Joost van den Vondel

“ From the mouth of his golden trumpet fall the silvery tones of peace. With jubilant tongue he praises the glorious attributes of the Deity and the boundless beneficence of the Godhead. In yet grander strain he prophesies the ascent of man,
"Who shall mount up by the stairway of the world,
The firmament of beatific light
Within, into the ne'er-created glow:"
and foretells the future incarnation of the Son of God, who, "on his high seat in his unshadowed Realm," shall judge both men and angels.
Here the chorus, after the manner of the antique drama, bursts into a line of pious affirmation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is my destiny. Doth fate decree 110
That I must fall, of rank and honors shorn,
Then let me fall; but fall with this my crown
Upon my brow, this sceptre in my grasp,
With my own retinue of faithful troops,
And with these many thousands on my side.
Aye, thus to fall brings honor and shall shed
Unfading glory on my name: besides,
To be the first prince in some lower court
Is better than within the Blessed Light
To be the second, or even less. 'Tis thus 120
I weigh the stroke, nor harm nor hindrance fear. ”

“ Rafael:
Now will the burning strike him from on high?
Uriel:
He waves his battle-axe aloft to fell
God's banner, that, descending, darts the beams
And fairer radiance of God's name into
His glowing face. Oh! think what envy then
Him filled, to see this portent on our side. 250
With battle-axe in hand, now here, now there,
He parries every stroke, or breaks their force
Upon his shield, till Michael comes before
Him, clad in glittering armor, like a God
Amid a ring of suns: "Cease, Lucifer;
Give God the victory. Lay down your arms
And standard; yield to God. ”

“ Lucifer, overwhelming in passion, gigantic in intellect, resistless in will—magnificent in his whole personality; Rafael, sublime in devotion, infinite in pity, immaculate in holiness—the apotheosis of all that is beautiful! Lucifer, whose eyes flash ambition and whose heart flames hate; Rafael, whose gaze is aspiration and whose soul is love! The genius of evil and the spirit of virtue; the proudly wicked and the meekly good! The infernal masculine stands confronted by the heavenly feminine; harsh violence is caressed by loving gentleness, and pride and humility embrace! ”

“ He himself played the lute, while his poetry throbs with the very heart of melody. How lovingly he speaks of the divine art of song, that "charms the soul out of the body, filling it with rare delight—a foretaste of the bliss of the angels"!
How keen must have been his enjoyment when at Muiden he heard the lovely singers of that age—the gifted Tesselschade on her guitar, or the talented harpist, Christina van Erp; or when in his home in the Warmoesstraat he heard the patriotic chimes of his beloved city pealing the lingering hours into oblivion! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Amid the fray, through shield and mail and helm 10
Of diamond, left and right, through all that dared
Oppose the all-piercing Power, Omnipotence.
O armor-bearer, most austere, who art
The executioner on high, and dost
With one strong, righteous stroke compose the Wrong
That would rebel against eternal Right,
Blest be thy sword and arm, that thus maintain
And guard the honor of our Angel Realm.
What praise reserved for thee by Majesty
Supreme! Oh! pray relate to us the strife: 20
Unfold to us the management of this,
The first campaign in Heaven. ”

“ Lucifer, however, indignantly denies this, and proudly asserts that he has always done his full duty. Rafael then reads aloud his evil purpose as it is written in lurid letters on his heart. The astonished chief no longer denies his lust for power, but claims the prerogative of his position as the Stadtholder of God. At last he is brought to the acknowledgment that the ascent of man is the stone upon which his "battle-axe shall whet its edge."
Rafael, like an angel of light, then pleads with this spirit of darkness in tones of sweetest tenderness. He stands here like a personified conscience. ”

“ He is ever on the serene altitude of lofty contemplation, or in the valley, battling like a god. He is always deeply serious. He is everywhere sincere. His is the whirlwind and the storm; the noonday glare and the midnight gloom. His is the eagle's bold, epic flight and the lark's wild, lyric soar. No nightingale of sentiment trills her dulcet serenade amid the forest of his song. And yet who can be more tender and affecting, who more truly, softly sweet? All is virile; nothing is effeminate. All is manly, healthful, pure. There is no morbid fever of a brain diseased and foul. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And Vondel and Goethe are each the "Seeing Eye" that pierced the hidden mystery of his time. Each in his own way solved the world riddle.
Like "Faust," the "Lucifer" is "ever more a striving towards the highest existence." True, the striving hero has here been hurled to the depths of the lowest abyss; yet is not his motive also the animating spirit of the race, ever onward and upward towards the unattainable?
Like the defeated Lucifer in Hell, the Teuton is ever evolving courage for a new attempt, fired with the hope that never despairs. ”

“ Vondel, moreover, most impressively introduces into the ancient Greek form, with its suggestion of an over-ruling destiny, the modern idea of free will. And he does it so admirably that there is no confusion. Simple in its complexity, splendid in its largeness of design, grand in its harmony, magnificent in its whole conception, the drama sweeps irresistibly through the whole gamut of human emotion.
Such epic breadth and intense lyric concentration have rarely been combined in one poem. Such a drama is, indeed, the sum of all the arts! ”

