The Project Gutenberg eBook ofVondel's LuciferThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Vondel's LuciferAuthor: Joost van den VondelTranslator: Leonard Charles Van NoppenRelease date: October 7, 2011 [eBook #37659]Most recently updated: April 3, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe (From images generously made available by the Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VONDEL'S LUCIFER ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Vondel's LuciferAuthor: Joost van den VondelTranslator: Leonard Charles Van NoppenRelease date: October 7, 2011 [eBook #37659]Most recently updated: April 3, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe (From images generously made available by the Internet Archive)
Title: Vondel's Lucifer
Author: Joost van den VondelTranslator: Leonard Charles Van Noppen
Author: Joost van den Vondel
Translator: Leonard Charles Van Noppen
Release date: October 7, 2011 [eBook #37659]Most recently updated: April 3, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe (From images generously made available by the Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VONDEL'S LUCIFER ***
Portrait of VondelVondel.
Translator's PrefaceIntroductionDr. W.H. CarpenterVondel and His LuciferDr. G. KalffVondel: His Life and Times. A Sketch.TranslatorThe "Lucifer." An Interpretation.TranslatorBibliographyVondel's DedicationOn His Majesty's PortraitVondel's ForewordLuciferThe ArgumentDramatis PersonæAct I. The Peaceful Joys of ParadiseAct II. The Cloud of ConspiracyAct III. The Gathering GloomAct IV. The Seething Seas of SeditionAct V. Flood and FlameThe Critical CultThe American PressFrom Signed ReviewsThe London PressLetter from the Board of the Queen Wilhelmina Lectureship.Parallelisms between Vondel and Milton.
Portrait of VondelFrontispieceThe Falling Morning StarLuciferApollion's Meeting with Belzebub and BelialAdam and Eve in Paradise before the FallChorus of AngelsThe Exaltation of ManGabriel, the Herald and Interpreter of HeavenThe Sorrowing AngelsMichael, God's Field-marshalThe Disaffected SpiritsRafael Pleading with LuciferThe Battle in the HeavensOur First Parents after the FallThe Rebels in Hell
It is with a feeling of diffidence that I offer to American readers this the first English version of that unknown Titan, Vondel, a poet of whom Southey's words on Bilderdÿk, another Dutch bard, might also have been spoken:
"The language of a stateInferior in illustrious deeds to none,But circumscribed by narrow bounds,...Hath pent within its sphere a name wherewithEurope should else have rung from side to side."
This translation of the "Lucifer" is the result of years of careful study, and I may therefore be pardoned for calling it a conscientious effort. My object has been to give merely a literal but sympathetic rendering. It has been my aim to preserve the old poet in all his rugged simplicity, for every syllable of this classic has been hallowed by centuries. It is sacred, and every change is but a desecration.
Sacred as is the body of such a poem, yet how much holier is its spirit—the elusive properties of its soul! But how seldom does the translation of a great classic prove other than the breaking of the chalice and the spilling of the wine! Yet if but some faint aroma of its original beauty linger around the fragment of this offering—this version of Vondel's grand drama—I lay down my pen content.
I am aware that less accuracy and a greater freedom might in many places have produced a more ornate and highly finished rendering; but this, it seems to me, would have weakened a poem—a poem whose chief merit is its remarkable virility. Every word in a translation of a classic, not in the original, is but the alloy that lessens the proportion of true gold in the coin of its worth. Felicitous paraphrasing is often only a confession of inability to translate an author into the true terms of poetical equation. Mere prettinesses are surely not to be expected in a poem so sublime and stately. I have therefore followed the text of the original very closely.
The body of the drama was written by Vondel in rimed Alexandrines. This part of the play I have rendered into blank verse—a metrical form far better suited to the English drama, and also more adapted to the genius of our language. It is obvious, too, that this admits of much greater accuracy in the translation.
I have, however, scrupulously adhered to the original metres of all the choruses—most of them very involved and intricate, some modelled after the antique—even to preserving the feminine and interior rimes; for the utility and beauty of the chorus is in its music, and the music consists in both metre and rime. I have also generally followed Vondel's capitalization and punctuation, and his spelling of the names of the characters, as Belzebub, Rafael, Apollion, etc.
With the much discussed question of Milton's indebtedness to Vondel this effort has nothing to do. I mention this merely to show that this version was not made that it might be adduced as proof of Vondel's influence on his great English contemporary. It has a much higher reason to commend it; namely, the intrinsic value of the original as a poem and as a national masterpiece. My desire has been to give Vondel; and Vondel is a sufficient justification.
At the same time, I was not displeased when I received a letter from a distinguished American scholar, stating that this translation also incidentally fills a wide gap in the Miltonic criticism, and that it thus supplies a great desideratum.
With this version of Vondel's masterpiece I have also been asked to give a sketch of the poet and his time, and an interpretation of the drama, since there is so little in English on the subject.
In writing the former, I found much of value in Mr. Gosse's charming essays on Vondel, in his "Northern Studies." I must also acknowledge my great obligations to Dr. Kalff's "Life of Vondel."
Before closing I wish to thank the poets and scholars of the Netherlands for their encouragement. Their kind reception of my effort was a gratifying surprise to me.
I must also take this opportunity to record the kindness of that eminent scholar, Dr. G. Kalff, Professor of Dutch Literature in the University of Utrecht, who, though overwhelmed with professional duties, with the most painstaking care examined every part of my translation, giving me, furthermore, the benefit of his critical observations. The brilliant article on Vondel and his "Lucifer," with which he has favored this volume, is an added reason for my gratitude.
I also thank Dr. W.H. Carpenter of Columbia University for his kind interest in my work, and for his invaluable introduction.
And, finally, to my friends, Prof. Henry Jerome Stockard, the Southern poet; Dr. Thomas Hume, Professor of English Literature in the University of North Carolina; and Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, Professor of English in the University of Louisiana, I also express my thanks for some excellent suggestions.
It has become a matter of literary tradition, in Holland and out of it, that the choral drama of "Lucifer" is the great masterpiece of Dutch literature. The Dutch critics, however, are by no manner of means unanimous in this opinion. In point of fact, it has been assigned by some a place relatively subordinate among the works of this "Dutch Shakespeare," as they are fond of calling Vondel at home. No other one, however, in the long list of his dramas and poems, from the "Pascha" of 1612 to his last translations of 1671, the beginning and the end of a literary career, in which one of the greatest of Dutch writers on its history has pronounced the poetry of the Netherlands to have attained its zenith, will, none the less, so strongly appeal to us, outside of Holland, as does the "Lucifer." Vondel's tragedy "Gysbreght van Amstel" may have found far greater favor as a drama, and the poet may possibly in his lyrics have risen to his greatest height; but neither the one nor the other, in spite of this, can have such supreme claims upon our attention.
