Vondel's Lucifer

by Joost van den Vondel

Among other works produced during this decade were his "Jephtha," a tragedy, with which he himself was much pleased, as fulfilling every requirement of the classic drama; his metrical translations of the "Œdipus Rex," "Iphigenia in Tauris," and the "Trachiniæ;" of Sophocles; the tragedies, "David in Exile" and "David Restored," allegories in which the exile and the restoration of Charles II. were clearly set forth; "Adonis," "Batavian Brothers," "Faeton," and "Zungchin, or, the Fall of the Chinese Empire." Of special interest also, and of unusual literary merit, is his tragedy, "Samson," which, even as Milton's "Samson Agonistes," was perhaps more largely biographical than any other of his poems. The points of similarity between this drama and Milton's tragedy also are many and remarkable.

But the two most important tragedies of this period were his "Adam in Exile" and the "Noah," which together with the "Lucifer" form a grand trilogy. The "Adam," especially, only less sublime than the latter, has more of idyllic beauty, and as a whole is scarcely inferior in power. Here, too, the choruses blend with the action, and are unsurpassed for melody, sweetness, and tenderness, proclaiming their author as the foremost lyrist of his nation.

THE VALLEY.

Vondel was the author of no less than thirty-three tragedies. Only eighteen of these, however, were presented on the stage. Some were deemed objectionable on account of their Biblical subject matter; others because of their leaning towards Catholicism.

The dramatist also suffered from the jealousy of his rivals. One of these, Jan Vos, was one of the managers of the theatre, and attempted to make Vondel's plays unpopular by assigning the most important rôles to inferior players, and also by using old and worn-out costumes. No wonder, then, that the sweeping tragedies of this master spirit began to lose favor with the masses, and that the translations of the French and Spanish plays that now flooded the country, with their extravagant scenery and their flashy innovations, usurped their place.

A few years before his death, Vondel paid a visit to the town of his birth, Cologne, and there saw the very house where he was born. With a poet's whim he climbed into the old wall bedstead in which he was brought into the world, which, of course, also furnished inspiration for a poem.

Brief mention must also be made of Vondel's last religious poems. His sublime "Reflections on God and Religion," which was written in opposition to the Epicurean and Lucretian philosophy of Descartes; his "John, the Messenger of Repentance," which glows with all the fervor and the grandeur of the Apocalypse; his "Glory of the Church," a work as learned as it was elevated, which shows the rise and progress of the Mother Church, would alone be sufficient to entitle Vondel to be considered as one of the great religious poets of the world, and perhaps the most powerful champion of Catholicism that ever entered the lists of controversy.

At the age of eighty-four, Vondel translated Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and also wrote a great number of poems of all kinds—epigrams, lyrics, letters, lampoons, dedications, eulogies, threnodies, hymns, epithalamiums, riddles, and epitaphs—in all of which his pen, sharpened by the practice of nearly three-fourths of a century, excelled.

To the last the aged poet preserved his intense satiric vein. The fire of his spirit burned as fiercely now as in the days of his youth. One of the last poems written by those aged fingers was his noble elegy on the distinguished brothers De Witt, who, in 1672, were assassinated in The Hague by a frenzied mob.

His last production was an epithalamium on the marriage of his favorite niece, Agnes Blok. He was then eighty-seven years old. His physician having cautioned him to rest his brain, he now bade the Muses, whom he had known so long, and whom he had found so sweet a comfort in his hours of sorrow, an eternal farewell.