Vondel's Lucifer

by Joost van den Vondel

In 1640 appeared Vondel's Biblical tragedy, the "Brothers," which was thought by the critics to surpass all that had preceded it. It was dedicated to Vossius, whose comment upon reading it was, Scribis æternitati. Grotius wrote the poet a letter, and was also loud in his praises, comparing it with the most famous tragedies of antiquity, adding significantly, "and do not forget your great epic, 'Constantine.'" By others this drama was thought to combine the tenderness of Euripides with the sublimity of Sophocles.

In the same year, also, followed two more Biblical tragedies, "Joseph in Dothan" and "Joseph in Egypt," which also occasioned much remark, and were not inferior to the best plays that had gone before.

Vondel was now universally acknowledged to be the greatest poet of the time. The ascent of Parnassus, however, is not as easy as the decensus Averni. By years of study, constant watchfulness, and perpetual striving for self-improvement, and a prayerful devotion to his art—thus alone did he attain the summit of such achievement.

In him was seen purity of diction, clearness and terseness of expression, power of logic, richness and agreeableness of invention, and a style that was at once mellifluous and sublime.

The tragedy, "Peter and Paul," to whose open Romanism reference has already been made, was his next effort, and was soon followed by the "Epistles of the Holy Virgin Martyrs," which were twelve in number, and were dedicated to the Holy Virgin Mary, whom he called "the Queen of Heaven," and named as Mediator with her divine Son. This was a sufficient acknowledgment of his conversion to the Catholic faith to alienate many of his warmest friends. This, however, though it must have brought much grief to his sensitive heart, did not cause him to regret having made a step that he had so long been meditating.

Before beginning these "Epistles," Vondel had translated many of the epistles of Ovid that he might absorb the grace and the spirit of Ovid's epistolary style. His own effort was deemed not less graceful and spirited. Their literary merit, however, did not, in the estimation of his Protestant friends, compensate for their justification of popery.

Even Hooft, Vondel's life-long friend and brother in art, grew cold; and we find the following reference to this in one of the poet's letters to the Judge of Muiden. Vondel writes: "I wish Cornelius Tacitus a happy and a blessed New Year; and although he forbids me a harmless Ave Maria at his heretical table, yet I shall nevertheless occasionally read another Ave Maria for him that he may die as devout a Catholic as he now shows himself an ardent partisan." Their friendship was yet further broken by other circumstances which had their origin in the first cause of separation.

In 1645, Vondel wrote a lyric poem on a miracle which the Catholics taught had occurred at Amsterdam about the middle of the fourteenth century. This was too much for his Protestant friends, and he became the subject of innumerable lame lampoons and petty pasquinades, in which his espousal of the Catholic legend was coarsely ridiculed.

Hooft, in a letter to Professor Barlæus, also expressed his opinion in the following words: "Vondel seems to grow tired of nothing sooner than of rest. It seems he must have saved up three hundred guldens more, which are causing him a good deal of embarrassment. And I do not know but that it might cost him even much dearer than this; for some hot-head might be tempted prematurely to lay violent hands upon him, thinking that not even a cock would crow his regret."

These productions, however, were only the prelude to a greater work that was to follow—his "Mysteries of the Altar," which was published in the autumn of 1645.