Why this is so is dependent upon a variety of reasons. It is not solely on account of the lofty character of the subject, nor because we have an almost identical one in a great poem in English literature, between which and the "Lucifer" there is a more than generic resemblance. The question of Milton's indebtedness to Vondel is no longer to be considered an open one, and has resolved itself into an inquiry simply as to the amount of the influence exerted. This is an interesting phase of the matter, and, since it involves one of our great classics, an important one. The two poems, nevertheless, however great this influence may be shown to be, are by no manner of means alike in detail, and one main source of interest to us, to whom "Paradise Lost" is a heritage, is undoubtedly to compare the treatment of such a subject by two great poets of different nationalities. The paramount reason, however, why the "Lucifer" should appeal to us is because it is, in reality, one of the great poems of the world; because of its inherent worth, its seriousness of purpose, the sublimity of its fundamental conceptions, its whole loftiness of tone. When the critics praise others of Vondel's works for excellences not shared by the "Lucifer," they extol him immeasurably, for there is enough in this poem alone to have made its author immortal.
It is a matter of surprise that down to the present time there has been no English translation of "Lucifer," although, after all, its neglect is but a part of the general indifference among us to the literature of Holland in all periods of its history. Why this should be so is not quite apparent; for wholly apart from the important question of action and reaction as a constituent part of the world's literature, the literature of Holland has in it, in almost every phase of its development, sublimities and beauties of its own which surely could not always remain hidden. An era of translation was sure to set in, and it is a matter of significance that its herald has even now appeared.
That the first considerable translation of any Dutch poet into English should be Vondel, and that the particular work rendered should be the "Lucifer," is, from the preëminent place of writer and poem in the literature of the Netherlands, altogether apt.
It is particularly fitting, however, that such an English translation, both because it is first and because it is Vondel, should be put forth, beyond all other places, from this old Dutch city of New York. There is surely more than a passing interest in the thought that, at the time of the appearance of Vondel's "Lucifer" in old Amsterdam, in 1654, its reading public was in part New Amsterdam, as well. Whether any copy of the book ever actually found its way over to the New Netherlands is a matter that it is hardly possible now to determine; but that it might have been read in the vernacular as readily here as at home is a fact of history. Only two years after the publication of the "Lucifer," that is in 1656, Van der Donck, as his title page states, "at the time in New Netherland," printed his "Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant," in which occurs the familiar picture of "Nieuw Amsterdam op 't Eylant Manhattans," with its fort, and flagstaff, and windmill, its long row of little Dutch houses, and its gibbet well in the foreground as an unmistakable symbol of law and order.
Strikingly enough, too, during the lifetime of Vondel we were making our own contributions to Dutch literature; modest they certainly may have been, but real none the less. Jacob Steendam, the first poet of New York, wrote here at least one of his poems, the "Klagt van Nieuw-Amsterdam," printed in Holland in 1659, and from this same period are the occasional verses of those other Dutch poets, Henricus Selyns, the first settled minister of Brooklyn, and of Nicasius de Sille, first colonial Councillor of State under Governor Stuyvesant. Steendam, after he had returned from these shores to the Fatherland, is still a New Netherlander in spirit, for he continued to sing in vigorous, if homely, verses of the land he had left, which in his long poems, "'T Lof van Nieuw-Nederland," and "Prickel-Vaersen" he paints in glowing colors:
Nieuw-Nederland, gy edelste GewestDaar d'Opperheer (op 't heerlijkst) heeft gevestDe Volheyt van zijn gaven: alder-bestIn alle Leden.Dit is het Land, daar Melk en Honig vloeyd:Dit is't geweest, daar't Kruyd (als dist'len) groeyd:Dit is de Plaats, daar Arons-Roede bloeyd:Dit is het Eden.
A translation of Vondel, from what has been said, is, accordingly, in a certain sense, a rehabilitation, a restoration to a former status that through the exigency of events has been lost. While this may be considered from some points of view but a curiosity of coincidence, it is in reality, as has been assumed, much more than that: it is a pertinent reminder of our historical beginnings, a harking back to the century that saw our birth as a province and as a city, to the mother country and to the mother tongue.
Of the literature of Holland, from the lack of opportunity, we know far too little. The translation into English of Vondel's "Lucifer" is not only in and for itself an event of more than ordinary importance in literary history, but it cannot fail to awaken among us a curiosity as to what else of supreme value maybe contained in Dutch literature, and thereby, in effect, form a veritable "open sesame" to unlock its hidden treasures.
WM. H. CARPENTER,
Professor of Germanic Philology,Columbia University, New York.
NEW YORK,April4, 1898.
When Vondel, in 1653, finished his "Lucifer," he stood, notwithstanding his sixty-six laborious years, with undiminished vigor upon one of the loftiest peaks in his towering career.
A long road lay behind him, in some places rough and steep, though ever tending upwards. What had he not experienced, what had he not endured since that day in 1605 when he contributed a few faulty strophes to a wedding feast—the first product of his art of which we have any knowledge!
After a long and wearisome war, full of brilliant feats of arms, his countrymen had, at length, closed a treaty full of glory to themselves with their powerful and superior adversary. The Republic of the United Netherlands had taken her place among the great powers of the earth. In the East and in the West floated the flag of Holland. Over far-distant seas glided the shadows of Dutch ships,en routeto other lands, bearing supplies to satisfy their needs, or speeding homewards freighted with riches.
Prince Maurice was dead. Frederic Henry and William II. had come and gone. De Witt, however, guided the helm of the ship of state; and as long as De Ruyter stood on the quarter-deck of his invincible "Seven Provinces" no reason existed to inspire an Englishman with a "Rule Britannia."
Knowledge soared on daring wings. Art reigned triumphant. The Stadhuis at Amsterdam was nearing completion. Rembrandt's "Night Patrol" already hung in the great hall of the Arquebusiers, and his "Syndics of the Cloth Merchants" was soon to be begun.
