Vondel's Lucifer Part 15

As soon as the joyful reverberations of the battle-hymn have ceased to roll through the interminable arches on high, Michael addresses his legions and the a.s.sembled hosts in a speech of great dignity, ascribing the glory of the victory to G.o.d alone. He speaks proudly of the spoils of battle, which have already been hung on the bright axis of Heaven.

"No more shall we," says he,

"Behold the glow of Majesty supreme Dimmed by the damp of base ingrat.i.tude."

He next pictures the defeated rebels as:

"...All blind and overcast With shrouding mists, and horribly deformed."

Then he concludes with stern sententiousness:

"Thus is his fate who would a.s.sail G.o.d's Throne,"

which the choristers as gravely repeat.

The expected catastrophe has occurred, and the terrible conclusion has been described. In the stormy wake of the sad fall of the angels follows the no less sad fall of man--the loss of

"The primal innocence 'mid Eden's bowers."

The heaving, seething seas of rebellion, "swollen to the skies," have, it is true, subsided; but again they gather momentum for one more wave of disaster, which now breaks upon the sh.o.r.e of Earth, spreading death and desolation throughout the sinless groves of Paradise; for Gabriel now approaches and hurls into the joyful camp a thunderbolt of sad surprise. "Alas! alas!" he cries, breaking into lamentation, "our triumph is in vain;" and he announces the fall of Adam.

Michael is astounded, and shudders as he hears the news. With infinite distress he listens to Gabriel's interesting account of how the overthrow was effected. Gabriel first describes the "dim, infernal consistory" far, far below. Here Lucifer called together all his chieftains, who now

"Unto each other turned abhorring gaze."

Then,

"High-seated 'mid his councillors of state,"

the Archfiend, whose character is now shown in its full development, addressed his followers in words full of bitter rage against G.o.d--a striking contrast to the dignity of Michael's address.

His heart is now a h.e.l.l of hate, boiling with pa.s.sion for revenge. The Heavens must be persecuted and circ.u.mvented, and this must be done by the ruin of man. With prophetic eye he pictures his future dominion on earth, and the myriad miseries into which the fall shall plunge mankind.

He then promises his fellow-conspirators the future adoration of the human race, when as heathen G.o.ds and pagan deities they shall receive the praise of countless mult.i.tudes of men.

At this point Michael breaks into fierce execrations, making a vow of summary and condign punishment. Gabriel then continues to relate how Lucifer selected Belial as the most worthy instrument to seduce the happy pair. Belial, taking upon himself the form of the Serpent, succeeds most fiendishly in his unholy mission, first, as in the Biblical account, alluring Eve, who in turn tempts Adam. Their fall and shame and misery are pathetically told. In the midst of this sad story the chorus interjects its wail of sympathy, while Gabriel continues by narrating the colloquy of the hapless twain with G.o.d.

Gabriel then gives the woeful details of their penalty, and presents a dismal picture of future wretchedness, against the blackness of which, however, is one bright star--the promise of the Strong One, the Hero who shall crush the Serpent's head.

Gabriel now commands Michael to place all things in their wonted place lest the malicious spirits should "further mischief brew." Michael, the spirit of eternal order, then proceeds to reduce this chaos of evil to final subjection.

He first sends Uriel down,

"To drive the pair from Eden who have dared Transgress, so rash and blind, the primal law."

His duty it is, also, to force mankind

"To labor, sweat, and arduous slavery."

He is, furthermore, to act as sentinel over the garden and over the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Ozias is enjoined to capture and securely bind the host of the infernal animals with the lion and the dragon, who so furiously raged against the standard of Heaven. Listen to this stern command:

"Sweep from the sky these hordes accursed, and bind Them neck and claw, and chain them forcibly."

Azarias is entrusted with the key of the bottomless abyss, wherein he is commanded to lock all that a.s.sail the powers of Heaven. To Maceda is given the torch to light the sulphurous lake down in the centre of the earth, wherein Lucifer, the evil-breeding protagonist, with poetic justice, so near the scene of his last flagrant crime, is doomed to endless solitary torment; there,

"... In the eternal fire Unquenchable, with chilling frosts commingled,"

"Amid the bitter blast of memory's regret,"

to suffer the throes of ten thousand h.e.l.ls, and to discover

"How slow time limps upon a crutch of pain,"

through an eternity of keen remorse.

For the last time the chorus comes on the stage, echoing in a brief epilogue the one silvery voice of hope that speaks from that dark conclusion of mult.i.tudinous despair.

It, too, gives promise of a brighter dawn, wherein the "grand deliverer" shall cleanse fallen man of the "foul taint original,"

opening for him a fairer Paradise on high, where the thrones, made vacant by the fall of the angels, shall, as in Caedmon, be filled by the glorified souls of the children of men Thus the spectator is left attuned to the triumph of Christ in the promised reconciliation, and the work of redemption is made complete.

In this n.o.ble ending, evil, though not annihilated, is controlled; the good is victorious; and Heaven is once more restored to its pristine holiness. The fallen angels, the imperious lords of Heaven, have been succeeded by the lowly third estate, the human worms whom they so much despised.

Thus here, too, revolution has proved progression. The storm of war has ceased, and above the thunder-mantled sky shines the glorious rainbow of peace.

THE "LUCIFER" AS A DRAMA.

Like all of Vondel's dramas, the "Lucifer" is after the Greek model; and surely that model was never inspiration for a more splendid tragedy.

Vondel's idea of the cla.s.sic drama was derived from the close study of the ancients and their modern Dutch commentators--Heinsius, Vossius, Grotius, Barlaeus, and other Latinists of renown.

The "Lucifer" is a tragedy after Chaucer's own heart:

"Tragedis is to sayn a certeyn storie, As olde bokes maken us memorie, Of hem that stood in greet prosperite, And is yfallen out of heigh degree Into miserie, and endith wrecchedly."

There is no death, no blood, no murder. It is the drama of a magnificent ruin!

The action of the play, pursuing the straight track of one controlling purpose, and moving with terrible majesty to the goal of an inevitable destiny, also makes it a tragedy in the larger dramatic sense. The wonderful characterization and the overpowering ethical motive also make its application universal. The epico-lyrical quality of this drama, furthermore, gives it a force and cohesiveness unattainable by either epic or lyric.

True, the "Lucifer" as a drama does not deal with men. However, this is a distinction without a difference; for the characters, while they command our awe as divinities not subject to the limitations of this carnal shroud, the body, are yet sufficiently human to elicit our warmest sympathy.

It is, moreover, a play full of heart-agitating pa.s.sion; 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. The disposition of the characters also conforms to our sense of justice, and their development is everywhere within the range of probability.

Besides the main theme, ambition, and the chief object, self-aggrandizement, are various incidental themes and objects which naturally arise out of the circ.u.mstances and conditions of the play.

This is, however, but natural, and only renders the drama more varied and interesting; these little streams of interest being but tributaries to the main stream of the action, contributing to, rather than r.e.t.a.r.ding, its majestic sweep to the Niagara of its catastrophe.