Vondel's Lucifer Part 18

BIOGRAPHY OF VONDEL. By Brandt. W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle.

BIOGRAPHY OF VONDEL. By Dr. G. Kalff. W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, Zwolle.

We also heartily recommend the following studies by Dr. Kalff: "The Literature and Drama of Amsterdam during the Seventeenth Century;" "The Sources of Vondel's Works," in vol. xii. of Oud Holland (magazine); "Vondel as Translator," in Tydschrift (magazine) Voor Nederlandsche Taal en Letterkunde (1894); "Vondel's Self-Criticism," same magazine (1895); "Origin and Growth of Vondel's Poems," same magazine (1896).

VONDEL AND MILTON. August Muller. 1864.

uBER MILTON'S ABHaNGIGKEIT VON VONDEL. Berlin, 1891.

MILTON AND VONDEL: A Curiosity of Literature. George Edmundson, M.A.

Trubner & Co., London, 1885.

VONDEL AND MILTON. Edmund W. Gosse. "Northern Studies." Also in "Littell's Living Age," vol. cx.x.xiii., page 500; and in the "Academy,"

vol. x.x.xviii., page 613.

David Haek (1854). JUSTUS VON DEN VONDEL: ein betrag zur geschichte des Niederlandischen schriftthums. Hamburg, 1890.

WORKS OF VONDEL, twelve volumes, in a.s.sociation with his life, by Jacob van Lennep.

VONDEL'S LUCIFER. Agnes Repplier. "Catholic World," vol. xlii., page 959.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Fallen Morning-star]

"Praecipitemque immani turbine adegit"

J. van Vondel's

Lucifer

A tragedy

1654

DEDICATION.

To the invincible Prince and Lord, the Lord Ferdinand the Third, elected Emperor of Rome, Perpetual Increaser of the Empire.

As the Divine Majesty is throned amid unapproachable splendors, so, too, the Sovran Powers of the world, which owe their l.u.s.tre to G.o.d, and are made in the image of the G.o.dhead, are seated on high, crowned with glory. But as the G.o.dhead, or, rather, the Supreme Goodness, favors the least and most humble with access to His throne, so, too, doth the temporal power deem its most insignificant subject worthy to kneel reverentially at its feet.

Inspired with this hope, my muse is encouraged from afar to dedicate to your Imperial Majesty this Tragedy of Lucifer, whose style demands a most liberal degree of that gravity and stateliness of which the poet speaks:

"Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragoedia vincit."

"Sublime in style and deep in tone, The tragic art doth stand alone."

Though whatever of the requisite sublimity may be wanting in the style will be compensated by the subject of the drama, and the t.i.tle, name, and eminence of the personage who, the mirror of all ungrateful and ambitious ones, doth here invest the tragic scene, the Heavens; from which he, who once presumed to sit by the side of G.o.d, and thought to become His equal, was cast, and justly condemned to eternal darkness.

This unhappy example of Lucifer, the Archangel, and at one time the most glorious of all the Angels, has since been followed, through nearly all the centuries, by various rebellious usurpers, of which both ancient and modern histories bear witness, showing how violence, cunning, and the wily plots of the wicked, disguised beneath a show and pretext of lawfulness, are idle and powerless so long as G.o.d's Providence protects the anointed Powers and Dynasties, to the peace and safety of divers states, which, without a lawful supreme head, could not exist in civil intercourse. Therefore, G.o.d's Oracle Himself, for the good of mankind, by one word identified the Sovran Power as His own, when He commanded that to G.o.d and to Caesar should be rendered the things that to each were due.

Christendom, so often attacked on every side, and at present beset by Turk and Tartar, like unto a ship on a stormy sea, in danger of ship-wreck, demands to the highest degree this universal reverence for the Empire, that thereby the hereditary foe of Christ's name may be repulsed, and that the Realm and its frontiers may be strengthened and rendered safe against the incursions of his savage hordes; wherefore it behooves us to praise G.o.d that it pleased Him to continue the Authority and the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, at the last Imperial Diet, before his father's death, in the son, Ferdinand the Fourth, a blessing which has filled so many nations with courage, and which causes the tragic trumpet of our Netherland Muse to sound more boldly before the throne of the High Germans concerning the vanquished Lucifer, borne along in Michael's triumph.

Your Imperial Majesty's Most humble servant,

J.V. VONDEL.

ON HIS MAJESTY'S PORTRAIT

On the Portrait of His Imperial Majesty. Ferdinand the Third.

When Joachim Sandrart van Stokou, out of Vienna, in Austria, honored me with his Majesty's portrait, adorned with festoons and other ornaments.

_Deus n.o.bis haec otia fecit._

The Sun of Austria uplifts his glorious rays From shadow-glooms of art to bless each wondering eye.

Behold him on his throne, high towering in the sky!

Nor doth he scorn to beam on all his glance surveys.

Good Ferdinand the Third, born for the sovran crown.

A Father of the Peace, a new Augustus, shows His Son the heights whereon the heavenly palace glows; And teaches how with arms of Peace to win renown.

How blest the mighty realm, how blest their destinies, O'er which his gracious eyes keep sleepless vigils kind.

And where he holds the Scales for holy Justice blind!

An Eagle brought him sword and sceptre from the skies.

A crown adorns the head which empires grand engage: This Head adorns the Crown, and makes a golden age.

VONDEL'S FOREWORD