Fulness of life, growth of power, and the extension of boundaries were everywhere apparent. The life of the period is like an impressive pageant: in front, proud cavaliers, in high saddles, on their prancing steeds, with splendid colors and dazzling weapons, while silk banners gorgeously embroidered are waving aloft; in the rear, beautiful triumphal chariots and picturesque groups; around stands a clamorous multitude that for one moment forgets its cares in the glow of that splendor, though often only kept in restraint with difficulty.
In the midst of this busy, murmurous scene, Vondel with steady feet pursued his own way; often, indeed, lending his ear to the voices with which the air reverberated, or feasting his eyes upon color and form; often, too, lifting his voice for attack or defence; though still more often with averted glance, and lost in meditation, listening to the voice within.
Life had not left him untried. In many a contest, especially in his struggles against the Calvinistic clergy, he had strengthened his belief on many a doubtful point, developed his powers, and sharpened his understanding.
He had lost two lovely children; his tenderly beloved wife, who lived for him, had left him alone; his conversion to Catholicism had cost him much internal strife, and had brought with it the loss of former friends; his oldest son, Joost, had plunged him into financial difficulties, which resulted in ruin: yet beneath all this his sturdy strength did not fail him.
The fire of his spirit, not suppressed or smothered by the piled-up fuel of early learning, but constantly and richly fed with that which was best, burned with a fierce flame, ever hungry for new food. Treasures of art and knowledge he had gathered, even as the honey-bee culls her store out of all meadows and flowers; for towards art and knowledge his heart ever inclined—towards those muses of whom, in his "Birthday Clock of William Van Nassau," he said:
"For whom all life I love; and without whom, ah me!The glorious majesty of sun I could not gladly see."
In an awe-inspiring number of long and short poems, he had, since those first lame verses, developed his art; he had taught his understanding to make use of life-like forms in the construction of his dramas; his feelings he had made deeper and more refined; his taste he had ennobled; his self-restraint he had increased; his technique he had made perfect.
Did his Bible remain the fount from which he preferred to draw the material for his dramas, he also gladly borrowed his motifs from the past of classical antiquity, and from the every-day Netherland life around him. His own fiery belief and deep convictions, and irrepressible desire to give vent to them, caused the person of the poet to be seen more clearly in his characters than we observe to be the case in the productions of his masters, the classic tragedians.
"Palamedes" is a tempestuous defence of the great statesman Oldenbarneveldt—a defence full of intemperate passion, bitter reproach, and burning satire. How fiercely glows there, in each word, in each answer, in transparent allusion and in scornful irony, the fire of party spirit! How often, too, do we there hear the voice of the poet himself, as it trembles with tender sympathy or with lofty indignation!
"Gÿsbrecht van Amstel," a subject dearer to the burghers of Amsterdam than most others, is illuminated with the soft glimmer of altar-candles mingled with airy incense. That same light, that same perfume, we also perceive in "Maeghden," "Peter en Pauwels," and "Maria Stuart."
The Christ-like, humble thankfulness of a Dutch burgher falls upon our ears in the "Leeuwendalers," that charming pastoral, in which the wanton play of whistling pipe and reed is constantly relieved by the silvery pure tones of ringing peace-bells.
Does the history of the development of the Vondelian drama teach us more about the man Vondel, it also most clearly shows us the evolution of the artist. Especially after his translation of "Hippolytus" he had weaned himself from the style of Seneca. More and more he became filled with the grandeur of the Greek tragedians, Sophocles and Euripides above all others. Æschylus he had not yet made his own; that hour was not yet come.
In "Gÿsbrecht van Amstel" we feel, for the first time, that Vondel acknowledges the Greeks as his masters, that he strives to follow them in their sublime simplicity; in their naturalness, that never degenerates to the gross; in their freedom of movement, so different from the stiffness of the school of Seneca; in the exquisitely delicate manner in which the lyric is introduced into the drama. In "Joseph in Dothan," "Leeuwendalers," and "Salomon," we behold the poet pursuing the same path, and here the influence of the Greeks is still more perceptible.
We have attempted in a few rapid strokes to give a brief outline of the time in which the tragedy "Lucifer" had its origin, and also of the man, the poet, who created it.
When Vondel first conceived the plan of writing this tragedy is not known. However, it is well known that this subject had early made an impression upon him. In the collection of prints entitled "Gulden Winkel" (1613), for which Vondel wrote the accompanying mottoes, we already find the Archangel whom God had doomed to the pit of hell. In the "Brieven der Heilige Maeghden" (1642), and in "Henriette Marie t'Amsterdam" (1642), we also find mention of the revolt of the Archangel. In the first-named work the strife between Michael and Lucifer, with their legions, is already seen in prototype. About 1650 he had undoubtedly resolved upon a plan to expand this subject into a tragedy.
Was the fallen Archangel for a long period thus ever present to the poet's eye? Did that subject so enthrall him that, at last, he could no longer resist the impelling desire to picture it after his own fashion? For the causes of this interest we shall not have far to seek.
The seventeenth century was, more than almost any other, the age of authority, and "Lucifer" is the tragedy of the individual in his revolt against authority. Vondel, the Catholic Christian, to whom the ruling power was holy—holy because it came from God; Vondel, the Amsterdam burgher, reared in the fear of the Lord, and full of reverence for those in authority as long as his conscience approved; Vondel must thus have been deeply impressed by the thought of the presumptuous attempt of the Stadholder of God, "the fairest far of all things ever by God created," in his revolt against the "Creator of his glory." Out of this deep agitation this tragedy was born.
Only a genius such as that of Vondel or Milton could bring itself to undertake so dubious a task—out of such material to create a poem; only the highest genius could succeed in such gigantic attempt. Only such a poet can translate us on the mighty wings of his imagination into the portals of heaven; can present to us angels that at the same time are so human that we can put ourselves in their place, but who, nevertheless, remain for us a higher order of beings; can dare to bring into a drama a representation of God, without offending His majesty.
With chaste taste the poet has only rapidly sketched the scene of the drama; by means of a few suggestive strokes, awaking in reader and hearer a sympathetic conception: an illimitable spaciousness radiant with light; an eternal sunshine, more beautiful than that of earth, mirroring itself in the blue crystalline, above which hover hosts of celestial angels; here and there in the background, the dazzling pediments, towers, and battlements of ethereal palaces; far away, upon the heights beyond, the golden port, from which God's "Herald of Mysteries" came down into view. The earth lies immeasurably far below; high, high above, "So deep in boundless realms of light," God reigns upon His throne.
