Read Ebook: Vondel's Lucifer by Vondel Joost Van Den Van Noppen Leonard Charles Translator

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Ebook has 1584 lines and 91519 words, and 32 pages

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" , 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" , and in "Henriette Marie t'Amsterdam" , 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 AEschylus, 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,

Vondel:

His Life and Times.

THE DUTCH RENAISSANCE.

"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 alone Enduring--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-?-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.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

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."

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