John Gay & An Air from The Beggar’s Opera (2)

“Youth’s the Season Made for Joys” is one of the songs (Air XXII) from The Beggar’s Opera (see here)

Youth’s the season made for joys,
Love is then our duty;
She alone who that employs,
Well deserves her beauty.
Let’s be gay,
While we may,
Beauty’s a flower despis’d in decay.

Let us drink and sport to-day,
Ours is not tomorrow.
Love with youth flies swift away,
Age is nought but sorrow.
Dance and sing,
Time’s on the wing,
Life never knows the return of spring.

John Gay’s masterpiece ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ was a 1728 ballad opera that used folk songs instead of classical arias, and two centuries later inspired Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera (1928).

This poem/song depicts the carpe diem theme: the fleeting nature of life and the need to embrace its pleasures when we can still do it.
Youth is the time of happiness and beauty, which is defined “ a flower despis’d in decay.” Therefore we should enjoy life while we are young because when we get old it is far more difficult. We should always remember that time passes quickly and youth will never come back.

La giovinezza è la stagione fatta per le gioie,
perciò l’amore è nostro dovere;
solo colei che la usa bene
merita la sua bellezza.
Stiamo allegri
mentre possiamo,
la bellezza è un fiore disprezzato quando avvizzisce.

Beviamo e divertiamoci oggi,
perché il domani non è nostro.
L’amore vola via rapidamente con la giovinezza,
l’età non è altro che dolore.
Balla e canta
perché il tempo vola
e la vita non conosce il ritorno della primavera.

(trad: L.Z.)