Vondel's Lucifer Part 14

His pride of will has in one stroke become a chaos of indecision. We are made to sympathize with his terrible anguish, as the logic of his remorse-throbbing conscience leads him to the bitter adversative:

"But 'tis too late--all hope is past."

The ominous sound of Michael's battle trumpet rudely awakes him from his revery, and forces him to the stern realization of the impending strife.

Just at this moment, also, Apollion soars into his presence with the news of the near approach of G.o.d's Field-marshal.

Lucifer, however, is as yet too agitated, so soon after his sudden apprehension of the enormity of his crime and of the terrible punishment reserved for him in the probable event of his defeat, to respond with alacrity to the summons. It is with great difficulty that he rouses himself from his soliloquizing mood. He must think; but although he feels far more than his followers that

"The heavy bolt of war should not be weighed Too lightly,"

and although he well knows that the odds are against him, he has, by the time that his other chieftains approach, quite recovered himself, and at once gives the quick, sharp command of the soldier. The time for action has come. Behind their towering leader, amid the blare of bugles and the trumpet's stirring tones, his serried battalions march with waving banners off the stage.

Of this busy scene Rafael, meanwhile, has been a silent but interested spectator. Now alone in his sorrow, he melts into a compa.s.sionate monologue; and, joined by the chorus, gives utterance to that beautiful lyric of grief, that tender prayer so full of the sweet melody of appeal, at the end of the fourth act. Amid the jarring clamor and the frenzied shout of the departing squadrons, this anthem of mercy rises to G.o.d like a benediction. Over the pa.s.sion waves of the tumultuous h.e.l.l of rebellion around them, their voices tremble like the echoes of a heaven forever lost.

Surely, the emotion of forgiving compa.s.sion was never combined with a more musical sorrow. Here, as in all of Vondel's lyrics, there is a perfect harmony between the form and the thought.

FLOOD AND FLAME.

At the opening of the last act, Rafael is discovered on the battlements of Heaven. He is in a fever of anxiety to learn the result of the contest, and peers into the empyrean for some sign of a messenger from the field,

"Where armies reel on slopes with lightning crowned."

The glad sounds of approaching triumph fall on his ear. Across the pure hyaline now dart meteoric flashes of light. Each shield of the victorious legions dazzles like a sun:

"Each shield-sun streams a day of triumph forth."

Far in advance of the returning battalions speeds Uriel, "Angel with swiftest wing," bearing the message of victory. With incredible velocity--for he is winged with good news--he flashes through the air, in his "aery wheels" exultingly waving his "flaming, keen, two-edged sword." He has reached the serene alt.i.tude of Heaven. He has gained the farthest wall. He is at hand.

Rafael is full of eagerness to hear the details of the fight, the particulars of "this the first campaign in Heaven." Uriel then, "with sequence just," gives a vivid account of the preparations for battle, beginning with the moment when Gabriel first informed Michael of the defection of the Stadtholder.

He tells how the countless loyal legions, at their chief's command, deploy themselves in battle line until they form in serried rank

"One firm Trilateral host that like a triangle Thrust out its edges sharp upon the eye."

Michael, the Field-marshal, stands in the heart of this triangle, towering high above his fellows, the personification of judgment,

"With the glow Of lurid lightnings in his lifted hand."

Splendid is the picture of the infernal host; their squadrons,

"Battalion on battalion, riders pale On dim mysterious chargers,"

advance in the form of a crescent moon. Belzebub and Belial command the two horns of this formidable array,

"Both standing there in shining panoply, Vying in splendors grand."

Lucifer himself holds the centre, "the point strategic" of his army, while Apollion behind him bears on high the lofty standard with its streaming morning-star.

Rafael, in his excitement, occasionally interrupts this graphic description with exclamations of wonder, and, as the story of the terrible conflict progresses, also with occasional cries of horror and of pity. Great art is shown in the introduction of these exclamatory pauses into the long account of the battle scene. It not only gives the narrator time to get breath, but voices the feelings of the listener, and intensifies his suspense.

Then follows a brilliant account of the Stadtholder. As the rebel chief is the protagonist, and as the seditious angels furnish the subject matter for the drama, the poet has artistically described them at great length. At last the two armies confront each other. We are now made to see how they

"Panted for strife and for destruction flamed."

