A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687): Revised, Second Edition 9789048527434

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A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687)

Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age Editorial Board H. Perry Chapman, University of Delaware Lia van Gemert, University of Amsterdam Michiel van Groesen, University of Amsterdam Geert H. Janssen, University of Amsterdam Benjamin J. Kaplan, University College London Elmer E.P. Kolfijin, University of Amsterdam Henk van Nierop, University of Amsterdam Emile Schrijver, University of Amsterdam Marc Van Vaeck, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Thijs Weststeijn, University of Amsterdam

A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) A parallel text translated, with an introduction and appendices by

Peter Davidson and Adriaan van der Weel

Amsterdam University Press

Founded in 2000 as part of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Amsterdam Centre for Study of the Golden Age (Amsterdams Centrum voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw) aims to promote the history and culture of the Dutch Republic during the ‘long’ seventeenth century (c. 1560-1720). The Centre’s publications provide insight into the lively diversity and continuing relevance of the Dutch Golden Age. They offer original studies on a wide variety of topics, ranging from Rembrandt to Vondel, from Beeldenstorm (iconoclastic fury) to Ware Vrijheid (True Freedom) and from Batavia to New Amsterdam. Politics, religion, culture, economics, expansion and warfare all come together in the Centre’s interdisciplinary setting. Editorial control is in the hands of international scholars specialised in seventeenth-century history, art and literature. For more information see www.aup.nl/series/amsterdam-studiesin-the-dutch-golden-age or http://cf.uba.uva.nl/goudeneeuw/ The authors and the publisher gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature and of Stichting Dr Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds.

Revised edition of P. Davidson, A. van der Weel (eds.), A Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 1996. isbn 90 5356 180 3 Cover illustration: Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and his wife Suzanna van Baerle by Jacob van Campen. Courtesy Mauritshuis, Den Haag. Cover design: Kok Korpershoek bno, Amsterdam Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 90 8964 879 2 e-isbn 978 90 4852 743 4 doi 10.5117/9789089648792 nur 621 © P. Davidson, A. van der Weel / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam, 2015 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of this book.

For Kate and Janey

Contents Preface 11 Textual Note

15

Introduction 17 1 Doris oft herder-clachte 1 Doris, or the Shepherd’s Complaint

46 47

2 Aen Anna R.[oemers] 2 To Anna R.[oemers]

60 61

3 [Uit] Batava Tempe. Dat is ’t Voor-hout van ’s Gravenhage 3 [From] Batava Tempe: That Is the Lime-avenue of The Hague

62 63

4 De uijtlandighe herder. Aenden heere Daniel Heins, Ridder etc. 4 The Exiled Shepherd: To the Lord Daniel Heinsius, Knight etc.

90 91

5 Een gesant 5 The Character of an Ambassador

102 103

6 Scheeps-praet, ten overlyden van Prins Mauritz 6 Ship’s Talk, on the Death of Prince Maurits

104 105

7 Aen Joff.w Tesselschade Crombalch met mijne vertalingen uyt het Engelsche dichten van Dr. Donne 7 To the Lady Tesselschade Crombalch with My Translations from the English Poems of Dr Donne 8 Ad Barlaeum 8 To Barlaeus 9 Op de dood van Tesselschades oudste dochter, ende van haer man strax daeraen doodt gebloedt 9 On the Death of Tesselschade’s Eldest Daughter, and on Her Husband Thereafter Bleeding to Death

110 111 114 115 116 117

10 Luna alba 10 The White Moon

118 119

11 Nebula descendens 11 The Mist Descending

120 121

12 D’eerste steen vanden doel in ’s Gravenhaghe geleght by Prins Willem van Orange, ’s daeghs voor biddagh 2.en Decemb. 1636 12 The First Stone of the Marksmen’s School in The Hague, Laid by Prince William of Orange, on the Day of Public Prayer, 2 December 1636

122 123

13 Ad Stellam, uxorem charissimam defunctam 13 To Stella, My Dearest Wife, Now Dead

124 125

14 [Uit] Daghwerck. Huys-raed 14 [From] The Day’s Work: The Order of the House

126 127

15 Conclusus niveis… 15 In Her Snow-cold Arms

146 147

16 Gebed over des Heeren Avondmael 16 Prayer for the Holy Communion

148 149

17 De vijver 17 The Lake

150 151

18 ’s Heeren Avondmael 18 The Holy Communion

152 153

19 Niewe Jaer 19 New Year

154 155

20 Goede Vrijdagh 20 Good Friday

156 157

21 Pinxteren 21 Pentecost

158 159

22 Kersmis 22 Christmas

160 161

23 Paeschen 23 Easter

162 163

24 Aen Tesselschade 24 To Tesselschade

164 165

25 In praestantissimi pictoris Dan. Segheri rosas 25 On the Roses of the Most Eminent Painter, Daniel Seegers

166 167

26 Aen Tesselschade, vertreckende 26 To Tesselschade, Departing

168 169

27 In Alb. Dureri picturam chalcographicam 27 To Albert Dürer on His Engraved Picture

170 171

28 Voor ’s Heeren Avondmael 28 On the Holy Communion

172 173

29 Noch op des Heeren Avondmael 29 Again on the Holy Communion

174 175

30 [Uit] Hofwijck 30 [From] Hofwijk

176 177

31 Ontwaeck 31 Awakening

206 207

32 Aen Joff.w Luchtenburgh, met myn vertaelde dicht uyt het Engelsch van Donne 32 To the Lady Luchtenburgh, with My Poems Translated from the English of Donne 33 Noch schilderij 33 Again on Painting

212 213 218 219

34 Op de titelprint 220 34 On the Frontispiece of Korenbloemen 221

35 Op het graf vanden Heer Jacob van Campen 35 On the Grave of Jacob van Campen

224 225

36 Droomen ydelheit 36 The Vanity of Dreams

226 227

37 Op een gesneden roemer 37 On an Engraved Glass

228 229

38 Op mijnen geboort-dagh 38 On My Birthday

230 231

39 Oogentroost aende Vrouw van St. Anneland 39 Consolation of the Eyes, to the Lady of St Annaland

232 233

40 Over des Heeren Avondmael 40 On the Holy Communion

236 237

41 Stilte en sneew op storm en hoogen vloed 41 Stillness and Snow after Storm and High Water

238 239

42 Myn Geckies grafschrift 42 My Puppy’s Epitaph

240 241

Appendix I

243

Appendix II

249

Appendix III

257

Appendix IV

277

A Selection of Huygens’ Poems in Modern European Languages

A Selection of Huygens’ Writings in English

Huygens and English Literature

Additional Poems on Painting

Bibliography 283 Index of Titles and First Lines

287

Preface It seems strange that, more than four hundred years after his birth, Constantijn Huygens, the Dutch polymath, poet, composer, statesman and translator, should need to be re-introduced to readers on both sides of the Narrow Seas. But this would appear to be the case: hardly any of his work is in print in the Netherlands, despite recent scholarly attention paid to it there, and his name is known only to a very few English-speaking readers as a historical figure, as the father of a more famous son, or as the friend and translator of John Donne. One poignant example of this neglect: Johannes Worp’s monumental edition of Huygens’ poems appears to have slumbered undisturbed for the last thirty odd years in the University Library at Cambridge, ever since, if the reservation slip marking one of the Donne translations is to be believed, E.M. Forster last closed volume three at some point in the 1950s. This act of re-introduction is the prime directive of this book: we feel that the range and diversity of The Cornflowers of the Lord of Zuilichem are overdue for reconsideration in an Europe increasingly interested in its international past. For the English-speaking reader, this book will, of necessity, be in the nature of a first introduction to an unfamiliar, if compelling, voice of late Renaissance Europe. In some respects, it also looks at the complexities of the culture out of which that voice speaks. The visual culture of the seventeenth century in the United Provinces needs no introduction, but particularly for the English-speaking reader, this book offers a first insight into the complementary literary, architectural and musical continuum out of which the paintings came. There is no single figure better fitted to act as a representative of this culture than Constantijn Huygens: his long life as a writer spanned the crucial century of the consolidation of the Dutch Republic. This can be expressed in terms of the English culture with which he was much concerned throughout his life. His first visit to England was as a young man moving in the most cultivated and outward-looking circles of Jacobean England; he was knighted by James i, and he enjoyed the friendship of John Donne. His last visit to England was in 1671, in the retinue of the future King William iii; amongst his last poems, written in the 1680s, are a few epigrams addressed to William’s consort Mary. Apart from the length and productivity of his life, his achievements were centred in those areas of cultural endeavour where the new Dutch Republic interacted most influentially with early modern international culture. He patronized and corresponded with some

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of the leading painters of the Low Countries. His work is rich in poems about painting and metaphors drawn from the visual arts. He was intensely involved with those botanical and horticultural innovations which affected the whole of Europe. He lived to the full as a citizen of a society which in many ways anticipated the eighteenth-century enlightenment, not only as the supportive parent of the natural philosopher Christiaan Huygens, but also as the friend and correspondant of Descartes, Mersenne and many others. Much of the evidence for Huygens’ musical activities is now lost to us, but it is possible to deduce from the surviving Pathodia that he was active in furthering the experimental styles of the emergent Baroque, particularly in explorations of the possibilities of word-setting. Given Huygens’ vast output in all these fields, it is impossible for a volume of this scope to provide even an introduction to the full range of his activities. Questions of inclusion and exclusion have been a constant focus for debate while making the selection of poems (forty-two out of, literally, thousands). To some extent, we have inevitably been influenced by the canon of Huygens’ work as it has established itself in the Dutch speaking countries: thus, Batava Tempe, Hofwijk, the sonnets on the festivals of the Christian year and The Day’s Work have their place, as it were, by right. Next, we have attempted to demonstrate something of Huygens’ stylistic and linguistic range: to sample his many-sided mind at work on questions of music, theology and aesthetics; to emphasize his support for, and interaction with, the distinguished women writers of early modern Holland. Above all, we have tried to give a sense of a writer who was very much the product of an unique society within Europe: that Dutch Republic which can in one sense be perceived as anachronistically diverse, tolerant and relaxed, and in another sense as irretrievably alien in the inflexible Calvinism of many of its elite members. All selections naturally distort the complete picture, but we have attempted to include enough of Huygens’ diversity to suggest at least his breadth and individuality. At this point we would like to clarify the principles followed in the translations. For the Dutch-speaking reader, these should serve as glosses wherever Huygens’ early modern Dutch, so much modelled on humanist Latin, diverges most acutely from the language of today. For the English-speaking reader, the intention has been essentially to preserve as far as possible the sense of the original, even if this should lead occasionally to the unavoidable use of an archaism or inversion to secure the true rendering of an idea. Throughout an attempt has been made to translate line for line and to keep what might be called interpolated glosses, paraphrases and explanations out of the texts themselves by confining

Preface

13

them to the footnotes. After much experimentation, rhyme was reluctantly abandoned in the translations. At their best Huygens’ poems are extraordinarily dense of texture, as dense as the poems of Donne in English, and any attempt to rhyme consistently seemed to result in a poor compromise, in the abandonment of whole layers of meaning to the exigencies of diction. Within these limitations, the translations try to be readable, to convey something of the richness of diction and phrasing of their originals. A single exception has been made to the rule of metrical fidelity: the iambic hexameter reads generally so ploddingly in English that a variant of the pseudo-classical hexameter of Elizabethan poetic experiment has been employed for variety. A summary discussion of Huygens’ interactions with the English literature of his day will be found in Appendix iii. Appendix ii gives some account of his achievement as a writer of English. Appendix i demonstrates his extraordinary abilities in other European languages. By gathering this material in appendices, we have tried to disencumber the text of excessive annotation, exclusively directed to the English-speaking reader. For the same reason, the introductory material addresses itself particularly to those readers, giving a brief description of Huygens’ cultural context and a rather more extended account of his life. We were always acutely aware that two distinct sets of readers, with widely differing needs, were being addressed. While it is hoped that English-language readers will find most of the material needed to understand the texts, we must ask the indulgence of Dutch-speaking readers if too much material is included which is to them common knowledge. There remains the pleasant task of acknowledging the generous help which we have received with the compilation of this book. In the Netherlands, Ton Harmsen of the Leiden University Dutch Department kindly guided us through those regions of early modern Dutch where the dictionaries deserted us; Peter Liebregts and Frans Blom piloted us through uncharted regions of Baroque Latin where reason and conjecture failed alike; Ad Leerintveld gave us the benefit of his meticulous scholarship and much encouragement; Martina Noteboom offered inspired solutions at moments of linguistic stalemate; Ineke Verbeek-Kremer was uncommonly generous in obtaining texts and material; Alastair Hamilton, Bart Westerweel, Robin Smith, Ruud Hisgen, Matthijs Engelberts, Alexander Schimmelpenninck and Jane Mallinson offered friendship and support. In Warwick, Jane Stevenson constantly furthered the project as historian, latinist and reader of the images of Renaissance Europe (it is hard to quantify how much this book owes to her); Dominic Montserrat offered

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his unique knowledge both of the ancient languages and of the operation of consumer societies; Kate Chedgzoy read the English versions to their great improvement. Dr Malcolm Carpenter, acting for the University of Warwick itself, helped the project immensely in obtaining grants for travel and secretarial assistance. Joanna Callaghan undertook secretarial duties with uncomplaining efficiency. In Oxford, Nigel Smith as usual gave generously of his knowledge of early modern England; Sandra Raphael was the Dodonean oracle on all matters to do with plants and gardens. In London, Theo Hermans gave considerable assistance. In Scotland, Bob Hendrie gave generous help with the Latin. In Amsterdam, Saskia de Vries has been the most efficient and the most encouraging of publishers. We thank them all. Peter Davidson/Adriaan van der Weel Warwick/Leiden, October 1995 For this revised edition we have taken the opportunity to correct errors noted by reviewers of the first edition, to revise a few details of the translations, and to add new texts and versions of a few of Huygens’ poems about the visual arts of his era (Appendix iv). Peter Davidson/Adriaan van der Weel Edinburgh/Leiden, January 2015



Textual Note

There is no single modern edition of Huygens’ poetic works. We have chosen to use J.A. Worp’s monumental nine-volume edition based on the manuscripts (referred to as Huygens 1892 to Huygens 1899) as our main text, departing from it only where modern scholarly editions are available (Huygens 1968; Huygens 1973; Huygens 1974; Huygens 1976; Huygens 1977). Line numbering and titles generally follow the editions used, but the square brackets used by Worp to show that a title was not in the MS have been omitted. The poems are given in chronological order, following Worp’s dating. The spelling of i and j, and u and v, which were fully interchangeable in the seventeenth century, has been made to conform to today’s usage. Some textual problems, notably in the Spanish poetry, have been solved by emendations between square brackets. Obvious errors and some few confusing spellings in the modern editions have been silently corrected for the convenience of the reader. For the texts and titles of the poems by John Donne discussed in Appendix iii, we have used Helen Gardner’s Clarendon Press editions of The Elegies and Songs and Sonnets (Donne 1965) and The Divine Poems (Donne 1978).