In that endless vast live and move the inhabitants of Heaven in tranquil enjoyment. "Grief never nestled 'neath those joyful eaves" until the creation of man. Pride and envy now awake in the breasts of the angels, and their suffering begins.
Lucifer's passionate pride, which in its outbursts occasionally reminds us of the heroes of Seneca; his dissimulation in the conversation with the rebellious angels; his wretchedness when Rafael has opened his eyes to an appreciation of his position; his obstinate resistance and untamed defiance—all this Vondel has portrayed for us in a masterly manner. Belzebub, more than Lucifer, is the real genius of evil, the wicked one. He is this in his inclination towards subtle mockery and sarcasm; in his hypocrisy; in his wily use of Lucifer's weakness to incite him to destruction; in the art with which he, while himself behind the curtain, directs the course of events.
After the grand overture of the drama, wherein men and angels are placed over against one another, we see how, in the second act, Lucifer comes on the scene, mounted on his battle chariot, excited, embittered; and then the action develops itself in a remarkably even manner. The clouds roll together; more threateningly, more heavily they impend; the light that glows from the towers and battlements of Heaven grows tarnished; the seditious angels gradually lose their lustre; the thunder approaches with dull rumblings; one moment it is stayed, even at the point of outbursting, where Rafael, "oppressed and wan," throws himself appealingly on Lucifer's neck; then it precipitates itself in a terrible storm of strife between desperate rage and the powers above. The fall of man is the sombre afterpiece of this intensely interesting drama.
All of this is discussed in verses that know not their equal in nobility of sound, in fulness and purity of tone, in rapidity of change from tenderness to strength, in wealth of coloring.
Through its opulence and beauty this tragedy holds a unique place in our literature. Only "Adam in Ballingschap" can be placed beside it. Only Vondel can with Vondel be compared. If, however, one should compare this production with the best that has been produced in this kind of poetry by other nations, its splendor remains undimmed; beside the masterpieces of Æschylus, Dante, and Milton, Vondel's maintain an equal place.
To this tragedy and to other works of Vondel and of some of our other poets we proudly point, if strangers ask us in regard to our right to a place in the world's literature. It could, therefore, not be otherwise than that a Netherlander who loves his countrymen should be glad when the bar between his literature and that of the outside world is raised; when other nations are furnished occasion to admire one of our national treasures, and are thereby enabled to have a better knowledge of the character and the significance of our people.
We heartily rejoice over the fact that Vondel's drama has been translated into English by an American for Americans, with whom we Netherlanders have from time immemorial been on a friendly footing. We rejoice, too, that this rendering into a language which is more of a world tongue than our own will also give to Englishmen an opportunity to enjoy Vondel's work.
Were this translation an inferior one, or were it only mediocre, we should have no reason to be glad. Then, surely, it were better that the translation had never been made; for to be unknown is better than to be misknown.
But in this case it is otherwise. Although no translation can entirely compensate for the lack of the original, it is, however, possible for the original to be followed very closely. This is well shown by this rendering, which to a high degree possesses the merit of accuracy, while, at the same time, the spirit and the character of Vondel's tragedy are felt, understood, and interpreted in a remarkable manner.
Whoever is in a position, by the comparison of the translation with the original, to form an individual opinion of Van Noppen's work, will probably be convinced, even as I have been, that here an extraordinarily difficult task has been magnificently done. May this translation, therefore, aid in the spreading of Vondel's fame. May it also be followed by many another equally admirable rendering of the poetry and prose of the Netherlands, and may thereby, furthermore, the bond be drawn more closely between America and that land which at one time possessed the opportunity to be the mother-country.
G. KALFF,
Professor of Dutch Literature,University of Utrecht.
UTRECHT, HOLLAND,October10, 1897.
"Vondel! thousand thousand voicesEcho answer—grandly singPraises to our greatest poet,Hailing him the poets' king."Dr. Schaepman.
"Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a nation that it get an articulate voice—that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means."
Profounder truth, that keen aphorist, the Sage of Chelsea, never cast into heroic mould.
The consciousness of a great literature is a grander basis for national exaltation than the possession of victorious fleets and invincible battalions. The nation whose highest aspiration and most glorious impulse, whose noblest action and deepest thought, have been crystallized into fadeless beauty by the soul of native genius, has surely more lasting cause for pride than she whose proudest boast is a superiority in mere material achievement.
The everlasting shall always have precedence over the momentary; the time-serving heroics of to-day are the laughter-compelling travesties of to-morrow; the golden colossus of one age is the brazen pigmy of the next. Beauty alone is unfading; art alone is eternal.
"All passes: art aloneEnduring—stays to us;The bust outlasts the throne;The coin, Tiberius."Even the gods must go;Only the lofty rime,Not countless years o'erflow,Not long array of time."
Happy the country blest with a heritage of noble deeds! Thrice happy she whose glory is a treasury of noble words! Only from great actions can gigantic thoughts be born.
Nowhere was the Revival of Learning more joyfully received than in the Netherlands. At the bidding of the Renaissance, the monasteries, those storehouses of the knowledge of the past, unlocked their precious lore. The classics were now for the first time conscientiously studied; not so much for themselves, as to shed the light of the past upon the present, to furnish suggestions for new discoveries.
Erasmus was but the pioneer of a host of scholars and philosophers. Thomas-à-Kempis was but the forerunner of a race of distinguished literati. The following generation also studied the moderns; and the wonderful genius of Italy, as well as the brilliant talent of France, now lighted up the dark recesses of the Cathedral of Gothic art.
The Reformation, like a tiny acorn, first pierced the rich mould of civil life. Then bursting into the sunshine, it towered into the sky of religious life an imperious oak. The dormant energies of the Low Germans were now kindled into a blaze of creative activity. As in Italy, this first revealed itself in the increased power of the cities, the Tradesmen's Guilds, the Chambers of Rhetoric, and the growing privileges of the citizens; for example, the burghers of Utrecht and of Amsterdam. It next manifested itself in the Universities and in the Church.
Hand in hand with this extraordinary intellectual development went the sturdy manliness of a vigorous national life. It was the era of enterprise and adventure; of invention and discovery. Daring was the spirit, attainment the achievement, of this age—this age that dared all.
