As a warning

Once after a merry night

I was oddly awakened one morning:

thirst (but not for water), pounding blood,

feeling disturbed and sentimental;

almost poetically, yes, I begged my Muse for a song.

Pretending pathos, she mocked me,

giving me this contemptible piece of trash:

"A nightingale is singing

by the waterfall;

and another bird as well,

who signs his name Wendehals,

Johann Jakob Wendehals;

who dances

by the plants

of the aforesaid waterfall."

and so it continues, and I grew ever more anxious.

Now I sprang up: wine! That would rescue me!

Mark you well, tearful bards,

when you have a hangover, call upon no gods!