Introduction Dutch Society in the Seventeenth Century It is a cliché to describe any individual as a child of his time. Yet Constantijn Huygens demonstrates continually in his writing an overwhelming sense of being the product of a particular place at a specific historical moment. He is conscious of being the remarkable product of a remarkable nation: the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. Holland had invented itself at the end of the sixteenth century when the Low Countries, a group of loosely federated provinces and dukedoms with no history of political independence, individually or collectively, coalesced into nationhood under the leadership of William of Orange. If William was the father of the new Republic, then it could reasonably be said that Constantijn’s father, William’s secretary, was one of its godparents. The political life of his country was, for Constantijn Huygens, neither an accomplished fact nor a distant, recessive background to his personal concerns. He was a child in a household that lived and breathed the politics of a new nation which was labouring in the process of self-fashioning. His father’s aspirations as both patriot and parent were profoundly interrelated; and thus Constantijn was deliberately moulded and shaped as the ideal son of the new Republic. Such a sense of effective centrality to national concerns would be, for anyone, a heady atmosphere in which to come to maturity. In Huygens’ case it was all the more so because the new nation was realising spectacular success by flouting every political rule of early modern Europe. The achievements of the new Dutch Republic were dizzying, unprecedented, colossal; yet the whole trend of medieval and Renaissance thinking about the operations of fortune meant that so remarkable an exercise in creating prosperity and liberty out of beleaguered adversity could not be considered secure: … the joys which fortune grants us / Are raised up unto their highest / When they’re nearest to their fall. Especially in the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, Holland’s educated population can be imagined at various moments in their lives to be counting under their breaths, as it were, awaiting the crash. What were the peculiar features of this Dutch civilization which formed Huygens and shaped his immense poetic oeuvre? Only a few relevant features can be suggested, one of the most noteworthy being an assimilation towards the middle. We think, generally, of early modern societies as sharing the general characteristics of the Ancien Regime in France: a fixed

18 

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chasm dividing a wealthy and confident aristocracy from a numerous and downtrodden peasantry, with a small mercantile and professional class existing between these extremes. It is not appropriate in this context to pursue the extent to which this picture is or is not a cliché; the point here is that it is in no sense true of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. By the standards of France, England and Spain, the aristocracy was relatively small, weak and impoverished, making up at most 1% of the total population, even including what would in Ireland be called squireens, and in Scotland, bonnet-lairds (Parker 1977, p. 48). Thus, it was unable to impose its class interests on those of the state as a whole. At the same time, the standard of general prosperity was high. The poor, both rural and urban, were better fed than in any other country of early modern Europe, and their diets far more varied. Certainly there were shortages from time to time, but famine and mass starvation did not visit the Netherlands as they visited France. The Dutch population was unusually literate and unusually urban. Women were, in general, better off than in other states: domestic violence was an offence consistently punished by law, and women, particularly widows, had legal rights which they did not enjoy in other countries. There were few witchcraft trials in the Netherlands, an important index of collective sanity. The Dutch were the first to make a practice of religious toleration; this brought the most able marginal groups of all nations, from Portuguese Sephardim to English Calvinists, either to the Dutch universities or into the commercial life of the Dutch cities. The Dutch Republic’s emphasis on freedom (in the modern sense of the word and including freedom of conscience), one of the driving forces behind its anomalous development, was not always regarded with much understanding, let alone sympathy, by foreign observers. One of those who both understood and sympathized was the Englishman Sir William Temple (ambassador to the Republic, 1667-1670), who observed its everyday guise as ‘general liberty and ease, not only in point of conscience, but all others that serve to the commodiousness and quiet of life, every man following his own way, minding his own business, and little enquiring into other men’s’ (Observations upon the United Provinces of the Netherlands, Cambridge, 1932, p. 134, quoted by Israel 1995, p. 4). The structure of Dutch society has been described by Schama as ‘institutional incoherence’: ‘to be Dutch was to be local, parochial, traditional and customary’ (Schama 1987, pp. 65, 62). The new state, in its evolution, had not overturned the traditional structures of its different and extremely varied components: there were some 700 local legal codes in the Netherlands in the late sixteenth century, jealously guarded as defences for local ‘liberties’ and

Introduction

19

‘privileges’ (Parker 1977, p. 34). Any centralization in the political structure of the Republic was limited to an astonishing degree. It thus could not claim the right to interfere unduly with the lives of its citizens. One result of this was that the Dutch state possessed no effective mechanisms for interfering with freedom of speech, a cause of deep offence to foreign powers, notably England, which watched without pleasure the development of a vociferous group of Royalist refugees in The Hague in the 1640s and 50s. In a Europe of absolutist states, the Dutch Republic avoided prescriptive centralization, accepting the right of provincial town councils to order their territory by custom and negotiation. The Republic was ruled, in effect, by consensus rather than force, and achieved this by the condition once recommended by Edward Gibbon as the central maxim of good government, ‘a benign and salutary neglect’. In its economic as in its political life, the Dutch Republic stood apart from its rivals. It grew and prospered where other European states declined, or struggled, and did so by breaking every received axiom of seventeenthcentury economics (Schama 1987, p. 223). The Dutch state was a type of federation, at a time when political economists insisted that a centralized state under the leadership of an absolute ruler was the only workable form of political life. Its population trebled from 1550 to 1650, while the populations of other European nations remained static, or even declined. It was considered axiomatic by the European mercantile community that only high rates of interest could preserve a sufficiency of coin to keep commerce afloat, but the Dutch republic both accumulated capital and circulated it at the very low rate of three per cent. The lack of a strong, centralized government, rather than weakening the young Dutch state, actually made it remarkably flexible in meeting emergencies of all kinds. The wealth of the Republic was derived largely from trade and industry, from use of the sea and of its network of rivers and inland waterways: the deltas of three major European rivers, the Rhine, the Maas, and the Scheldt. The wealth of the Republic was therefore bourgeois, and urban. In both England and France, prosperous individuals sought, as rapidly as possible, to become landed gentry, to transmute wealth, however it had been gained, into estates so that they (or at least their heirs) could live off their rents, like aristocrats. This was not a Dutch pattern. While the ownership of handsome country houses, such as the splendid villas built along the river Vecht, between Amsterdam and Utrecht, was understandably a desideratum for urban Dutch merchant princes, merchants they remained. The result was that the intellectual, cultural and political life of the country was shaped primarily by an urban, mercantile patriciate rather than by

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a rural, rentier aristocracy. This resulted, on the whole, in an unusually homogeneous culture. For example, the patrician poet Jacob Cats enjoyed a contemporary reputation which spread far beyond his own class. His works were published in expensive quarto volumes, with engravings, and simultaneously in much larger editions, in small octavo volumes decorated with inexpensive woodcuts, which were widely circulated. The shapers of Dutch culture were not merely at pains to demonstrate that they shared the hopes, interests and aspirations of the majority, like the self-consciously ‘democratic’ leaders of more recent times, there seems every reason to believe that they actually did so. It must be conceded here that, however he may have perceived his own centrality, Huygens himself stood, in some respects, at an oblique angle to the life of the Republic. His ambiguity is, essentially, defined by an ambiguity within the structure of the Republic itself: although a Republic, the constituent provinces had princely stadhouders, and among these the stadhouder of the dominant province of Holland held a position of some considerable power. It was at the modest Princely Court of Holland that Huygens passed the greater part of his working life. This is not the place for a disquisition on the nature of the stadhouderschap of the Province of Holland held by successive Princes of the House of Orange (for which see, for example, Israel 1995, pp. 300-306), but a definition of Huygens’ own position as courtier follows from the unique position of the Dutch stadhouder. While the stadhouder held a position of true symbolic, executive and military importance, his place within the structure of the state itself was strictly circumscribed: his position was not modelled on that of a king, but rather on that of the royal provincial governors who had governed Holland on behalf of the Spaniards in earlier generations, and answering, in rough theory, to the abstraction of the States General, which held sovereign power (Parker 1977, pp. 144-45 and 242-43). Huygens, therefore, was a courtier within a democracy, a royal secretary within a republic. He had little personal involvement in the mercantile life of his country, however central he might have been to those intellectual Dutch circles which drew the majority of their members from the mercantile elite. He was technically an aristocrat, though a self-made one – a homo novus – the Lord of Zuilichem, but an aristocrat on a scale as modest as that on which his masters were princes. This modesty of scale, this status as a democratic aristocrat, is affirmed by the houses which Huygens built for himself, and by the way in which he wrote about them: his handsome house in the centre of The Hague was one of the finest houses in the place, comparable to the Mauritshuis itself in style and dimensions, but in sharp distinction to elite houses elsewhere

Introduction

21

in Europe, it is very much a house in a street, not seeking to withdraw itself from the daily life of the town. In equally sharp distinction to the mentality of elite poets elsewhere in Europe, it is contiguity and familiarity with his fellow-citizens which Huygens celebrates in his early poem on The Hague, Batava Tempe (no. 2 in this collection). Despite the elite nature of his own house (and the family house in the Voorhout which had preceded it), it is the communal and public space under the lime-trees which the poem describes and enjoys. Similarly, Huygens’ country-house of Hofwijk, for all its extensive gardens, does not withdraw into Edenic solitude: the public road crossed the gardens near the house, and the Vliet waterway passes under the windows of the house itself. In terms of size, it is again modest, much smaller than most of the country-houses of the Netherlands, a single tower only three bays wide and deep. Again, Huygens’ poem Hofwijk (no. 30) does not see the country-house as a place of withdrawal from communal life, but only as a personal place of withdrawal from the responsibilities of the Court: Huygens’ gardens and the road and canal through them are peopled with travellers, farmers and bargemen as well as with the virtuosi who have come to see a house which is expounded as an inclusive rather than an exclusive place. Thus, although in some ways marginal to the central project of the Dutch Republic, it is clear that Huygens, in many others, perceives himself as a citizen amongst citizens, sharing common systems of belief and expectation. The Dutch culture of the seventeenth century includes a number of almost universal tropes and preoccupations, common reference points which surface inevitably in his poems. One is the question of the origins of the Dutch state: two mythic structures, the historical and the religious, intertwined in the communal attempt to consolidate a myth of origin for a new country. Historically, the Dutch chose to look back to the Batavians who, according to the Roman historian Tacitus in the first century AD, maintained their independence from the might of the Roman Empire; an obvious parallel to, or precedent for, the recent Dutch struggle for independence from Spain. This, then, was a myth of hard-won sovereignty. Religiously, in common with their fellow-Calvinists elsewhere in Europe, the Dutch identified themselves with the Chosen People, the Jews in the time of the Old Testament. Like them, the Dutch had come from slavery and idolatry under the hegemony of Catholic Spain (as the Jews came from slavery and idolatry in the Land of Egypt) through an immense struggle of heroic self-definition to freedom and godliness in the Land of Canaan (the Netherlands). In such a reading, the Dutch were a people favoured by God, but the story of the Jews (who, of course, ultimately lost their sovereign independence) made this myth a