Proud in the philosophy wrested from experience, the race sought to extend its intellectual empire even in the domain of transcendentalism. Knowledge, like Prometheus, bound for centuries to the gloomy cliff of superstition, suddenly rent its bonds and stood forth in all of its tremendous strength, gigantic and unshackled; a god, flaming to conquer the benighted realms of ignorance! Imagination, like a fire-plumed steed, preened for revelries, soared to the stars, and roamed unbridled through the boundless deep of space.
The world ran riot for truth. In England, Italy, France, and Spain, as well as in Holland, arose a race of explorers that gave to the earth another hemisphere, and discovered another solar system in the universe of thought.
The world called loud for blood. Truth was not to be attained without sacrifice; freedom was not to be won without battle. Universal struggle was to precede universal achievement. A whirlwind of death now swept over the earth, leaving in its wake carnage and disaster. The passions of men burst asunder the chains of duty and religion, and swooped on the nations with desolating rage.
The world was in travail. Hope was born, error vanquished, tyranny dethroned. The dawn of a new life had come. The night was over. The sparks of war became the seeds of art. The Netherland imagination was suddenly quickened into creative rapture by the contemplation of the heroism of the great Orange and the founders of the Republic.
A generation of fighters is always the precursor of an epoch of singers. The panegyrist and the historian ever follow in the train of the soldier and the statesman; the epic and the eulogy as surely in the path of great deeds as the polemic and the satire in the track of wickedness and folly.
The sculptor and the painter are evoked from obscurity only by the call of heroes. The musician and the poet—the voice of the ideal—stand ever ready to blazon forth the glory of the real. Unworthy actions alone are unsung.
The foundations of the Dutch Republic had been laid by a race of Cyclops, in whose battle-scarred forehead glowed the single eye of freedom. A race of Titans followed, and built upon this firm foundation a magnificent temple of art and science, above whose four golden portals were emblazoned, chiselled in "deathless diamond," the names, Vondel, Rembrandt, Grotius, and Spinoza, the high-priests of its worship.
It is of Vondel, the one articulate voice of Holland, whose heart ever kept time with the larger pulse of his nation, that we would now speak.
Justus van den Vondel was the son of Dutch parents, and was born at Cologne, November 17, 1587. It is curious to note that above the door of the house where the greatest bard of the Low Germans first saw the light hung the sign of a viol, a maker of that instrument having at one time lived there. The poet used to point to this fact as having been prophetic of his poetic future; and it was, surely, not an uninspiring coincidence.
The elder Vondel was a hatter, and had fled to Cologne from his native city, Antwerp, to escape the persecution then raging against the Anabaptists, of which church he was a zealous and devout member.
In Cologne he had courted and married Sarah Kranen, whose father, Peter Kranen, also an Anabaptist, had likewise been driven from Antwerp by the fury of the Romanists. Peter Kranen was not without reputation in his native city as a poet, and had won some distinction in the public contests of the literary guilds, of one of which he was a shining ornament. So it seems that our poet drank in the divine afflatus, as it were, with his mother's milk.
It is related that Kranen's wife, being pregnant, was unable to accompany her husband in his hurried flight; and, being left behind, was confined in the city prison, where her severe fright prematurely brought on the crisis. Being strongly importuned by a cousin of the young woman, who was required to furnish security for her re-appearance, the magistrates finally permitted her to complete her travail at her home.
After the birth of her child, when her cousin again delivered her, sorrowful and heavy at heart, into the custody of the jailer, he whispered comfortingly in her ear, "With this hand I have brought you here; but with the other I shall take you away again."
The time of her execution drew nigh. It was intended that she should be burnt at the stake with a certain preacher of her sect. When this became known, the cousin went to the dignitaries of the Church and asked if, in case one of her children be baptized by a Catholic priest, the mother would have a chance for her life. The clergy, ever anxious to welcome an addition to the fold, and more desirous to save a soul than to burn a body, replied that it might be so arranged.
One of the children, a daughter, who was already with the father at Cologne, was then hastily summoned. Upon her arrival, accordingly, she was baptized after the manner of the Catholic ritual, and received into the Church.
The mother, now free, hastened to the arms of her joyful spouse, and the daughter who thus saved her mother's life afterwards became the mother of Vondel.
So even Vondel's Romanism, of which much will be said farther on, might thus be considered as foreshadowed and inherited.
The year of Vondel's birth was also the year of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, whose tragic end he was destined to celebrate. Shakespeare, the most illustrious poet of the hereditary enemies of Vondel's countrymen, was just twenty-three years old, and had already been married four years to Anne Hathaway. William the Silent, "the Father of his Country," had only three years before, in the flower of his age, been cut off by the red hand of the assassin.
The early childhood of the poet was spent at Cologne. He never forgot the town of his birth, and, after the manner of the poets of antiquity, sang its glories in many an eloquent rime.
After the storm of persecution had spent its fury, the Vondels slowly returned by way of Bremen and Frankfort to the Netherlands. They rode in a rustic wagon, across which were fastened two strong sticks. From these was suspended a cradle, in which lay their youngest child. This simplicity and their modest demeanor and unaffected piety so impressed the wagoner that he was heard to say: "It is just as if I were journeying with Joseph and Mary."
The family first stopped at Utrecht, where the young "Joost" went to school. His early education, however, was very meagre, ending with his tenth year; so that he whose attainments were afterwards the admiration of his scholarly contemporaries, and the wonder of posterity, commenced life with the most threadbare equipment of learning.
Surely the plastic imagination of the boy must have been wonderfully impressed by the grandeur of that gigantic Gothic pile, the Utrecht Cathedral, and its tremendous campanile, pointing like a huge index finger unerringly to God, and towering so sublimely above the beautiful old town and the fertile meadows all around!
In 1597 we find the family in Amsterdam, of which flourishing city the elder Vondel had recently become a citizen, and where he had opened a hosiery shop.
This business must have proved remunerative, as one of his younger children, his son William, afterwards studied law at Orleans, and then travelled to Rome, where he applied himself to theology and letters, a course of study which in that age, even more than to-day, must have been beyond the means of even the ordinary well-to-do citizen.
Though the subject of our sketch was not so fortunate in this respect as his younger brother, yet he made good use of his opportunities; and it is recorded that, even before he had reached his teens, his rimes attracted considerable attention among the friends of the family.
When only thirteen years old, we find his verses complimented as showing unusual promise. It was Peter Cornelius Hooft, the talented young poet, son of the burgomaster of the city, who was at that time pursuing a course of study in Italy, who incidentally made this passing reference in an interesting rimed epistle to the Chamber of the Eglantine at Amsterdam.
