlefolks, your good lives to prolong you!
There's in us a thirsty devil raging to consume us.
Salutemus igitur bibuli qui sumus!
Sure, you haven't heard the news? The Hohenstaufen . . . Zooks there!
Is that mine host's fair daughter? `Faith, I knew her by her looks there.
Illa formosissimis tam nota virgo brachiis!
The brute that's not in love with her no better than a lackey is!
What's the little lady's name? To Lina rhymes divina.
Dear demozel, if I were Rex, I know who'd be Regina.
See her foot and ankle fine! if you'd a soul for beauty
You'd fit me with the proper phrase . . . egregia juventute!
Sir, will you buy an epitaph for your now-sainted lady?
Something pious, chaste, and sweet, to suit the yew-trees shady?
Hax, here, with his lanthorn jaws . . . Beseech you only try Hax!
He'll turn you off in half a trice a score of elegiacs.
Sic solamine non carebis for the dear departed.
Or you, young lord, a lovesong fierce, impassion'd, fiery-hearted,
For your heart's queen with strong black eyes . . . or blue? It matters little.
Fritz there, with his woman's face, will paint her to a tittle.
Fritz knows all the pretty things in Ovid and Tibullus,
For all his looks demure . . . non facit monachum cucullus.
Whate'er you want we'll furnish you, cantandum aut scribendum,
But if you want a drinksong, come to me for Nunc bibendum!