22 

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source of anxious determination to stay on the path of righteousness rather than a cause for any sort of complacency. This shared metaphor surfaces in Huygens’ remarkable sonnet ‘Easter’ (no. 23) which adds a third layer to its mapping of the events of Passover onto Christian redemption through the sacrifice of Christ: the metaphoric exposition of the Dutch nation as the pilgrim Israelites, as the paradigmatic Christian people, coming out of slavery through the waters of the Red Sea, waters which stand ready to flood and chastise them should they break their covenant. It is possible to explore further into the culture of the seventeenth-century Netherlands, and Huygens’ own place within it, by further examination of the Republic’s governing metaphors. Dutch writers and artists repeatedly represent their state as a garden, the Hollandse Tuin, not walled, but surrounded by a modest fence of hurdles, guarded by the Dutch Lion, and sometimes containing the female personification of Holland, the Hollandse Maagd (Schama 1987, pp. 69-73). This metaphor, of course, finds rich and complex echoes in Huygens’ poem Hofwijk, but it is also worth thinking about in itself. Representing the state as a garden rather than a fortress suggests a particular stance towards it. Gardens require constant work and upkeep, the art of the gardener requires the exercise of viligant expertise to keep the garden from returning to a state of nature. Gardens are civilized, their associations are of innocent enjoyment and healthful recreation rather than of exclusive productivity. The Hollandse Tuin suggests a state that thinks of itself as existing for the pleasure as well as the profit of its members. Gardens are not free, moreover, from otherworldly associations. ‘Paradise’ is simply another word for garden; and long before the Hollandse Maagd was to be discovered in her flowery arbour, many images of the Virgin Mary placed her in a garden among the roses. The botanical garden (one of the world’s first was founded in Holland in the seventeenth century, at the University of Leiden) was specifically and consciously referential, in its Edenic plan, to the Earthly Paradise from which Adam and Eve had long ago been expelled. In a sense, therefore, the Hollandse Tuin was itself an earthly paradise; a kingdom of the saints upon earth. These ideas are not only echoed in Hofwijk, they are realized in the democratic Arcadia of Batava Tempe and elsewhere in Huygens’ work. Another governing metaphor of seventeenth-century Dutch literature is, inevitably, water, since the country owed its continued existence to human ingenuity in repelling the sea. Following this, it is easy to see the importance of the concept of overvloed (both ‘drowning’ and ‘surfeit’) to the Dutch mentality. To assiduous readers of the Bible who saw in the Old Testament a shadow of themselves, Noah’s flood spoke, not metaphorically

Introduction

23

but actually, to a real anxiety that their land could simply be washed away. The collapse of a dike was a very real threat to lives and livelihoods. The seventeenth century was an era of heroic reclamation, but this must be set against a background of the continuing threat of disaster. Under these circumstances, it is very easy to see the Hand of God in tide, storm and high water: the waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled. The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad (Psalm 72, 16-17).

In Huygens’ works this metaphor finds its inevitable place: in the imagery of the Red Sea in ‘Easter’, in the desolate sea-imagery of the conclusion of The Day’s Work (no. 14), in the late, spontaneous celebration of the retreat of the waters in ‘Stillness and Snow after Storm and High Water’ (no. 41). The Dutch might think of themselves as a chosen people, but God had scourged, cleansed and punished his first chosen people often enough. The Dutch read the metaphor of water simultaneously as threat and as renewal, the possibility of cleansing and a fresh start as well as of destruction. Water is cleansing, whether on the scale of the Almighty washing human evil from the earth or of the housewife scrubbing her already immaculate doorstep. The importance of enjoying prosperity circumspectly, without undue extravagance, and certainly without any display of God-offending hubris, is expressed in a wide variety of Dutch literature. The idea of washing and cleansing appears repeatedly in the poems of Huygens: continually, his metaphor for repentence, for a ‘fresh start’ in the Christian sense, is that of clean clothes. This image provides the mainspring of the sonnet ‘New Year’ (no. 19), and is also powerfully present in the poems on the Holy Communion, particularly in ‘Again on the Holy Communion’ (no. 29). The possible multivalency of the idea of scrubbing clean is further illustrated by an emblem from Roemer Visscher’s Sinnepoppen (Schama 1987, p. 379): a great hand, wielding a scrubbing brush, emerges from the clouds poised over a generalized landscape: the motto is ‘Afkomst seyt niet’ (‘pedigree counts for nothing’). The Dutch, as a nation, had wiped the slate clean. Any aspirant individual could ‘start clean’, unencumbered by the past, as Huygens continually evokes with the image of a literally clean start in his poems of religious repentence. But at the same time, the world could be scrubbed clean of the Dutch at any time when God chose to do so. If

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pedigree counts for nothing, then what you do in the present, and intend to do in the future, matters very much indeed. The last crucial metaphor of the Dutch Republic to be considered here is that of the family. In a sense this metaphor concludes an inevitable sequence: with the enemy and the waters at the gates, within the garden of the just and prosperous Republic, the inevitable unit of social organization and of thought about society is the family. Rather than devolving power down from a king, as observed above, the Dutch state evolved power up from the family unit, on the principle classically expressed in the first book of Aristotle’s Politics. The family was the fountain and source of authority; a microcosm of the state. Father stood at the head, with Mother as his principal lieutenant, subordinate but with a proper authority of her own. Then came children and servants: figures on mean household size suggest remarkably few of either, by the standards of other early modern nations; consequently, they would appear to have held a significantly high value as individuals. It was the particular job of the household to create order, dignity and cleanliness out of the potential chaos of human life in crowded towns: one expression of this is the way in which responsibility for the cleanliness of the street, as well as of the house, devolved upon the household. Huygens, incidentally, demonstrates that he shares this national interest in cleanliness by discussing his ideas for the cleaning of London’s streets with King Charles (see Appendix ii). The epicentre of dirt, disorder and raw appetite within the household is, of course, the human child: a paradox which Dutch thinkers of the seventeenth century took very seriously. A member of Huygens’ circle, Jan van Beverwijk of Dordrecht, remarks that ‘Republics that set most store by their good citizens give most attention to the upbringing of their children’. By the standards of other nations, many elite Dutch men spent a positively unnatural amount of time with their own children. Constantijn Huygens’ own father, at a time when he was actively engaged in one of the most onerous jobs at the Court of the stadhouder, undertook his sons’ early education himself: it is probably true to say that he saw his efforts on the national and domestic scale as macrocosmic and microcosmic expressions of the same constellation of virtues. Constantijn, in turn, was to do the same. The inculcation of a civic sensibility was so important it had to be done by those who felt it most acutely; it should not be entrusted to outsiders. The family is a microcosm of the state, and on its success in the processing of human raw material into responsible individuals, the collective physical and social survival ultimately depends. Throughout his works, concern with family and children is perhaps the subject, after religion, to which Huygens

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devotes his most intense attention. The Day’s Work, which after the death of Huygens’ wife turns itself naturally into a lament and her great memorial, centres on the quotidian, on death breaking the ordered progress of the household and its day; many of Huygens’ poems focus particularly on the education of his sons, including the moving Latin epigram ‘The Lake’ (no. 17); one of Huygens’ chief prose works, the Latin Autobiography was written for the instruction of his sons. In many other poems (Hofwijk and ‘Again on Painting’, nos. 30 and 33) the idea of the household and the family, the continuance of the nation through the continuance of the family, is subtly omnipresent. It is significant that the first sacrifice which Huygens offers to the suffering Christ in ‘Good Friday’ (no. 20) is that, literally, of ‘my hearth and my house’, the central element of his own life.

Constantijn Huygens As might be expected of a man who seems effortlessly to command the full range of humanist skills and concerns, Huygens was the child of educated and internationalist parents, who had played no small part in the formation of the Dutch republic. His father, Christiaan Huygens, was born in 1551, the youngest of the five sons of Cornelis Huygens of Ter Heide, near Breda, in Brabant. His grandmother, Geertruyd Bax, was also from a distinguished Brabant family conspicuous for its service to the house of Nassau. Christiaan read law at Douai, then took a position serving the Chancellor of Brabant. In 1578, when he was twenty-seven, he became one of the four personal secretaries of William of Orange-Nassau (‘William the Silent’: 1533-1584). This put him at the absolute centre of the Dutch struggle for independence. After William’s assassination, Christiaan Huygens continued to be a man of considerable importance in the life of the Republic, since he then became one of the five secretaries to the Raad van State (State Council), an advisory body to the Staten-Generaal, which played an important part in the Treaty of Nonsuch, to give England some (temporary) say in Dutch affairs in return for military aid against the King of Spain (Parker 1977, pp. 217 and 242-43; Israel 1995, pp. 219-30; 293). From 1585 to 1587 this governing body had Elizabeth’s favourite Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as its president. It consisted of Maurits of Nassau and his cousin Willem Lodewijk, twelve delegates from the provincial States, and other principal office-holders. It also included two English members, one of whom was Sir Thomas Bodley, far better known as the creator of the Bodleian Library in the University

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of Oxford. Thus, Christiaan Huygens was brought into contact with the English from a very early stage in his career. In August 1592, in his fortieth year, Christiaan married the thirty-oneyear-old Suzanna Hoefnagel, youngest daughter of Jacques Hoefnagel and Elisabeth Vezeler. The Hoefnagels were a rich family of merchants and painters originating from Antwerp, who had arrived in Holland as refugees. Their first child, Maurits, was born on 12 May 1595, and their second, Constantijn, was born on 4 September 1596. His name, like that of his older brother, was chosen for political reasons. Maurits was named in compliment to the House of Orange. Constantijn’s reflects Christiaan’s birth in a village within the jurisdiction of the city of Breda, in Brabant, a city which was one of the staunchest supporters of the House of Orange in its struggle against Spain, and which had as a result acquired a reputation for unparallelled constancy. Christiaan, writing to the Burgomasters and Councillors of Breda, declared that ‘in view of their worshipful Constancy’, he wished his son ’to bear the memory thereof in his name’ (Bachrach 1962, p. 35). Both names therefore underscore Christiaan’s faithful service to the Dutch state; and that of Constantijn also reveals the personal quality which he most valued. Constantijn Huygens’ very name inscribes him in the emergence of the Republic, and he demonstrates throughout his oeuvre his awareness that this act of naming was meaningful, not arbitrary. It is also very clear that this meaning is one which he accepted into the definition of his own life and its significance, not merely one which he felt his father imposed on him. Christiaan’s family was completed by four daughters following each other in quick succession, Elisabeth (b. 1598), Geertruyd (b. 1599), Catharina (b. 1601), and Constantia (b. 1602). Elizabeth and Catharina died young, at fourteen and sixteen, respectively, but Geertruyd and Constantia lived on: Constantijn had an affectionate relationship with all of them, and sincerely mourned the death of Catharina, which occurred during his first visit to England. Like a number of sixteenth-century fathers of humanist tendencies, Christiaan took a personal and conscientious interest in his sons’ education (it is not clear whether he concerned himself in the same way with his daughters, whose education was perhaps supervised by their mother). The boys were taught Latin by means of a rhymed grammar which he had compiled himself. He is also known to have owned a copy of the 1571 edition of The Scholemaster by Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth i, and also another English educational work, the Arte of Rhetorique (anonymous) in the 1584 edition. It may be worth noting that the Arte of Rhetorique gives an account of a central part of the Renaissance

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educational programme, the Art of Memory: the technique for building an artificial and extensive system of memorization, which gave the humanists their awesome, if schematic, powers of recall. This educational foundation inevitably leaves traces in the poems; Hofwijk on some levels cannot avoid becoming a palace of memory as well as a microcosm (see Appendix iii). The point of departure of most of the religious sonnets seems to lie in techniques of visualization analogous to those of Jesuit meditation. The English strain in Constantijn’s education is therefore clearly evident even from his schoolbooks. He also learned French thoroughly, beginning at the age of seven. The first professional tutor of Maurits and Constantijn, Johannes Brouart, took up his post when they were nine and eight, respectively, and Christiaan insisted that lessons should be held exclusively in French. Brouart left eighteen months later. His place was taken by two instructors, Jacobus Anraet and Johannes Dedel (Dedel was part of the household from 1606 to 1613, though Anraet, like Brouart, only stayed for eighteen months). Now lessons had to be held in Latin. At thirteen, Constantijn began to learn Greek. In 1612, when he was seventeen, a fourth tutor entered the boys’ lives, George Eglisham: a Scot, a Latin poet, a doctor of medicine, and a patriotic controversialist, dedicated to the support of the theological views of James vi and i, who came to The Hague from Paris. The curriculum at this point broadened to include Spanish, and perhaps English, logic, physics, riding, dancing, wrestling and swimming. Constantijn also began Italian in 1614, when James i’s special envoy to Holland, Sir Henry Wotton, arrived at The Hague accompanied by an Italian protegé, Giovanni Francesco Biondi, and found himself a near neighbour of the Huygens family. The somewhat Anglophile Christiaan promptly made friends with Wotton’s household, and one outcome was Biondi’s offer of Italian lessons for the young Constantijn; a further indication, if any were needed, of Christiaan’s tendency to seize on anything which might advance or extend his sons’ intellectual horizons and international contacts. Constantijn’s projected future as a cultivated and international figure was also encouraged by more direct methods. When he was fifteen, his father took him along on a trip to Brussels. They stayed in the house of a well-known history-painter, Raphael Coxie (who may, perhaps, have become known to them through the artistic connections of the Hoefnagel family), a visit which was commemorated by a portrait of young Constantijn (the first of many). But apart from going out to see the world, Constantijn was in a position where a good deal of the world came to him. The family home in The Hague was also quite obviously chosen for more than its merely domestic virtues. In 1614, Christiaan moved from his house in Nobelstraat