Then follows the famous battle scene, which must be read in the poet's own thrilling words. Here is action in every line, a battle stroke in each word.

After the first onset, the celestial legions begin by circling wheels to soar aloft, whence, like a falcon, they shall soon precipitate themselves upon their enemies, who, having also risen, but with heavier sail, are likened to a flock of drowsing herons, thrown into sudden consternation by the sight of their dreaded foe.

Uriel now gives a striking picture of the grand perspective above--the celestial legions, high in the empyrean, arrayed like a shining triangle, the symbol of the Trinity; far beneath, the infernal phalanx, gleaming like a crescent on the turbaned brow of night, the sign of the Turk, whose ferocious hordes, even in Vondel's time, were yet thundering at the gate of Christendom. Thus each army hangs:

"Suspended like a silent cloud, Full weighted 'gainst the balanced air."

Again the celestial triangle, with terrific force, crashes into the infernal half-moon, and flames of brimstone, red and blue, flash far out into the sky. Thunderbolt on thunderbolt, unchained, leap with angry roar into the surging horde, leaving havoc, ruin, and desolation in their lurid wake. The centre of the half-moon begins to break; and its pointed horns nearly meet together behind the resistless triangle.

Lucifer performs wonderful feats of valor. High on his blazing chariot, he is a conspicuous figure. His fierce team, "the lion and the dragon blue," symbolic of pride and envy, enraged by the battle-strokes rained upon their starry backs, fly forward with fearful strides--the lion, with dreadful bellows, biting and rending; while his terrible mate shoots pest-provoking poisons from his frothy tongue, and,

"... Raving, fills the air With smoke blown from his nostrils far and wide."

On every side the infernal chief is surrounded by his enemies. They try to overpower him with mere numbers. He parries every stroke, or breaks their force upon his shield. He then waves his battle-axe aloft to fell G.o.d's glowing banner, when Michael, clad in glittering armor, "like a G.o.d amid a ring of suns," suddenly confronts him.

The Archangel sternly calls upon the rebel Prince to surrender. But Lucifer, unmoved, three times with his war-axe strives to cleave the diamond shield of Michael, wherein blazed G.o.d's most holy name. The axe rebounds and shivers into fragments; and we cannot but sympathize with the Archrebel, who is now in a bad plight indeed. The grand catastrophe to which the swift current of his wickedness has been bearing him is at last at hand, reserved with consummate art until the middle of this act.

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 crescent has now become a disorganized mob,

"And o'er them fell destruction rolls its flood."

In vain Apollion comes back into the field, reinforced by the monsters from the firmament of Heaven, which may be supposed to typify, as Vondel says in his preface, the abuse of the forces of nature by the Devil to effect his evil designs.

Orion, shrieking until the very air grows faint, strives to crush the head of the a.s.sault, that

"... Heedless of Orion or his club, moves grandly on."

The Northern Bears stand upon their haunches to oppose their brutish strength. The Hydra gapes with poison-breathing throats. But, unmindful of all these, the triangle still advances. Numerous other episodes, in the meanwhile, are happening along the line of battle; but the suspense is at last over. The victory of the celestial angels is a glorious fact.

Rafael now gives utterance to exclamations of praise, and asks Uriel concerning the effect of his defeat on the fallen Archangel. Uriel then recounts his terrible punishment, and relates how his splendid beauty was now become, in falling, a complication of seven dreadful monsters, typifying the seven deadly sins. That beast, says the narrator,

"Doth shrink to view its own deformity, And veils with darkling mists its Gorgon face."

The fate of the protagonist being known, Rafael next wishes to learn what became of the rest of the rebel host. Then follows the account of the tumultuous rout, wherein the fleeing hordes, in their descent to h.e.l.l, also undergo a metamorphosis into the forms of strange and uncouth monsters.

At this point the triumphant Michael himself approaches with his victorious legions, laden with glorious plunder. The celestial choristers, strewing their laurel leaves, accompanied by the sound of cymbal, pipe, and drum, now greet him with a song of jubilation which, even more than most of Vondel's lyrics, is peculiar for the intricacy of its rimes.

"Hail to the hero, hail," they cry. The spirit and liveliness of this paean are eminently suited to voice the long pent-up plaudits of the angels. The regularity of this ode, with its rapid melodious swing, is a marked contrast to the strident enthusiasm and the discordant harmony of the chorus of Luciferians at the end of Act III.