This Chamber was one of the literary guilds founded in imitation of the FrenchCollèges de Rhétorique; and it played so important a part in the literary history of the city and in the life of our poet that we ask indulgence if an account of it cause what may seem a little digression.
Under the rule of the House of Burgundy, the French feeling for dramatic poetry had been introduced into the Netherlands. This was fostered, not only by the exhibitions of the travelling minstrels, but also by the impressive and often gorgeous Miracle and Mystery Plays of the clergy. In the wake of these followed the more artistic Morality Plays. These allegorical representations did much to create a purer taste and to waken a greater demand for the drama.
The people suddenly began to take unusual interest in declamation and in dramatic exhibitions; and Chambers of Rhetoric, for the indulgence of this new taste, were soon established in all of the prominent cities of the country.
These societies also began sedulously to cultivate rhetorica, or literature, and soon became nothing less than an association of literary guilds, bound together in a sort of social Hanseatic league, designed for their own defence and for the fostering of their beloved art.
Each was distinguished by some device, and usually bore the name of some flower. They were wont also to compete against each other in rhetorical contests called "land-jewels," to which they would march, costumed in glorious masquerade, and to the sound of pealing trumpets and of shrill, melodious airs.
As was natural, the follies of the Church were too tempting a subject for these Chambers to resist; and many of them, long before the thundering polemics of Luther were heard, had dramatized a stinging satire on the clergy, revealing their vices in all of their hideous coarseness, and making their follies the butt of their unsparing mockery.
When the Reformation, therefore, trumped her battle-cry, there throbbed a responsive echo in the hearts of the Netherlanders, long disgusted, as they were, with the excesses of a dissolute priesthood.
These societies, therefore, exerted no little influence on the social, religious, and intellectual life of the country, and became a powerful aid to the awakening of a national consciousness and to the up-building of the language and the literature.
Among them all, no other attained the distinction of the Chamber of the Eglantine at Amsterdam. This Chamber, whose device was "Blossoming in Love," was founded by Charles V., and to it belonged many of the most prominent citizens of that opulent city. All religious discussions were forbidden within its walls; and there, in that age of religious discord and rabid intolerance, both Catholic and Protestant met together in the worship of Apollo. It was to this honored body that the name of the young Vondel was introduced, and upon him, therefore, its members kept an attentive eye.
We next hear of Vondel as a youth of seventeen. He had, it seems, all the while been assisting his father in the cares of the little hosiery shop; but his mind was with his books, and he employed every spare moment in reading or in study.
About this period a friend of the family was married, and the young poet must needs try his wings. Accordingly, he wrote an epithalamium, which, unfortunately for the poet, still survives. As might have been expected, the too-aspiring youth soared on Icarian wings. However, he was not conscious of this at the time; and lame and faulty as these first efforts are, it may yet be surmised that he felt the thrill of inspiration and the rapture of creating no less than when, in later life, he forged those Olympian thunderbolts that fulmined over Holland, causing tyrants to shake and multitudes to tremble.
Soon after the wedding-verses, Vondel wrote a threnody on the assassination of Henry IV. of France, which was but little better than his former effort.
We hear no more of our young poet till, like the deer-stealing youth, Shakespeare, he stands, in his young and vigorous manhood, blushing at the altar. Maria de Wolff was the name of the bride that the twenty-three-year-old husband had won to share his destiny.
History does not record the circumstances nor the incidents of his wooing; but from what we know of his character, we will venture to say that it was ardently done.
Of the sonnets and the love-verses that this passion must have inspired in the soul of the young poet nothing, unfortunately, seems to be known. He who had, as a boy, written tolerable verses at the marriage of another must surely, as a man, have done something better at his own.
"All the world loves a lover," be he ever so humble. But the loves of the poets are of especial interest.
We therefore confess our disappointment that no record exists wherein we could see the poet in the sweet throes of that heart-consuming passion. But, for all that, we feel that he loved like a poet, and we know that his marriage proved to be a most happy one.
His wife was in full sympathy with his every thought and aspiration, and wisely left her star-gazing husband to write verses while she stayed behind the counter and sold stockings. She was the daughter of a prosperous linen-merchant of Cologne, and was fortunately of a practical turn of mind.
Thus, when Vondel succeeded to the business of his father, she took upon herself not only the management of the shop, but attended to the house-keeping as well.
In 1612 appeared Vondel's first drama, "The Passover." It was the first of that splendid series of Bible tragedies to which, in the field of the sacred drama, neither ancient nor modern times furnish a parallel. This play, which covertly celebrated the recent escape of the Hollanders from the yoke of Spain, was played in the Brabantian Chamber of the Lavender, to which Vondel, whose family came from Brabant, naturally belonged.
This poem showed the results of his years of study, and was far superior to his earlier efforts, indeed, it gave such promise that Vondel was immediately invited to become a member of the Chamber of the Eglantine, and thus at once stood on an equality with the most distinguished literati of the day.
Among these was Roemer Visscher, "the round Roemer," as he was known among his intimates. Visscher was celebrated for his epigrams, and was called "the Dutch Martial." He was a good type of the Dutch merchant of his time, and on account of his wit and jollity was very popular with the other members of the society.
With his friends Coornhert and Spieghel he had taken upon himself the serious task of purifying and enriching his native tongue.
And it is in the works of these three men, who at this time were all well advanced in years, that we first see the promise of a literature and the consciousness of a national destiny.
The stilted and artificial phraseology of the Rhetoricians was soon succeeded by a natural, flowing style. Originality once more asserted its right to a hearing. Nature was studied with enthusiastic contemplation. Art was once more set on her high pedestal and worshipped.
Visscher looked with a philosophic eye on the follies of the day, and his keenest epigrams were pointed with a honied humor that deprived them of their sharpest sting.
But it was more as a patron of letters than as a poet that he deserves to be remembered. At his house all of the young Bohemians of the day were wont to gather, and many the contests of wit and many the battles in verse that took place in this, the first literary salon of the Netherlands.
But there was another attraction at the house of this worthy burgher. The jovial Roemer had two daughters, the blooming but sober Anna and the beautiful and vivacious Tesselschade.
These young women, on account of their many personal charms and numerous accomplishments, furnished a glowing theme to a generation of poets. It is related that they could each play sweetly on several instruments, sing, paint, engrave on glass, cut emblems, embroider, and converse brilliantly.