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to the Voorhout, near the dwelling of the stadhouder Maurits (now the Mauritshuis); something of a diplomat’s quarter. The establishment of friendly relations with Sir Henry Wotton’s household has already been mentioned, but the other neighbours included François van Aerssen, who, as we shall see later, was to give young Constantijn one of his first positions of responsibility (Worp 1918, pp. 10-11). All this education and forethought was, in Constantijn’s case, being lavished on an intrinsically gifted and precocious child. He was only two when he startled his mother by repeating after her Clement Marot’s rhymed version of the Ten Commandments: she had doubtless hoped that he would learn them, but can hardly have expected such a rapid success. Constantijn’s earliest surviving Latin verse dates from 1607, when he was only twelve. His father’s concern to push this very talented son as hard as possible is evident: this and subsequent short poems repeatedly state that Christiaan had demanded them from him. His education in other aspects of humanist culture was not neglected. He must have shown his interest in music at a very early age, for he was learning to play the zither at the age of five. He had a few lessons on the bass viol when he was six (an instrument from which he derived great pleasure in later life). He started the lute at seven, and the organ and clavecin at ten (perhaps because only then were his hands big enough to manage the keyboard). This concern for music was not clandestine or incidental, but part of his father’s plan for the boys’ development: Constantijn’s autobiography preserves a vignette of Christiaan helping his sons to learn musical scales on the buttons of his doublet (Bachrach 1962, p. 45). By the age of twenty, Constantijn’s abilities as an executant musician were virtually on a professional level: he was, for instance, able to play his viol with ‘some English noblemen, great experts on the instrument, who were living next door in the household of Henricus Wottonius’ without disgracing himself (Bachrach 1962, p. 67). His interest in music went as far as actual composition: in a letter dated 19 March 1676 (Huygens 1917, pp. 374-75), he claims to have composed 769 pieces, only a fraction of which survives, most notably the collection entitled Pathodia Sacra et Profana (1647: see Huygens 1957). He regarded the musical culture of the Netherlands as extremely unsophisticated, and instead sought inspiration and comments on his own compositions from the numerous composers and musicians he corresponded with all over the continent of Europe. His sensitivity to music is witnessed throughout his work (and often appears in the poems), but is particularly clear from an anecdote in his treatise on the use and mis-use of the organ in Dutch churches:

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I must openly admit what happened to me unexpectedly in England, when, during the singing of the psalm after an afternoon sermon, I was so moved by it that I would wish from the bottom of my heart that my soul might always be lifted so far from the earth (Huygens 1964, p. 73).

His English experience must have contrasted sharply with the Dutch Protestant practice of communal unaccompanied psalm singing, which Huygens abhorred. Huygens’ awareness of the visual arts is also an important part of his character, and one which he seems to have derived from his mother’s side of the family. Several of the Hoefnagels were artists, notably the miniaturist Joris Hoefnagel, Constantijn’s great-uncle, who travelled and sketched in England in the 1570s (his most important work was illustrating Abraham Ortelius’s six books of Civitates Orbis Terrarum, a sort of early travel-guide or account of foreign peoples and places). Constantijn learned sketching from Joris Hoefnagel’s son Jacob (Huygens 1987, pp. 69- 73) and owned a manuscript treatise on the art of miniature-painting, full of practical hints and professional tricks of technique, quite possibly by Jacob (KB MS xlvii, ff. 592-601; published in De Heer 1988, pp. 53-62). He also bought an English painters’ manual, A Tracte Containing the Arte of Curious Paintinge, translated from the Italian by Lamazzo, published in Oxford in 1598, which suggests that his interest in drawing was considerably more than casual and focused on acquiring practical skills, not merely on connoisseurship. He learned to draw competently and make watercolour sketches. His oilpainting was limited to clandestine dabbling, because it was so time-consuming a craft that his father would not have approved, but he was capable enough in watercolours to present sketches with confidence: he mentions in his autobiography that he distributed drawings as mementoes among his English friends. A silverpoint selfportrait from an Album Amicorum survives, dated ‘Londini, Juno 1622’ (printed in Strengholt 1987, p. 42); technically quite accomplished and expressive, it is pleasantly amateur rather than professional, but certainly not embarrassing. Constantijn’s formal education extended beyond the formidable grounding received in his father’s house. He went up to the university of Leiden in 1616, at the age of twenty-one, and spent three terms there. A laconic diary-entry for 20 May 1616 records Leidam – ars mem. semina ling. Angl.cae. Dechiffrere varie exercui.

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So his studies in Leiden included the Art of Memory (which, as suggested earlier, he must have begun under his father’s tuition). He started English (semina: ‘seeds’, suggests that he was still learning the rudiments rather than polishing an already sophisticated command of the language). He was also taught to crack codes. This last, together with the stress on the acquisition of modern languages in his education, suggests that the overall thrust of Christiaan’s intentions for his son was that he should follow him in the service of the state, perhaps as an ambassador. Creating and deciphering documents in code is directly an aspect of Renaissance statecraft, and therefore sheds a particular light on an educational programme which might otherwise be seen simply as the creation of a well-rounded individual. Even his command of the arts of music and painting were not merely private recreation; they gave him straightforward means to ingratiate himself effortlessly with the powerful, and to ensure that he was remembered as an individual. The main focus of Constantijn’s brief experience of university life was, however, the study of law, which had become the usual course to prepare for a career in the service of the state. He and his brother both made the acquaintance of an important Dutch humanist scholar, Daniel Heinsius (a friend of their father’s: see poem no. 4), as well as a number of friends of their own age, in Constantijn’s case, an interestingly international group (Worp 1918, p. 11-12). The fact that he stayed in Leiden for only fourteen months should not be interpreted to mean that he did not take a degree, as would have been the case in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Rather, it should be interpreted as a testimony to the impressiveness of his intellectual training at the hands of his father, and the speed at which he could absorb information, since he underwent a public, oral examination on 1 August 1617, disputing De Fidejussoribus in front of a panel headed by Professor Cornelis van Swanenburg, and passed. Thereafter, he continued his training in law in a less theoretical way. His father sent him for private tuition to a famous Dutch advocate, Antonie de Huybert, at Zierikzee, who worked him hard and taught him a great deal about the practice of law and also some mathematics (a discipline for which, the reader may be relieved to know, the offensively polymathic Constantijn displayed little aptitude). Law remained both a professional necessity and a personal interest throughout his life. He owned, at the time of his death, 249 legal books, covering everything from Roman law to contemporary analyses of controversial issues. In 1618, Constantijn’s intensive study of law was pleasantly interrupted when he was offered his first opportunity for independent foreign travel. He had a chance to visit England in the entourage of the cultivated Sir Dudley

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Carleton, Sir Henry Wotton’ s successor as special envoy to The Hague, who had been a friend of the Huygens family since 1611. London proved to contain a number of old friends; friends of his father’s, others met in The Hague or in Leiden, including his old tutors Johannes Brouart and George Eglisham; Biondi, who had taught him Latin, and Cesare Calandrini, one of his closest friends from Leiden. His resourcefulness in building on and extending this network of contacts is visible even at this early age. Apart from London, he was able to visit both Oxford, so strongly associated with his father’s old friend Sir Thomas Bodley, which he honoured with an encomiastic poem in Latin (still preserved in the Bodleian library), and Cambridge, which was at this time an important centre for Protestant theology, and hence of particular interest to him. Remembering his visit to Oxford in his Sermones, he addresses Bodley in person: Iuvit et Oxonii sacros invisere colles... Et pluteos, Bodleie, tuos, et millibus istis Millia librorum generosis addita donis It was a joy both to see the holy hills of Oxford... and your shelves, Bodley, and the thousands of books added to those thousands of generously bestowed gifts (Huygens 1898, pp. 402-7).

The diplomatic usefulness of his musical training was also displayed during this visit to England. He had the chance to meet James i when the King visited the ambassador of the Dutch Republic, Noel de Caron. Huygens was, of course, presented as Sir Dudley’s protegé, and was also able to provide the customary musical background during the King’s dinner, and he pleased him so much that James commanded the young Dutchman to perform for him again at Bagshot on subsequent nights (Bachrach 1962, pp. 139-40). The visit to England was curtailed after Huygens received the news of his sister Catharina’s death. He returned to the Netherlands at the end of 1618, and found his father under pressure not only from personal grief, but also on account of a political and theological crisis. Clearly, times were not propitious for further travelling. Constantijn loyally supported his father and the house of Orange against their opponents, and it was obviously sensible for him to think in terms of staying in Holland at least for the present. His social and personal involvement with his own countrymen was considerably enhanced when he became independently involved with Dutch literary life. Susanna Huygens took her sons and daughters to Amsterdam in February 1619 for a family wedding-party. Among his Hoefnagel relations and their

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Amsterdam connections, he encountered Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, who was a central figure in the literary life of the Netherlands at that time. He also met Anna, oldest daughter of Roemers Visscher, and immediately entered into poetic correspondence with her. Visscher (who has already been mentioned as the author of an emblem-book) had two daughters who were both writers of real ability: Anna and Maria Tesselschade. They were central to what used to be known as the Muiden Castle group (the Muiderkring, after Hooft’s official residence at Muiden Castle). Another female member of the group was the singer Francisca Duarte, daughter of Gaspar Duarte, a cultivated Antwerp Sephardi. Huygens found himself welcomed into this literary society, in which elegant and mostly young people sang, played instruments, engraved glasses and exchanged poems in a variety of languages. It is clear from Huygens’ poems that he found meeting with the literati of the Republic intensely enjoyable, and also the foundation of firm and sincere friendships which were to shape his adult life. Without being in love with Anna or Tesselschade, he cared very much about them both: Tesselschade’s later conversion to Catholicism, for example, was a cause of very real grief to him (see no. 24). The principal poetic reflex of this ‘golden age’ in Huygens’ life is his long poem, Batava Tempe (no. 3). The whole concept of this poem is informed by the idea of the earthly paradise. The Vale of Tempe (in Thessaly) was held in antiquity to be the most beautiful spot on earth. Huygens, a great lover of gardens as his later life was to show, represents the ‘Hollandse Tuin’ – in actuality the avenues of limes in the Voorhout of The Hague, as an achieved perfection, a second Tempe. But it is significant and, as we saw, characteristically Dutch and very distinct from the usual European-Baroque garden poem that Huygens is choosing to celebrate the public and communal nature of this Arcadia. At the end of 1621, Huygens paid a second visit to England. On this occasion, he was knighted by James i at Royston and was thereafter entitled to be known as ‘Sir Constantine’, a title in which he took a certain pleasure: he put eques (‘knight’) on the title-pages of his subsequent publications. It was most likely during this visit, in 1622, that Huygens met John Donne, by then Dean of St Paul’s, in London at the house of the Killigrews (Sir Robert Killigrew had Dutch connections and was to be British ambassador to the States General in 1626). In February 1624, Christiaan Huygens died. This marks a turning point in Huygens’ life. He had been, by any standards, a diligent and serious-minded young man, but he had allowed himself a certain amount of leisure, ‘making contacts’ and living a pleasant, but somewhat unfocused life. He had not

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shouldered the full weight of adult responsibility. Only a year separated him from Maurits, his elder brother, now the head of the family. Huygens’ professional life has hardly been mentioned so far. It is, in a sense, rather obscure. On his return from England he became the private secretary of Aerssens van Sommelsdyk, his father’s erstwhile neighbour in the Voorhout, and travelled with him to Venice, where he was now the Dutch ambassador. This might perhaps be seen as an apprenticeship: it was certainly over quite soon, since he was home by August 1620. In 1621, at the age of 26, he became the secretary of the Dutch embassy to England, where he encountered Raphael Thorius, Francis Bacon and Cornelius Drebbel, among others. This is a further indication of the way that he was increasingly being seen as worthy of positions of trust. Huygens’ principal work throughout his life was, in effect, what he was trained for practically from birth: a career as, in the best possible sense, a courtier. His basic character and training between them had rendered him trustworthy, multilingual and politically adroit. In 1625, he became the private secretary to the stadhouder Frederik Hendrik, a position which he continued to hold under William ii and William iii. Such a post might seem to mean anything or nothing, but for a man as gifted as Huygens, it offered enormous opportunities. He acted as the agent of the stadhouder in ways which were ill-defined, but which were both confidential and responsible. He was always, perhaps uncomfortably at times, a servant of the House of Orange rather than of the state. His duties were certainly onerous: during the lifetime of Frederik Hendrik, he spent part of every summer in the army camp with his master (Geyl 1961, p. 233). In Dagwerck (no. 14, ll. 381-416 and passim) Huygens evokes vividly, and obviously from firsthand narration, the terrors and atrocities of the Spanish wars). One indication of Huygens’ increased seriousness after his father’s death was his courtship of, and marriage to, Suzanna van Baerle (b. 1599), daughter of Jan Hendrikszn van Baerle and Jacomina Hoon. She was the daughter of a cultivated, humanist family, and the marriage fixed him firmly in the Dutch cultural elite; educated, graceful, internationalist in sympathy, but firmly confident in its own achievement and abilities. They were married on 6 April 1627. As a married man, Huygens was at the centre of a rich and diverse circle. He continued to be very friendly with Hooft and his other friends from his circle; he kept up his contacts with England. It was one such acquaintance in England who sent him, in 1630, a manuscript copy of a number of poems by his acquaintance John Donne. (Huygens’ translations of these are discussed and quoted in Appendix iii.) At this time, he also began a relationship, mostly by correspondence, with the French philosopher

