The German pun is based on the strong Bavarian accent of the tenor-baritone (1761–1800), who can be presumed to have been the lead singer in the first performance (see below). As Jean-Victor Hocquard points out, the pseudo-Latin lyrics lectu mihi mars, as Peyerl would have sung them, resemble Bavarian German leck du mi im Arsch,Hocquard (1999, 203) which in a literal English rendering is "[you] lick me in the arse". More idiomatically, the phrase could be translated "kiss my arse" (American English "kiss my ass").For discussion of the German idiom, see Leck mich im Arsch.Hocquard's explanation presumes a dialectal pronoun mi "me". Copeman and Scheer (1996, 262) note that the Latin pronoun mihi was sometimes pronounced by German singers as , which would have been a good match for Standard German mich. The second pun in the canon is based on the single Latin word jonicu. Emanuel Winternitz explains that when this word is sung repeatedly and rapidly, as in the canon, its syllables are liable to be heard as the Italian word cujoni, or in modern writing coglioni, meaning "balls, testicles".Winternitz (1958)The Standard Italian version of this word is "coglioni", the variant "cujoni" was maybe used around Mozart's time or is a dialect variant; thus it appears in a jokingly-worded letter from Beethoven to one of his publishers; his translator Emily Anderson explains it thus: "Beethoven is trying to say ... "coglioni". The word was also uttered by Napoleon Bonaparte while rallying his troops. Sources: Emily Anderson (1985) The Letters of Beethoven, Vol. 2. Macmillan, p. 845; Oscar Browning (1907) The Fall of Napoleon. J. Lane, p. 25. Also the transformation of the word might have been slang or youth speak, in order to hide the true meaning to the non-initiated. The line thus translates as "It is difficult to lick my arse and balls".