They were by no means prigs, however, for they also excelled in healthful bodily exercise, as swimming, rowing, and skating; and they were no less discreet and modest than accomplished and refined. Nor must it be forgotten that they themselves also wrote verses full of sweetness and tenderness; verses, too, not without lofty and noble sentiment, that are yet treasured among the brightest gems in Holland's diadem of song.
It was into this charming patrician circle that our middle-class poet was now introduced, and he manfully continued his attempts to remedy the defects in his education, that he might meet the many talented and learned men who came there, on an equal footing.
Vondel was now twenty-six years old, and began to apply himself assiduously to the study of the languages. He took lessons in Latin from an Englishman, and through his great industry he was soon able to read Virgil and Ovid. He also began the study of French, and translated "The Glory of Solomon" of Du Bartas, which he considered a most admirable poem. About the same time he wrote his second tragedy, the "Jerusalem Desolate," which, on account of its severe simplicity and elevated style, was the theme of much favorable comment.
At the house of the Visschers, Vondel was wont to meet, on terms of easy comradery, among other rising young men of the day, the erratic but brilliant Gerard Brederoo, the greatest writer of comedies that Holland has ever produced.
Brederoo was the son of a poor shoemaker of Amsterdam, and on account of his extraordinary talents was eagerly welcomed into the most select circles.
Quite a contrast was the young aristocrat, Peter Cornelius Hooft, of whom we have already spoken. Hooft was a patrician of the patricians, and was the most accomplished and elegant man of his day, the first gentleman of his age.
He had already distinguished himself by several remarkable poems, a superb pastoral, and one or two powerful tragedies.
It was in the field of history and biography, however, that he was to win his greenest laurels. His history of the Netherlands and his biography of Henry IV. of France, written in a terse, forcible, epigrammatic style, have gained for him the appellation of the "Dutch Tacitus." Motley calls him one of the great historians of the world.
Then there was Jan Starter, the son of an English Brownist, who was destined to be one of the sweetest lyrists of his adopted country; and Laurens Reael, another scion of aristocracy, a handsome young man of some poetic power and considerable learning, fated to become the friend of the great Oldenbarneveldt, and, after a splendid career as a soldier, the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies.
Another visitor to this hospitable house was Dr. Samuel Coster, a dramatist of no mean ability, who is now chiefly remembered as the founder of Coster's Academy, an institution founded in imitation of the Accademia della Crusca of Florence.
Anna and Tesselschade were, of course, the centre of this constellation of literary stars, and few of the young men who met at their home left it with heart unscorched by the fierce blaze of love. Vondel was already married; but to the passion that these two beautiful women excited in most of the others, Dutch literature owes its most exquisite love lyrics.
The ardent Hooft wooed the staid Anna only to be rejected. However, the young knight sought and soon obtained consolation elsewhere. Brederoo, with all the fervor of his romantic nature, poured out his soul in a cycle of burning love poems at the feet of the golden-haired and dark-eyed Tesselschade. To her, too, he dedicated his tragedy "Lucelle," calling the object of his adoration "the honor of our city, the glory of our age."
Few women in any epoch have exerted such wonderful influence upon the literature of their time. Not a poet of the day who was not inspired by their beauty and character; not one, furthermore, who did not dedicate to them some production of his genius. And yet they do not seem to have been the least spoiled by such excessive notice. Their good sense and modesty only heightened the excellent impression excited by their beauty and their talents.
How incomplete a sketch of Vondel's life and age would be without a more than passing reference to these accomplished sisters will be better appreciated when we see the poet himself paying court to one of them, charmed not only into a passion of the heart, but also into taking a step which exerted a powerful influence on his life and works.
At the Visschers', in the circle of his friends, the aspiring poet was wont to read the latest effusions of his pen; that he was much benefited by the criticism to which his verses were there subjected cannot be doubted.
His friendship with the most noted men of the day warmed his ambition into a fever of aspiration, and, like Milton, he early determined to devote his whole life to the cultivation of his beloved art.
With the aid of Hooft and Reael he translated the "Troades" of Seneca, which he then sublimated into a tragedy of his own, the "Hecuba of Amsterdam." This evoked considerable praise from the critics of the day. At this time, also, he showed his advancement in technique and his improvement in style by several lyrics of extraordinary merit.
It was thus in the midst of an admiring circle of distinguished friends that we find Vondel cultivating his art. There, in the bosom of that Catholic family, the Visschers, the poets of that age found rest from the storm of religious discord that raged without.
Arminian and Gomarist, Remonstrant and Contra-Remonstrant, were waging that fierce battle of the creeds that is yet the foulest blot upon the fair name of the heroic and tolerant Republic.
Thus the Visscher mansion was the temple of the Muses, where beauty alone was worshipped. Religion was left by the visitor at the threshold. Art alone was the garment that gave admittance to this wedding-feast of poetry and philosophy.
Whether through the contemplation of the fierce dissensions that then raged in the little Republic, or through a natural melancholy of temperament, Vondel now became subject to the most distressing depression.
Occasionally he would flash from his gloom into one of those firebrands of invective that, thrown into the ranks of his enemies, created a blaze of discord from one end of the country to the other; occasionally, also, he was inspired for loftier themes, as his "Ode to St. Agnes," which first showed his tendency towards Catholicism.
Then he would relapse into his melancholy. He lost his appetite and became afflicted with various bodily ills. He seemed hastening into a decline. This lasted several years, during which several important changes had taken place, not only among his friends, but also in the ruling powers of the state.
On the 13th of May, 1618, John van Oldenbarneveldt, the aged Advocate of the States-General, the greatest statesman of his time, and the fiery patriot upon whom had fallen the sacred mantle of William the Silent, was beheaded. He had watched the destinies of the infant Republic with the tender solicitude of a loving shepherd; he was now devoured by the wolves who, in the guise of religion and of patriotism, had crept into the fold. He had given eighty years of devotion to the up-building of his country; he was now to seal that devotion with his blood. He had made his native land a theme of glory among the nations of the earth; he was now accused of selling that glory for the gold which he had always despised.
A thankless generation had, under the cloak of virtue, committed one of the most infamous and revolting crimes in human annals. Where shall we find a parallel? The gray hairs of the man, his learning, his ability, his unsullied life, his splendid achievements in behalf of his native land, his grand renown, his unselfish devotion, his patriotism—all this must be considered when we compare his sad end with the fate of the other political martyrs of history, too many of whom have been unduly exalted by the manner of their death.