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René Descartes (the bulk of the Huygens-Descartes correspondence dates to 1640-44), and he extended patronage to Rembrandt and corresponded with him. (Rembrandt later painted a portrait of Maurits Huygens, though he never painted Constantijn himself). One of Huygens’ most personally significant projects as a young adult was the creation of the two houses which were mentioned earlier: his house and garden in The Hague (1634: plans and elevations are shown in Strengholt, pp. 62-63) and later his villa suburbana, his country retreat, Hofwijk (built 1639-42). Both were, in a classically humanist way, informed and guided by ideas; and in a classically Dutch way, informed and guided by Dutch principles of comfort and convenience far in advance of those of contemporary Europe. He sought the assistance in these enterprises of Jacob van Campen (1595-1657), the foremost Dutch classical architect of his time and a painter, responsible both for the Mauritshuis in The Hague (1633) and for the Amsterdam Town Hall (1648-1655; see no. 35). It was Van Campen who painted the remarkable double-portrait of ‘two unpaired hands holding a music sheet’ recently identified as representing Huygens with his wife Suzanne van Baerle shortly after their marriage (see Held 1991; Noske 1992). Van Campen was also deeply interested in gardens: the most important of his garden-designs to survive is the terraced amphitheatre garden which he built at Cleves in the 1650s for Prince Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, a garden-layout whose influence on subsequent developments in European gardening is only now being recognised. The diverse happiness of Huygens’ married life came to an abrupt end on 10 May 1637 with the death of Suzanna. Their life together, as Huygens’ poems attest, had been singularly happy; his life of public honour and commitment was complemented and made whole by his life within the family. They had had five children, Constantijn, Christiaan, Lodewijk, Philips and Suzanna, in ten years. The birth of the last child, and only daughter, on 13 March, left the mother fatally ill. Huygens lamented his wife in the long, complex poem The Day’s Work. A typically Dutch aspect of this poem is the unease which it expresses in prosperity; also very Dutch is the expression of strong personal feeling through what is, at times, startlingly quotidian imagery: the subtitle of the poem – ‘The Order of the House’ – is moving, far from bathos. Many elements of the poem are perfectly within the conventions of the early modern elegy, but there is a level of memorialization of the mundane and domestic, as well as an unrestrained expression of personal loneliness, which looks forward to the poetic modes of a far later period. For ten years, Huygens’ life had been virtually perfect: he had been professionally secure, personally happy, his children had prospered, and

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there had been no apparent cause for anxiety. Rather than simply identifying himself as one of the favoured children of the gods, his response was to assume that his felicity would end, as it did with his wife’s death. Both his married happiness and its end find their memorial in The Day’s Work. Thereafter, Suzanna’s children were at the emotional centre of Huygens’ private life. As his own father had done, he took the greatest care over their education and personal development. He spent hours each day with them, and undertook a substantial part of their early education. He wrote a large number of poems to and about them. His Use and Mis-use of the Organ rather endearingly drags in a dubiously relevant story about the lispings of his infant daughter, suggesting that he was deeply involved with his children to a degree uncharacteristic of early modern fatherhood, even in the Republic: Recently a child under three years old [Suzanna was born in 1637] was taken from its cradle to be entertained by our fiery celebration of the defeat of the Spanish fleet [1639], and is known to have said, ‘’Tis vewy petty, but I must seep’ [’t is heel faey, maer ick moet sapen] (Huygens 1964, p. 95).

One distraction from his personal grief which Huygens allowed himself was the creation of his country house, Hofwijk, which has already been mentioned. Two years into his widowerhood, he bought himself a patch of ground in Voorburg, and with Van Campen’s assistance, began to plan a new house. The ‘country retreat’, the buitenhuis, was dear to the hearts of Dutch literary men: Jacob Cats also built an elegant house, Zorghvliet, and wrote poems about it. Just as with the house-and-garden layout of his home in The Hague, that of Hofwijk was based on an interpretation of the classical principles laid down by Vitruvius. Hofwijk is the more remarkable of the two. (Further discussion of Hofwijk is to be found in Appendix iii.) His life as a widower was not without its consolations. His friends remained staunch: Tesselschade (herself now widowed) re-entered his life in the 1640s; they became close friends, and even flirted a little for mutual amusement, though there was no romantic interest between them. Her conversion to Catholicism early in 1642 caused him considerable distress, reflected in a number of poems and letters (see no. 24). Caspar van Baerle (Barlaeus) continued to be closely involved with him. In September 1642, however, his older brother Maurits, who as secretary of the Raad van State had had a career somewhat parallel to his own, died, leaving him as head of the family. At this point in his life, though he continued to write poetry,

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he did so mostly in Latin, and published a collection of his Latin poetry, Momenta Desultoria, in 1644. In the 1640s, Huygens’ life was complicated by the English Civil War. He had many English friends, and he felt a personal loyalty to James i which arose from the brief personal contact between them. It is probably true to say that if the Stuart view of monarchic government had been presented to him as an abstract intellectual problem, he would have found little to recommend it, but men’s dealings with other men are not necessarily governed by such theoretical considerations. Huygens was a man of strong personal loyalties; he was a Dutch patriot, to be sure, but above all, he was born and bred a personal, confidential servant to successive princes of the house of Orange-Nassau. Loyalty was the structuring principle of his life, as constanter (steadfast through thick and thin) was its watchword. Half an hour’s private conversation with James in 1618, and his knighthood, gave the Stuarts a personal claim on him. He had also met the young prince Charles on that first visit to England: he had been with his father on the cherry-picking party at Caron House, and subsequently Huygens had gone on royal hunting-expeditions, which always showed the Stuarts at their most relaxed and genial: he remembered one such hunt in a letter home as ‘le plus plaisant jour que j’aye eu en ce païs’ (Bachrach 1962, p. 161). In 1641, this sentimental feeling for the Stuarts was consolidated when Mary, the Princess Royal, married William ii, and the daughter of Charles thus became directly a part of his primary loyalty to Orange-Nassau. England began its final slide into Civil War late in 1641, and almost immediately, the English royal family sought to involve the Dutch in their misadventures. In February of 1642, Henrietta Maria and Princess Mary left Dover for Holland, accompanied by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, son of Charles’s sister, the Queen of Bohemia, intending to secure financial and military help from Fredrik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, her daughter’s fatherin-law. Elizabeth of Bohemia herself had lived mainly in The Hague since the 1620s. The official Dutch position, articulated by Heenvliet (later married to Huygens’ friend Lady Stanhope), the Dutch ambassador to London, was to counsel moderation and concession, and to keep out of the impending war as far as possible: many intelligent citizens of the United Provinces by this time began to wish, quite simply, that the Orange-Stuart marriage had never taken place. Queen Henrietta Maria, always headstrong, was if anything more absolutist than her husband and was passionately convinced that the House of Orange owed them support. Elizabeth of Bohemia was simultaneously machinating to keep her younger son Rupert out of harm’s way: she appealed to the Venetian envoy in the Netherlands in 1642 to

Introduction

37

recommend him for a place in the armies of the Serene Republic, too late, as it turned out, since he had already committed himself to the service of King Charles. Huygens was in the entourage of Prince Frederik Hendrik, when he formally met Queen Henrietta Maria in Amsterdam on 20-22 May 1642 (Worp 1918, p. 59). But the parliament of the United Provinces, the States General, came out openly on the side of Parliament, which meant that the Prince of Orange was not in a position to offer the English any real help. Since Henrietta Maria had failed to understand the relationship between her husband and the English Parliament, she is not likely to have grasped the constitutional relationship between the stadhouder and the States General. Rupert (and his brother Maurits) returned to England in August 1642 with a force of professional soldiers, mostly English and Scots rather than Dutch. Henrietta Maria, still agitating on the Continent, was able to buy ammunition, but the Dutch States obstructed the sailing of the ships which carried it. The States paid marked attention to an envoy sent by Parliament, Walter Strickland, to the fury of both the Queen and Sir William Boswell, who had represented King Charles in Holland since 1627. Interestingly, Huygens clearly had friends on both sides, since he seems to have moved in the same circles as Walter Strickland (he was friendly in 1645 with an English widow in The Hague, Anna Morgan, who is teasingly described by a friend as ‘vostre pretendue maistresse’ (Worp 1918, pp. 64-65), but in 1646, she became Mrs Strickland). However, another friend of his, his ‘dear and most worthie scholler’ Utricia Ogle (dedicatee of his Pathodia), was one of Princess Mary’s maids of honour. Like his country, Huygens seems to have maintained a position of consistent if strained civility to both sides. It was difficult for the English to accept such a neutral position, since Dutch support was seen by both sides as crucial: Dutch command of the sea meant that if the United Provinces became actively hostile to Charles, he could not possibly hope for arms from Europe. Both sides, meanwhile, were buying up arms and ammunition from the Dutch, and recruiting experienced professional soldiers. It was at this time that Huygens would appear to have made another important, if elusive, contact, also distinguished at this time by his aloofness from both sides of the conflict, the English poet Andrew Marvell. (Huygens’ probable relationship with Marvell is discussed more fully in Appendix iii.) From Huygens’ point of view, the unfolding events of the 1640s must have intermittently appeared as nightmarish. As the confidential servant of the House of Orange with the most extensive English connections (and probably the best spoken English), he must have been involved in some extremely delicate problems, trying to negotiate between the Prince of

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Orange and the States, between the Queen and the Prince of Orange, and, doubtless, coping as best he might with messages from old friends begging him to use his influence. As a Calvinist and a republican, he must have had a very considerable basic sympathy with the Parliamentarian point of view, but he was personally committed to the Stuarts. Henrietta Maria returned to England in February 1643, which must have been something of a relief for all concerned, accompanied by loans of about a hundred and eighty thousand pounds, raised in the United Provinces and the Spanish Netherlands on the security of the Crown Jewels; several shiploads of arms; and a number of experienced professional soldiers, all sailing under the escort of the great Dutch admiral, Cornelis Tromp (A True Relation of the Queen’s Majesties Return out of Holland, York and Oxford, 1643 (Bodleian Library)). The departure of Prince Rupert and Queen Henrietta Maria must have represented a breathing-space for Huygens. Though he doubtless awaited foreign news with considerable anxiety, the English war was not directly part of his professional concern for the next three years. But after the final defeat of the King in 1646, followed by his impeachment, trial, and eventual execution in 1649, a flood of Royalists left England, and in particular, an English court in exile established itself at The Hague. Huygens was, inevitably, very much involved with these people, many of whom were old friends. Lady Stanhope, related to his old acquaintance Sir Henry Wotton, was one such friend (see the poem addressed to her in Appendix ii). We also find him, for example, trying to help his old friend Lady Stafford (Mary Killigrew) to settle in Holland in 1655 (see Appendix ii). Amongst Huygens’ English circle in the Netherlands was Utricia Ogle, daughter of an officer in the service of the Dutch State, and herself married to Sir William Swann, who was first an officer in the Dutch army and later the English consul at Hamburg. In Huygens’ Hofwijk she appears in person as the nightingale, the latter-day Orpheus of his grove. Her skill as a singer commended her to Huygens, whose musical interests were as lively as ever, for all the distractions of the 1640s, and it was to her that he dedicated his volume of psalms and secular songs, Pathodia sacra et profana, published at Paris in 1647. In 1647, Prince Frederik Hendrik died. Huygens continued to serve as confidential secretary, though his master was now the twenty-one-year old son-in-law of Charles i, William ii. As his representative, Huygens attended the final negotiations in Brussels which ratified the 1648 Peace of Münster, by which the hostilities between Spain and the United Provinces were technically brought to a close. Huygens was fifty, and by now a man of considerable experience. It was a decade in which Huygens lost a number

Introduction

39

of old friends: Hooft in 1647, Barlaeus in 1648, Vossius, Spanheim and, even more painfully, Tesselschade in 1649. The world of his youth, and the people who remembered the pleasant days of Hooft’s circle, were gone. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that, from this point onwards in his life, his outlook was grimmer, more resigned than celebratory. Apart from an epitaph for Tesselschade, in 1649 Huygens wrote Latin verses on the execution of Charles i. He was profoundly moved by the fate of Charles. It is interesting to note that he bought the Proceeding against xxix Regicides published in 1660 (libri miscellanei in 4°, 329). He also owned a book called Pourtraiture of K. Charles (libri miscellanei in 8°, no 103), presumably one of the many editions of the quasi-hagiographic Eikon Basilike. In April 1650, he spent a week at Breda with William ii, where the stadhouder had gone to meet his brother-in-law, the uncrowned King Charles ii, during his exiled wanderings. But 1650 was to prove a year of more pressing and immediate anxieties. William ii was taken ill in October of that year, and died on the sixth of November. He was only twenty-four. Huygens wrote in his diary, ‘miserere populi huius et mei, O Magne Deus’ (‘Great God, have mercy on this people, and on me’; Worp 1918, p. 78). William iii had been born only eight days before the death of his father. The future of the House of Orange hung on the frail life of a week-old baby, and inevitably, there were years of acute anxiety ahead for Orangists such as Huygens. As far as England’s troubles were concerned, this also, of course, weakened the position of Royalists, since the House of Orange had loyally supported the Stuarts to the best of their limited ability (despite the fact that not a penny of the Princess Royal’s dowry had ever been paid), while the States General favoured Parliament. With the House of Orange in eclipse, the English exiles in Holland could look for little in the way of support. The inevitable regency obviously presented a variety of political opportunities and difficulties: the possibility of Mary Stuart as regent amongst them. Huygens intervened diplomatically with an essay, Considérations pacifiques sur la subject de la tutèle du jeusne Prince d’Orange. The dissentions within the minute court at The Hague over the charge of the infant Prince continued until 1651. Remarkably, in these years, Huygens managed to compose the vast meditative description of his country house, Hofwijk, which was completed towards the end of 1651. (Fuller discussion of this poem is to be found in Appendix iii.) The air of ease, of meditative tranquillity, which pervades the poem, was hard won from a life which, as the 1650s progressed, became for Huygens increasingly stressed and, perhaps, less and less satisfactory. He never quite recovered the assured position of mutual trust and respect which he had formerly held at court.