“ Wherever he saw wrong and injustice—and his eyes were ever open—he donned his armor and dealt crushing blows for the cause of the oppressed. Earnest, still, and passionate, great of soul and impressionable of heart, the poet was a born fighter. His whole life was a polemic against tyranny.
His dear fatherland was the alpha and omega of his inspiration, and he was, perhaps, the first Dutchman who deeply felt the consciousness of national power. The next object of his soul's affection was his city, Amsterdam, whose glories he never grew tired of singing. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Yet we cannot believe that the "Lucifer" is a political allegory. Vondel was no more the poet of the "Palamedes." Those thirty years had wonderfully developed his art. Nor is it an idyllic allegory like the "Comus;" but, like the "Divina Commedia," an allegory of the world. Yet behind the characters of the sacred legend we may also see the national heroes, Siegfried, Beowulf, Civilis, Orange.
The "Lucifer" represents the gigantic and eternal battle of evil with good, with the universe as the battle-field—a type of the unending conflict in which the good finally conquers. ”

“ He is overpowering. No one, even for an instant, dares to dispute his power, not even the grand Michael. His is the unconquerable Batavian heart. He dominates the entire action, and like a magnet draws all the other characters around him. Though jealousy of man is the animating passion of the lower devils and the excuse of the protagonist himself, yet we feel that he uses this merely as a stalking horse for his overweening ambition. Lucifer would become God himself. It is an unwritten law of great tragedy that the villain, though a villain, must be admirable. ”

“ Vondel, to an extraordinary degree, possessed that keen insight into human nature which is the first requisite of the great satirist. He was the Juvenal of his time. Though his wit is never delicate nor keen, it is, however, sweeping and irresistible. His was no gentle zephyr of irony to tickle the tender cuticle of a supersensitive age, but a very cyclone of mockery to laugh a thick-skinned generation out of folly. ”

“ Michael lifts his terrible right hand, and through the helmet and head of his disarmed but yet unconquered foe he smites his lightnings, cleaving unto his very eyes. The force of this blow is such that Lucifer is hurled from his chariot, which follows him downward, whirling round and round in its descent:
"Thus lion, dragon, driver, all plunge down."
In vain the fierce swarms of warring rebels attempt to stay their chief. Uriel engages Apollion, and succeeds in wresting from him the rebel banner with its morning-star. Belzebub and Belial still fight on; but their legions are all confused. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, moreover, a play full of heart-agitating passion; and it is addressed, in a most extraordinary degree, to the moral nature—the chief function of all tragedy. Here, too, as in the great drama of the universe, the divine law is the first propelling cause of the action.
The clash of interests and the logical destiny of cause and effect carry the tragic subject without apparent effort to its denouement. The causes are everywhere adequate to produce the effects, and no trivial effects are the result of the huge action; no mountain is set in travail to bring forth a mouse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sleepless, unrelenting, resourceful, alert, he conjures motives of evil even from the tender beauty of the primal innocence. He finds the gall of hate even in the sweet flower of Eden's sinless love. His is the deliberating intellect necessary for the Stadtholder's counsellor; and though slowly unfolding the many sides of his malign nature, he is, we feel, evil from the beginning, grandly diabolical.
Belial, conscienceless and without remorse, is utterly depraved; a vile seducer, the genius of deceit, who does evil for its own sake; a useful tool to serve the baser purposes of the chief devil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ringing echoes of Gabriel's clarion trumpet have scarcely died away, when, throughout the clear hyaline, millions of angelic choristers burst into that sublime hymn of praise—that "anthem sung to harps of gold "—the grandest ever penned:
"Who is it on His Throne, high-seated?"
Triumphant songs and glad hosannahs now float down those "arching voids of empyrean stair." "All that pleaseth God is well" is the devout conclusion of this splendid outburst of celestial praise. Harmony reechoes harmony; and with this glorious ode of jubilation the act comes to an end. ”

“ It was the details, the reasons, the arguments, and the conditions of this stupendous struggle that were before the poet's mind when he wrote this tragedy.
The "Lucifer," though a symbolic sketch of the age which preceded it, is essentially a drama embodying the spirit of the time in which it was created. It is a reflex of the life of that epoch, the embodiment of the soul consciousness of the "storm and stress" period of Vondel's own life. He himself was in perpetual revolt against the universal practices of his age. ”

“ It is the struggle of a soul against the unchangeable environment of fate; the drama of the collective human soul aspiring from a chaos of unrest to the unattainable peace of absolute truth.
Furthermore, the tragedy typifies the character of the Hollanders themselves; a people who, as Charles V. once remarked, made "the best of subjects, but the worst of slaves;" a nation that has ever been in revolt, not only against man, but even against the sublime forces of nature; a race that has never known defeat. ”

“ Could the force of this faculty have been better shown than in the picture of the fallen Archangel, where, in the agonies of torture and the throes of expiation, he not only deliberates, resolves, and executes, but even exults, as, culling the bitter sweetness of a hopeless hope from the hell-flower of despair, he rejoices in the fiendish triumph that he knows is but the prelude to everlasting doom? Unlike the unconquerable and torture-racked Prometheus, he allows not one sigh to escape from the depths of his anguish; not one moan rises from his abysmal despair. ”