Is it to be wondered at that such an important event caused the deep-thinking poet the revulsion that only comes to high-born souls?
Is it surprising, furthermore, that that revulsion found its expression in what is perhaps the finest satirical drama of modern times?
This period was the crisis in our poet's life. The Contra-Remonstrants, or Gomarists, as the extreme Calvinists were called, having disposed of their hated enemy Oldenbarneveldt, had now begun to play havoc with the liberties of the people. Art and literature next suffered through the blasting censorship of their fanatical clergy.
The religious tolerance that had formed the glory of the country only a decade before was now succeeded by a rabid bigotry that with insensate fury cut at the vitals of all that was healthful and inspiring. Life, property, and freedom were in peril. Nothing was safe.
Grotius, "the father of international law," and also so distinguished as a scholar that he was called the "wonder of the age," was imprisoned, with the fate of his friend the great Advocate staring him in the face. From this fate, moreover, he was only saved by the diplomatic ingenuity of his devoted wife, who aided him to escape from his prison at Loevestein, ensconced in an empty book-chest which the unsuspecting warden of the castle thought full of books. Others of note were in hiding or in exile.
The boasted freedom of the freed Netherlands had turned to the direst form of oppression—the tyranny of a religious oligarchy.
And yet it was not an easy victory for the Contra-Remonstrants. Every inch was bitterly contested by their foes in Christ, the moderate Calvinists, or Remonstrants.
This struggle, like the conflicts of the Florentine factions of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, divided the country into two hostile camps. Even those of other religions allied themselves with the one or other of these sects; for sect had now come to mean party. Vondel, with whom religion and patriotism were fused into one white heat, was not long in choosing the party of the Remonstrants—the side of freedom.
We shall hereafter view this remarkable man as the poet militant. For having once taken the sword in hand, he did not let it fall until his arm was palsied by death.
Much as he loved peace, his enemies hereafter took good care that he should never want occasion to defend himself. It must be added, however, that the poet was even more renowned for attack than for defence. He was ever at the head of the onset, ever in the thickest of the fray.
The sword of this crusader for the liberties of his country—the most formidable and dreaded weapon of the age—was a pen; and the production that fell like a bombshell into the Gomarist camp was the allegorical tragedy of "Palamedes, or Murdered Innocence."
Under cover of the ancient legend of Palamedes, which lent itself most readily to such analogy, he had portrayed the murder of the old Advocate, and painted his judges in such strong colors and with such accurate delineation that each was recognized, and forever invested with the shame and infamy he so richly merited.
The greatest excitement prevailed, and the first edition of the poem was sold in a few days. The Goliath of error, slain by the pebble of satire, lay on the ground, gasping in agony. The David who had with one swift arm-swing of thought accomplished this wonderful feat, suddenly found himself the most famous man in both camps.
In the meantime the party in power sought to repress the book; and as the poet was thought to be in danger of imprisonment, or of even a more tragic fate, he was advised by his friends to go into hiding, which he did.
Threats were made against the man who had so rashly dared the fury of those relentless iconoclasts—the reigning Gomarists. It was muttered that he ought to be taken to The Hague to be tried, even as Oldenbarneveldt.
Meanwhile Vondel was concealed at the house of Hans de Wolff, a brother of his wife, who was also married to his sister Clementia. They were, however, afraid to harbor him any longer; and his sister, it is said, upbraided him for his itch for writing, saying that no good could come of it, and that it would be better for him to attend more strictly to his business.
Vondel's only reply was, "I shall yet tell them sharper truths;" and he straightway sat down and wrote some cutting pasquinades. These, however, upon his sister's advice, he threw into the fire, which he afterwards regretted.
He next found shelter in the house of a friend, Laurens Baake, who received him gladly. Here he was hidden several days; and the sons and daughters of his host, being highly cultivated and exceedingly fond of poetry, were much pleased with the society of so distinguished a poet, and for him made things as comfortable as possible. Vondel ever proved grateful for the many favors received at their hands in the hour of his need.
His hiding-place was at last discovered, and he was brought before the court. The plea made by his lawyer in his behalf was that the play "was poet's work and could be otherwise interpreted than was commonly done."
Some of the judges expressed themselves very severely; and if their counsel had prevailed there is no doubt but that the poet's career would have ended with the "Palamedes." However, the old Batavian spirit also asserted itself, others saying that civil liberty was but a mockery when a man was no longer allowed the freedom of speech. The result of the trial was that Vondel was fined three hundred guldens, which was paid by a friend—indeed, by one of the judges themselves—who was secretly favorable to Vondel and his party, and had encouraged the poet to write this very drama. We are here reminded of the fate of the great Florentine. Dante, a patriot, yet an exile, accused of treason, and under sentence of death; Vondel, forced to flee from an oligarchy of unctuous hypocrites, in fear of his life, and arraigned as a fomenter of discord. The ideas of the great Hollander on government, and on politics also, were not unlike the ideal Ghibellinism of the illustrious Tuscan.
Of course, the very nature of the play made it popular, and the various attempts at its suppression only made it more so. Two other editions shortly followed. Within a few years thirty editions were sold. "Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata."
Prince Maurice, the Stadholder, whose powerful personality on account of his share in the death of the Advocate was also severely handled by the poet, died while Vondel was giving the finishing touches to his drama. Long years afterwards, when the poet was an old man, he was wont to relate how on the very morning that the news came to Amsterdam from The Hague that the Stadholder was on his death-bed, his wife came to the foot of the stairs that led to the room where he was writing, and cried, "Husband, the Prince is dying!"
To which he replied:
"Let him die! I am already tolling his knell."
Frederic Henry, who was the next Stadholder, was known to be at heart in favor of the Remonstrants.
It was reported that the whole tragedy was read to him in his palace, and that he was exceedingly pleased with it, finding much of interest in the various episodes. Strange to say, upon the walls of the room where he heard the drama hung a piece of tapestry upon which the history of the Greek Palamedes was artistically pictured. Pointing to this, the Prince said mockingly, "This tapestry should be taken away, otherwise they might suppose that I also favor the cause of Palamedes."
Apart from its influence on the time, and the interest of its allegorical allusions, the "Palamedes" is a splendid tragedy, and its intrinsic worth alone would make it immortal. One of the choruses, especially, is justly celebrated for its idyllic beauty. It has often been compared to the "L'Allegro" of Milton, and, indeed it bears, in many particulars, much resemblance to that exquisite lyric.