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His attempts to place his sons in appropriate employment were received with, at best, lukewarm encouragement from the Princely family, whereas their demands upon Huygens himself were continually growing. Huygens’ chief public occupations in the 1650s were concerned with the temporarily parlous finances of the House of Orange, financial difficulties which were worsened not only by the non-payment of Mary Stuart’s dowry, but also by her appropriation of jewels and other valuables when she departed The Hague to join her mother in Paris. He travelled constantly, and had also the worries attendent upon his attempts to place his sons in suitable careers. Christiaan, later to be celebrated as a pioneering physicist and astronomer, gave the least trouble, being devoted to his studies and single-minded in their pursuit. Constantijn junior, placed in a relatively humble post at Court since 1646, proved the hardest to advance in his profession, on account of anti-Orangist feeling and the indifference of the Princely family themselves. By 1651 Lodewijk, the third son, had embarked on a diplomatic career, in the Dutch Embassy to the English Parliament. Philips, the youngest and least obviously talented of the sons, died in 1657, while attached to a diplomatic mission to Poland and Sweden. The effect on Huygens was profound, and by September of that year he was dangerously ill. His recovery was slow, and he emerged from the illness even more sombre of mind, and more deeply committed to his Calvinist spirituality. During his father’s illness, Christiaan Huygens had undertaken the supervision of the publication of his collected poems. Korenbloemen appeared around Christmas 1657, published at The Hague (dated 1658), and prefaced by commendatory poems by Joost van den Vondel amongst others. The title which Huygens chose for the collection of his works to date is not insignificant. In full, the title reads, De Koren-Bloemen van den Heere van Zuylichem [The Cornflowers of the Lord of Zuilichem], at once discreetly aristocratic and democratically self-deprecating. The poem which Huygens wrote to explain the choice of title (no. 34) is characteristically troubled about the use and nature of poetry. The central metaphor is that the poems collected in the volume are no more than cornflowers, transient and appealing weeds, sterile if elegant, peripheral to the central business of agriculture or life, which is the cultivation of the land for food. Huygens’ own image of himself was as the farmer, the public servant, the productive worker: he claims the status only of an amateur poet or composer, firmly relegating his creative activities to the margins of his life. It is hard in retrospect not to regard such assertions with an anachronistic scepticism, to read them as a purely conventional combination of aristocratic disclaimer and Calvinist anxiety, but in the case of Huygens we might do well to respect

Introduction

41

their sincerity. As a man of his nation and time, involved in the common enterprise of the Dutch Republic, anxieties about the misuse of God-given time for any other purpose than contribution to the common good, even to common survival, may have been possessed of the most pressing reality. The year 1660 was an active one in both public and private life for Huygens: considerable personal happiness came from the marriage of his daughter Susanna with her cousin Philips Doublet, son of Huygens’ sister Geertruyd. Some satisfaction, and the lowering at least of tension at court, came from the Restoration of Charles ii to the throne of England: Huygens wrote a suitable, loyal and conventional poem of congratulation to the restored King, published in a pamphlet in 1660. The feud between Princess Mary and her mother-in-law Amalia van Solms, widow of Frederik Hendrik, which had taken so much of Huygens’ time and energy in the early 1650s, had consequences which were to occupy him almost exclusively in the 1660s. In brief, at the height of the dissention of the fifties, when Mary Stuart had removed herself to the French court, the question of the status of the principality of Orange in the south of France had been raised. This principality, which had accrued by inheritance to the house of Nassau in the sixteenth century, had remained under the sovereignty of the House of Orange-Nassau in the seventeenth. The end result of the feud between Princess Mary and the Dutch court was the intervention of the young Louis xiv at the instigation of the Princess. Orange was invaded by France in 1660, and the greater part of Huygens’ diplomatic activities in the following years were directed towards an attempted resolution of the problem. He spent long, unproductive months in Paris in negotiations concerning the status of the principality, punctuated by two brief missions to London to obtain King Charles’ help in the matter of Orange – and to remind him of the still unpaid dowry. As he wrote from London to the Duchess of Newcastle in 1664: This is my second journey from the court of France into this within the space of but one yeare... Being now almost dispatched by his Ma.ty I am instantly tossed over again to the King of France, about whom having spent the time of above two year already and being almost grown a stranger to my own country, I dare assure your Ex.e that besides this reason the fine things I am to find at home by your favour will spurr my diligence... (Huygens 1917, pp. 88-89).

A temporary resolution of the question was reached in 1665, and Huygens acted as representative of the House of Orange in the symbolic repossession of the principality. He took a long route homewards, through Switzerland

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and the German states, where, between Freiburg and Breisach, he composed the most heartfelt and personal of his many birthday poems (no. 38). In sharp contrast to the outwardly assured and successful progress of the ambassadorial retinue, the ambassador himself is silently longing for death, praying for release from the fatigues and anxieties of his life: Once more September comes, and the fourth day, Day when I first saw day. How many more Septembers, and fourth days, Lord, will you suffer me? I ask no more: the distance that I’ve come Is no unreasonable one.

Whatever his private wishes may have been at this time, Huygens had yet another decade of active public life to complete. He was, for example, instrumental in the construction of a paved road from The Hague to Scheveningen, which was completed and celebrated in an extended set of verses in 1667. He continued to write, mostly epigrams and short poems, which were gathered and added to a re-issue of Korenbloemen in 1672. The ’60s were for the United Provinces years of intermittent war with England, and the continued degeneration of relations with the House of Stuart. In 1670 Huygens made a last, disillusioning journey to England in the retinue of the young Prince William iii (the future King of England). The royal visit itself went off well enough, but when the Prince returned to Holland in the spring of 1671, Huygens remained in London with the thankless brief of attempting to extract from the English court and parliament some part of the debts which they still owed to the House of Orange. This project was unsuccessful, and even worse, Huygens became embarrassingly involved with a new generation of the family of Killigrew, his old friends from the earlier London visits, and he was glad to return to The Hague in October of that year. On the voyage home, he wrote one of his most substantial poems of the decade, ‘Consolation of the Eyes, to the Lady of St Annaland’ (no. 39) addressed to his sister Geertruyd, who was going blind. It is an extraordinary production: half Calvinist fatalism, half ingenious, tortured argument in the style which he had admired long ago in the poems of Donne. The core of the poem, however, is unambiguous under the vortex of argument and exhortation: a desire for release, ever more urgent with every passing year, a feeling that he had outlived the Europe of his youth, that he had outlived his contemporaries and his natural span of life.

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Such sombre reflections can only have intensified in the terrible year for the United Provinces which followed. The events of the rampjaar are too well known to require exposition at length here: the two-pronged attack on the Republic by France and England, the invasion of the northern Netherlands, the humiliating losses of territory and the payment of damaging indemnity, the outbreak of mob violence and the mob murder of the Pensionary De Witt and his brother. The only consolation for an Orangist as loyal as Huygens would have lain in the assumption of powers by the young William iii and some restoration of the House of Orange to their former place of eminence in the life of the Republic. In 1672 a further expanded edition of the Korenbloemen was published. This was the last publication of his works to take place in Huygens’ lifetime. He noted, in a letter to his friend Henri de Beringhen, equerry to the King of France, written in the summer of 1675, the total output of his long life up to that time: ...large books of compositions for lute, theorbo, viola da gamba, harpsichord, and please God, for guitar... If I add to this twelve books of Latin verses that I have published, and another twenty-seven books in my mother tongue, you’ll shudder. But please remember that if you have never seen me idle or neglecting my public duties, either in the court or in the army, you may well conclude... that I have only ever... jotted down in haste that which came to me on horseback, in the carriage, when walking or dressing, etc., and so, Monsieur, you would not want to accuse me of having squandered too many precious hours (Huygens 1917, pp. 363-64).

The tone of retrospection in this letter, the sense of beginning to draw up the final accounts is, in fact, delusive. When he wrote it, Huygens had twelve more years to live, even if they were to be naturally less active than those which had gone before. Again in his birthday poem for the September of 1675, Huygens prays for release, asking God ever more urgently to let him die. He lived on, in The Hague and at Hofwijk, with his friends and his family about him. He continued to perform a few official functions, such as attending the state funeral of the great Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, at Amsterdam in 1677, as representative of the House of Orange. He rejoiced in the treaty which, in 1677, again made an alliance between the Houses of Stuart and Orange, in this generation between William iii and Mary, the daughter of James, Duke of York. This restoration of the Princely status quo of his prime clearly afforded him much pleasure, but, with the fortunes of the Princely house again in the ascendant, his prayer, confided to his journal

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in the words of the Nunc Dimittis, is again for release: ‘Or laisse, Créateur, en paix ton serviteur.’ Huygens’ relationship with William iii was a great deal more distant than with his predecessors. Though not personally involved in the diplomatic activities surrounding the treaty with England and the conclusion of peace with France at Nijmegen in 1678, his involvement on a personal level remained intense. It resulted in a close friendship with one of the English representatives at the peace talks, Sir William Temple. Huygens had known Temple since his days as the English ambassador to the United Provinces (1667-1670), but after the Nijmegen treaty he became on intimate terms with him, his wife, Lady Dorothy, and his sister, Lady Giffard, with all of whom he kept up a correspondence long after Temple’s return to England to join the Privy Council. (It is tempting to speculate that Temple’s garden at Sheen might have reflected some of his many visits to Hofwijk.) The last years of Huygens’ life seem on the whole to have been marked by gentle melancholy and his longing for release. His son and daughter-in-law moved away from his great house in 1680, leaving him more lonely than before. He wrote two substantial works partaking of the nature of last words: the extended Cluys-werck of 1683 and a long, autobiographical Latin poem. He wrote a few short verses to the new Princess Mary, whose gentle nature inspired an obvious affection in him, but in an English which was beginning to rust from want of use. He could still take pleasure in composing them, even though he claimed that they were the products of long nights when he could hardly sleep for pain. The last two epigrams in this selection (nos. 41 and 42) in some ways sum up the mood of Huygens’ very last years. The spontaneous offering of praise to God for the abatement of the floodwaters harks back to the central metaphor of the Republic of his youth, and holds at its core the strength of his steadfast belief in the chastising and consoling Deity of his Calvinist faith. The sour epigram on the death of the puppy is the other side of a sensibility longing entirely for an end to a protracted life: a disgust with the great men of the world whom he had served and with whom he had negotiated throughout his public life and a focus in grief only on those things nearest to the shrinking circle of his experience. Huygens died on Good Friday, the 28th of March, 1687, in his ninety-first year, having lived, as an active statesman, virtuoso, musician and poet through the whole cycle of maturing of the Dutch Republic as a unique state in Early Modern Europe, reflecting to the end the paradoxical status of his country as both a late flowering of the civic ideals of the high Renaissance and a forerunner of the liberties of the Enlightenment. While Huygens himself thought longingly of the Nunc Dimittis, it may seem to us that his

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life is better seen in terms of the Parable of the Talents. Few servants of any state can have performed their duties for so long, or with such exemplary fidelity: living his name, Constanter.

1

5

10

15

20

Doris oft herder-clachte ’t Tweede Jaer is om geloopen, Tweemael hebt ghy overcropen, Groote Meter vanden Dach, Oost en West door Zuydt en Noorden Sints ick Doris eerstmael hoorden Sints ick Doris eerstmael sach. Noch en hebb’ ick’t niet vergeten, Doris can’t oick noch wel weten Hoe die vruntschap eerst begost Die my doch zoo zeer verheughden, Die my coste zoo veel vreuchden Als zy my nu quelling cost. ’S Haechs gerucht was ick ontweken Achter ghen’ begraesde beken, Daer zoo menich eycken plant, (D’ outheyt doet ons sulcx gelooven) Heeft doen delven, heeft doen clooven Vrouw’ Jacobae eygen handt. Eenicheyt was ick gaen soecken In die doncker-groene hoecken, (Wat verandert ghy myn bloet?) Doris, ’tproeffstuck van naturen, D’alderliefste van ons bueren, Doris quamp mij te gemoet.

Cost ick seggen hoe de Mane Inde blauw verwelfde bane And’re lichten overmuyt, Dan zoude ick eerst wel vertellen Hoe dat Doris haer gesellen 30 Trotste ende tradt voor uyt.

25

1

5

10

Doris, or the Shepherd’s Complaint The second year is past and over, Twice now have you filled your measure, Measurer of all our days, East and west and south and northward, Since I first heard Doris speaking, Since the first time I her saw. And still I have not forgotten, Doris knows as well as I do, How our friendship first began. Friendship that has greatly pleased me, Which has given as much pleasure, As it gives me sorrow now.

I’d escaped the bustling city, Fled beyond grass-bordered waters Where unnumbered oak trees grow, 15 Ancients would have us believe that Each was planted, each was set by Lady Jacoba’s own hand. 20

Solitude I went to seek there In green darkness of the branches (How you set my pulse a-race!) Doris, masterpiece of nature, Best-beloved of all our neighbours, Doris came towards me there.

If I could say how the moonshine In the vaulted depths of heaven Other lights of stars outshines, Then I might convey exactly How then Doris her companions 30 Rivalled, and each one outbraved.

25

48 

35

40

A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

’Tgoet geselschap dat sy leyden, Dat ick niet en socht te scheyden, Maeckte dat ick stondt van cant, Maer, O! onverwachte tyding! Doris toonde wat verblyding, Ende greep my by der handt. Herder, sprack sy, Waer wilt henen? Cont ghy U geselschap leenen Aen des’ Nymphen desen dach? Gheerne, o ghy Haeghgens eere, Zeyd’-ick, maer hier isser meere Daer ick ’t niet by halen mach.

Halen? riep sy, ende lachte, Och kindt! wist ghy myn gedachte, Dat en seydt ghy nemmermeer. 45 Hier ontrent en zyn gheen menschen Diers geselschap ick mach wenschen U en achte ick noch veel meer. 50

Voorts zoo wil ick u wel sweeren Als een Herderin’ met eeren Datter dry zyn in getal Die ick inde werelt achte, Daer ick vruntscap van verwachte, Maer U stell’ ick boven al.

Doen was ’t mynen tydt om spreken, Maer de flesch en can niet leken, Die gevult is totten top, Woorden die my meest gebraken Conden uyt den mont niet raeken 60 Blyschap stopte my de crop. 55

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35

40

Thinking not to interrupt the Sweet society they joyed in, Quietly I stood aside. Unexpected turn of fortune! On some joyful impulse, Doris Came to me and took my hand. ‘Shepherd,’ said she, ‘whither fly you? Will you not your company to My companions lend today?’ ‘Gladly,’ said I, ‘Hague’s adornment, There are others here, however, To whom I cannot compare.’

Laughing, she ‘Compare?’ repeated. ‘Child, if you could read my thinking, You would not speak thus again. 45 Hereabout there are no people Whose companionship I’d wish for: You alone esteem I higher. 50

Further, I will surely swear it As a shepherdess of honour, There are three in number here In this world that I esteem and Whose companionship I trust in: You stand first among the three.’

Then it was my turn to answer, But the bottle that is full up To the brim cannot thence flow, Words then failed me absolutely, Could not from my mouth be forced, 60 Happiness had choked me so. 55

50 

65

70

A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Plompaert, zeyde ick in myn sinnen Cont ghy nu U selfs niet winnen, Dient hier soo lang op gedocht? Hoe ick ’t keerde, hoe ick ’t wende Daer en quam niet uyt in ’t ende Dan, Och die ’t gelooven mocht! Hoe gelooven zeyde Doris Meynt ghy dat myn hert een Door is Daermen niet dan door en gaet? U hebb’ ick al lang voor desen Uyt veel duyzenden gelesen Dat en is geen kinderpraet.

Emmers zyt ghy niet te vreden Noch met woorden noch met reden, Ziet hier is het waertste pandt 75 Dat ick oyt op dezer aerde Aen myn vingeren bewaerde, Dat bewaer ick voor U handt. 80

’K hoor ghy wilt ons Dorp verlaten En gaen treden ander straten, Daer de wysheyt wordt geleert, Laet niet binnen weynich weken My te voren aen te spreken, ’Tzal U worden dan vereert.

Dat en seght ghy gheenen dooven (Ick beghost haer te gelooven) Sprack ick ende greep haer handt, Ick en zal van hier niet scheyden Zonder van u te verbeyden 90 ’Taengenaem beloofde pandt.

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‘Clown,’ I called myself within me, ‘Are you of yourself the master, Do you need to think so long?’ Through my twisting and my turning In the end, all I could utter Was ‘O that I might thus believe!’ ‘How believe,’ then answered Doris, ‘Mean you that my heart so dull is, That it will give place to none? Long before this, out of many Thousands, I had chosen you out, And this is no childish choice.

If it chance you’re not contented, Trusting neither words nor reason, Look, here is a thing of worth, 75 Which I have worn on my finger, And on earth have it most valued, I have kept it for your hand. 80

I hear you will leave our village, Make your way to other places There, where wisdom may be learned, Do not fail to come to greet me Before the next few weeks are over; By this you shall honour gain.’

‘On no deaf ears your words do fall’ (I began then to believe her), So I spoke and grasped her hand, ‘I shall not depart from this place Without begging that you give me 90 Now the promised token fine.’

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95

100

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Mynen tydt was om gecomen En myn reyse voorgenomen Die my viel al vry wat hert, Doris bleeff my in ’tgedachte Doris was’t by dach by nachte Doris lach my steedts in ’t hert. ’K gingh haer van beloofte spreken, Herder, zeyd’ sy, zoud’ ick breken Dat ick eenmael heb’ belooft? Comt ick wil U leeren melden Hoe ick wete te vergelden Die my op myn woordt gelooft.

Ziet dit rincxken heeft gheen ende Hoe men’t keere, hoe men ’t wende; D’eewicheyt moet oick zoo zyn, 105 Nu besweer’ ick u by dezen, Laet u trouwe eewich wesen, Dit is ’t teecken van de myn. 110

Waer daer langer tydt te noemen Mochten sich de menschen roemen, Zeyd’ ick, over d’eewicheyt, Langher tydt wilde ick begheeren Om U van nu aff te sweeren, Doris, myn getrouwicheyt.

Verder conden wy niet spreken, Tydt begonde my t’ ontbreken ’Tlaetste woordt was Goeden nacht, Vaert wel liefste Herderinne, Vaert wel Herder dien ick minne 120 Meerder dan ghy oyt en dacht. 115

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Time approached for my departure, Then my journey was prepared for, And I felt it weigh my heart, Doris in my thoughts remaining, Doris in my heart abiding, It was Doris night and day.

95

100

I went on to speak of promise. ‘Shepherd,’ said she, ‘should I break the Promise which I once have made? Come, I’ll teach you to acknowledge, That I know how to reward him Who’ll believe I keep my word.

See this ring, it has no ending Howsoe’er you twist and turn it: Eternity like this must be. 105 Now I swear to you upon it, That if you’ll be constant ever, This is token of my troth.’ ‘Were there longer time we could name, 110 Men indeed could boast it freely,’ Said I, ‘Of eternity. I would need to take far longer If I fully were to swear you, Doris, my fidelity.’ Further then we could not speak for Time already me was pressing. The last word there was ‘Good Night, Farewell, shepherdess so lovely.’ ‘Farewell, shepherd my beloved 120 Loved more than you think or know.’

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125

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’Tscheyden viel my seer beswaerlyck, Maer al was ick ongevaerlyck Een paer halfve Jaren wech, Brieven die met ons’ gedachten Onse herten overbrachten Vlogen dag’lijckx over wech. Lieffelycke, zoete tyden, Eerlyck aengenaem verblyden, Was daer oyt wel uws gelyck? Als ick sagh die brieven comen, Docht ick, Is een Paus van Romen Is een Koninck wel zoo ryck.

Ghy die al u beste Jaren Hebt gewentelt inde baren Van ’tonstadigh Minnen-meer 135 Ghy die Clippen, Sanden, Winden Hebbet leeren ondervinden Onder uwen blinden Heer. 140

Comt, noch moet ick u wat leeren Om u conste te vermeeren, ’Tzal U costen schad’ noch schandt, ’Tis genuchte syns gelycken Schip-breuck aen te mogen kycken Mette voeten op het landt.

Myn geluck was op het hooge En myn schaepkens op het drooge Zoo ick beter niet en docht, D’alderaengenaemste woorden Die ick van myn leven hoorden 150 Hadden my zoo verr’ gebrocht. 145

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Parting weighed then heavy on me, But though I was parted from her For about a year or so, Letters which, with our thoughts in them, Both our hearts transmitted also, Flew between us two each day. Sweet and lovely these dispatches, Splendid pleasures, much they pleased me: The world never saw their like. When I saw the letters coming, Thought I, ‘Is the Pope of Rome or Else a king as rich as I?’

You who have your best years passed Weltering in waves and billows Of the shifting sea of love, 135 You who reefs and sands and tempests Have experienced, all have learned Under rule of the blind god. 140

Come and I will teach you something Which will add unto your knowledge, And will cost no grief nor shame, It is pleasant to be like one Who looks out upon a shipwreck With his feet safe on the land.

My good fortune stood at highest, And my vessel at its safest, Better then things could not be, The sweetest of all words that ever I had heard in all my lifetime 150 Had brought me as far as this.

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155

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A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Myne Jonckheyt onervaren, Myne domme jonge jaren Conden my niet doen verstaen, Dat de vreuchden van dit leven Op het hoochste syn verheven Als sy naest ten valle staen. Nu, daer quamen niet meer brieven, Om een ander te believen Doris schreeff my niet een woordt, D’oorsaeck mocht ick niet eens weten ’Twaren voor my al secreten Maer ick had’ se haest gehoort.

Hoe en zoude ick niet hooren Dat een yeglyck quam ter ooren, Dat noch all de werelt siet? 165 Doris herte was ontsteken Hoord ick langs de velden spreken, Doris was haer eygen niet. 170

Niet haer eygen? ginck ick dencken, Zoud’ dat wel ons vruntschap crencken? Is’t hiermet alt’samen doot? Jae’t: een mensch heeft maer een herte. Neen ’t: (dus stilde ick myn smerte) De beloften zyn te groot.

Maer ick leerde haest, dat woorden En beloften zyn gheen coorden Daermen Vrouwen mede bindt. ’Khad’ myn bedd’ gemaeckt te sachte. Dus zoo droomt men heel den nachte, 180 ’S merghens vindtmen niet dan wint. 175

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In my youthful inexperience, In my foolish years of boyhood, I could not be made to see That the joys which fortune grants us Are raised up unto their highest When they’re nearest to their fall. Then there were no letters coming, To give pleasure to another: Doris sent me not a word. The cause I should not discover It was kept all secret from me, But I heard them soon enough.

How could I have failed to hear what Everybody knew already, Which the whole world plainly sees, 165 Doris’ heart had been set burning, Down the fields I heard it whispered, Doris was her own no more. 170

Not her own? then I fell thinking Should that then our friendship damage? Is our friendship at an end? Yes: we have but one heart only, No (I tried to still my pain thus): Too great were her promises.

I learned soon enough that speeches And old promises aren’t fetters With which women can be bound, I’d too soft a bed made for me, Thus men, the whole long night dreaming, 180 Find at morning nought but wind.

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A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Nu ick wil gheen oude wonden Op een nieuwe gaen doorgronden, Clachten brengen geen gemack, ’t Schreyen can geen tranen stelpen ’t Spreken can my oick niet helpen Woorden vullen gheenen sack. Doris die ick acht en eere Meer dan al des werelts eere, Doris die ick achten zal, Zoo lang ’s Hemels rondt zal dueren Zoo lang vier en twintich uren Zullen houden haer getal.

Hebt ghy emmers goet gevonden Langer niet te zyn gebonden Dan tot dat ghy beter vondt, 195 Gheerne stell’ ick my te vreden, Uwen wil is al myn reden Myn orakel uwen mondt. 200

Laet my een genucht behouwen Als ick u zal gaen aenschouwen Aen een ander handt gepaert, Dat ick dan mach overleggen Wat ick eertydts was; en seggen, Och is dat den Vrouwen aert?

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190

Now I will not try to open Old wounds and to ponder on them, For complaining brings no ease, Crying out cannot staunch our weeping, Speaking of pain cannot cure it, Words weigh nothing in the scale. Doris whom I love and honour, More respect than this world’s honour, Doris, you I’ll honour still, So long as heaven’s vault is standing, So long as hours four and twenty Make up the day’s tally still.

If by chance you’ve found it worthy Only to be bound as long as Nothing better has appeared, 195 Gladly I will rest contented, Since your will is all I wish for And my oracle your speech. 200

Let me have this satisfaction, When in future I shall see you, Your hand in another’s hand. That I then must well consider What I was before; concluding, ‘Ah, is woman’s nature thus?’

1 MS dated London, 6 July 1618 (Huygens 1892, pp. 116-22). The ‘Doris’ of the poem is most probably Dorothea van Dorp, a near neighbour of the Huygens family in the Voorhout of The Hague, and Huygens’ first love. At the end of the MS of the poem, Huygens drew a broken monogram: a ‘D’ split in two, interlaced with a ‘C’ entire, expressing his constancy and her faithlessness. 18 Lady Jacoba of Bavaria, Countess of Holland 1417-1428. 138 The blind god: Cupid, god of love.

2

Aen Anna R.[oemers]

Myn ongeluck doet my myn ongelyck verstaen, Ick come my van selfs voor U te rechte stellen, Hebb’ ick een onwaerdt Rym u’ waerde naem doen spellen De wel-verdiende straff behoor’ ick niet t’ontgaen. Ick zie waer t’ henen wil; de wraecke staet u aen, 5 Om uwen niewen vriendt al lachende te quellen Ghy weygert hem u mondt met u pen te versellen, Ghy laet hem t’halver vreucht, ter halver weldaet staen. Doch, Anna, hoort myn raedt, geeft my u soete seggen In schrifte, dat ick mach met sinnen over-leggen 10 ’Toneyndelyck verschil van u geest byde myn’, Ghy sult my t’uwer eer, tot myner schandt doen smaecken Wat Son myn wasche wieck getracht heeft te genaecken Verdubbelt zal u wraeck, myn vreucht verdubbelt zyn.

2

To Anna R.[oemers]

As my misfortune makes my trespass clear, I come before your court to make my plea, In worthless rhyme if I’ve spelled out your name Then punishment well-earned I can’t evade. I see it now: you joy in your revenge, 5 Devising laughing torments for your friend: Your hand denying what your mouth allows, Leave him half-pardoned, half the way to joy. But hear me, Anna, write your judgement sweet, That I may ponder it and meditate 10 The endless difference of your soul and mine. You make me taste (your honour and my shame) What sun my waxen wing has flown too near: Thus double your revenge and double thus my joy. 2 MS dated 14 February 1619 (Huygens 1892, pp. 129-30). Anna Roemers was the daughter of a Dutch man of letters, Roemer Visscher. She and her sister Tesselschade were close friends of Huygens throughout their lives; but this poem was written at a time when his acquaintance with them was relatively recent. They were the acknowledged beauties at the centre of the circle of the poet P.C. Hooft: Huygens, at this time, was a young man of twenty-two, and still on its periphery. 13 A reference to Icarus, son of Daedalus, who escaped from Crete with his father on wings held together with wax, but was tempted to fly too near the sun, melting the wax, and plunged to his death.

3

[ll. 1-40]

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[Uit] Batava Tempe. Dat is ’t Voor-hout van ’s Gravenhage ’TSonnen radt beghint te stooten Teghen ’tNoorder-Creeften-heck, En die cromme crauwel-pooten Drijven ’t naer den Leewen-neck: Daer met gaen de daeghjens crimpen Die men langher hoopt als heyt, Hey! wat’s al des werelts glimpen Min als tegenwoordicheyt? Daer met ydelen u’ scha’uwen, Haeghsch-Voorhoutsche-Joffrou-rack, Daer met gaet u groente grauwen, Munnick-tuyntgien, blader-dack; Daer met naeckt u jaerigh sterven, Linde-toppen, weeldigh hout, En dat nootelijck verderven Als ghij weder groenen soudt. Sterven? neen: noch sult ghij leven, ’Tzy de Somer blaeckt off swicht, ’Tleven sal u niet begeven Isser leven in mijn Dicht. Coude mach ons oogh berooven Van u soete lommer-looff, Maer ons’ oore te verdooven Sluyt ick buyten tyden-rooff. Als u tacken sullen duycken Onder ’t vlockigh Winter-meel, En u bladerloose struycken Proncken met de bloote steel, Dan sal noch u bloessem bloeyen (Lustich, Vrysters een en acht, Helpt myn stramme Rym aen ’tvloeyen) In des Hagenaers gedacht:

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[From] Batava Tempe: That Is the Lime-avenue of The Hague The Chariot of the Sun begins Its northward drive against the Crab, With those crooked, scuttling claws, To drive it to the Lion’s neck. With this, long days begin to shorten, Summer days more dreamed than owned: Ah, is not all this world’s brightness Absent more than it is known? With this fade your dimmer shadows, Ladies’ lime-grove of The Hague, Grayness mixes in your greenness, Convent-garden, roof of leaves. Now your annual death approaches, Avenue and linden grove, And that necessary dying, From which you rise green again. Death? no, you will live for ever Whether summer burns or dies. And your life will not forsake you If in verses there is life. The cold may rob us of the vision Of the beauty of your leaves, But greedy time I here defy to Stop our ears to hear your praise. When your branches shall bow downwards Under flaking meal of snow And your leafless, naked trunks shall Bareness of their branches show, Leaf and blossom still shall flourish (Come to aid me, Muses nine, Help my halting lines to flow on) In the Hague-indweller’s mind.

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Dan sal noch een grijse dutter Mette schenen voor de vlam Mette tanden inde butter, 35 Inden beulingh, inde ham, Inde niewe-jaersche weggen, ’Tmijnder eeren spreken, Maer, Maer hoe kent die Vryer seggen; 40 ’Tluydt al offet Seumer waer! [ll. 193-312] Wat en comt mij niet te voren In ’t herdencken van de tydt, Die ghij even als herboren 195 In u kindtsche jaren zijt; Inde drijmael dertich daghen Als des Hemels kandelaer Over ’t Bockgien wordt gedraghen Naer den Stier en ’t kinder-paer; 200

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Als de Locht begint te lauwen, D’aerde opent schreeff bij schreeff, ’Tweeldrigh Vee beghint te kauwen Daer het schuytgien onlancx dreeff? ’Ksie u bolle botgiens bersten, ’Ksie se baren eclk haer bladt, Als een Vruchtgie dat haer persten Doe’t in ’smoeders lichaem satt. ’Ksie die onlancx doove struycken En soo menich schralen tack, In een oogenblick ontluycken, Weynich min als onder dack: Onbegrijpelyck vermoghen (Spreeck ick dan den Hemel aen) Hoe veel meer besien de ooghen Dan de herssenen verstaen!

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Then the old man winter-drowsing With his old bones by the fire, With his teeth sunk in the butter, In the sausage, in the ham, In fine loaves at the year’s turning, Will speak out my praises, saying, ‘How this young man shapes his verses, Summer there is come again.’

[ll. 193-312] What then cannot I remember, When I think back to the time When, as we might say, new birth comes 195 And you stand in youth reborn. In those three times thirty days when The great heaven’s lamp is borne All across the sign of Aries Into Taurus and the twins. 200

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When the air’s a little warmer When earth softens by degrees, With the browsing cattle grazing In the lately flooded fields. And I see your rounded buds burst, Each one giving leaf new birth, Like a small fruit pressing outwards From the prison of the womb. When I see the lifeless bushes, Arid branches seeming dead, Come to budding in a moment As if under glass they grew, Then I lift my voice to heaven: ‘Power incredible, great power, How much more comes to our vision Than our minds may comprehend.’

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A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Maer oick dalen mijn gepeynsen Somtydts uyt de locht in ’tslijck; (Wie can heel den mensch ontveynsen Dat hij nerghens uyt en kijck?) Nieuwe spruytgiens van der aerde, Hebb’ ick menichmael geseyt Hoe veel hoogher is u waerde In u jonghe weynicheyt! Waerder altydt sulcken dierte Inde Haeghsche Vrijer-schaer, En ’tgeraeghe broeck-gedierte Niet soo dicht gesaeyt en waer, O! wat soudter op een woelen Om zoo menich Vrijer gaen, Die syn waerde nu moet voelen In de menichte vergaen! Somtijdts hebb’ ick weer gaen singhen Als ick ’t niewe looff besach, Ey! hoe soet syn ’swerelts dinghen Opten eersten niewen dach! Maer o soetste schaduw-vreuchden Hoe vervalt ghij in ’tverslijt, Hoe can alle nieuw ontjeuchden Met het grijsen vande tijdt! Hebben niet de jonge Jaren Die ick vanden Hemel houw, menich haestich paer sien paren Met een ’s anderdaeghs-berouw? Waer uyt mocht de worttel spruyten Die het misgenoeghen gaff? ’Tvonnis can syn selven uytten; ’Tjonghe, lieve, nieuw was aff.

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Often my thoughts directing downwards From the heavens to the clay (Who’d deny his double nature, Fail to look, sometimes, below?) New shoots from the earth up springing I’ve addressed you many a time Being so tender, coming sparsely, For your rareness you are praised. Now if The Hague’s corps of suitors Were as few as new buds are, And if eager beasts in trousers Sparsely as these buds were sown, What contention would surround then Many a lover slighted now, Who now feels his charms passed over Going unnoticed in the throng. Often I have raised my song when First I saw the leaves grow green. Ah, how sweet can worldly things seem In these first new days of Spring. Slight these joys are, slight as shadows And how soon they wear away, How the bloom wears off all new things Which in time will wear to grey! And these young years which I hold from Heaven, have already seen Many a hasty couple marry To regret it the next day. From what root sprang discontent then Whence were their divisions bred? All too simple comes the answer: The new bloom of youth had fled.

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280

A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Jonghe, lieve, nieuwe blaertgiens, Schepseltgiens van eenen nacht All’ u aêrtgiens, all’ u haertgiens Zijn ons nu in eer en acht; Maer hoe dichter ghy u tacken Met u breeder groente vult, Hoe u eere meer sal sacken, Hoe ghij minder gelden zult. Dan de reden sal mij leyden Teghen stroom van’s werelts waen, En u waerde doen verbreyden Beyd’ in ’tgroeyen en ’tvergaen. Siet den Hemel is aen ’tbranden, En syn lichter op het hoogst, Spout de Landt-man inde handen ’Tis op hope van den Oogst. Drijmael drij en seven uren Sien wij Titan opde jacht Qualijck seven can hij duren Tot het nutten vande nacht. Minnen-yver doet hem loopen Naer de Vrijster die hij ziet, (Blinde Minnaer! staeckt u hopen ’Tis het Lauwer-meysken niet.) Wie wil nu het bedde ruymen, En het clamme peuluw-sweet, Wie wil met mij uyt de pluymen Daer ick hem te leyden weet? Op mijn Hagenaers mijn Vrinden, Dit’s te langhen Somer-nacht, Beter buyten inde Linden Nae den dagheraedt gewacht.

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Newest foliage, young and lovely, Leaves which one night brought to birth, Every filament and vein is Held in honour, thought of worth; But the more you fill the branches Swelling with the summer’s green, Then the less you will be honoured, Numbers held in less esteem. I will let my reason guide me Against the world’s foolish stream, I will praise abroad your beauty Both in growth and perishing. See, the fiery heaven is burning At its highest stands the sun, And the farmer rubs his hands in Hoping harvest soon will come. I see Phoebus at his hunting Some five and a dozen hours: Seven hours remain of darkness When he can enjoy the night. Fiery love has set him chasing To the house of Virgo driven, (Blinded lover, leave your hoping: She is not your laurelled girl.) Who would rise up from his bed now, Leave the pillow damped with sweat, Who with me would leave his bed now, Following where I shall lead? Up my friends and fellow-townsmen, Summer nights you make too long, We had better wait amidst our Grove of linden-trees for dawn.

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A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Hier is alle t dier ontslapen, Hier is ’t Crekeltgien aen ’tgaen, Hier begint de Spreew te gapen, Hier is ’tquackeltgien aen ’tslaen Hier de Nachtegael aen ’tneuren, Hier de Distelvinck in swangh, Hier de Tortelduyff aen ’t treuren, Hier de lijster aen de sangh. Hier is kauw en craey aen ’treppen, Hier de reygher inde lucht, Hier den Oyevaer aen ’tcleppen, Hier de Zwaluw inde vlucht. Hier de Coeckoeck aen het stuyten Over’s anders ongeval, Isser niemant die syn fluyten Leeren moet off leeren sal? Can u ’tOore niet betrecken, Ghunt het ooghe syn vermaeck; Siet de Dach-bodinn’ haer recken Recht al schoot sij uyt de vaeck; Cost haer grijse boel verjonghen, ’Kwedd’ hij hadse noch te bedt, Daer s’ hem nu is langh ontspronghen, Cap en tuytt en all gesett. Cap en tuytt als gulde stralen, Ooghe-lichten als robijn, Wangh en lippen als coralen, Is haer dagelycksche schijn. Vrijers, all u jonghe leven Op het schoonste schoon verhitt, Comt en helpt het vonnis geven, Isser schoonder schoon als dit?

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Here all creatures have awoken, Here the cricket scrapes and sings, Here the starling falls a yawning, Here the quail is chirruping. Here the nightingale is warbling, Here the goldfinch chirps and pipes, Here the turtledove is mourning, Here the throstle sings alike. Jackdaw and the crow are stirring, Here the heron mounts the air, Here the stork his wings is stretching, Swallows darting here and there, Here the cuckoo falls to boasting Of another’s misery. (Sweet to singer, sour to hearer: Cuckoo song of cuckoldry?) If this consort does not charm you There is plenty for your eyes. See day’s harbinger is stretching As if she from sleep would rise. If her aged love were younger, Longer she would stay with him; Whereas now she long has left him, Cap and tresses all in trim. Cap and tresses gold like sunbeams, Ruby lightening her eyes, Cheeks and lips as red as coral, Thus she decks the morning skies. Lovers, all your young lives spending Seeking beauty absolute, Come with me and pass your judgement: Was there equal beauty yet?

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[ll. 401-48] Maer de vroegh-tijdt is verloopen, Naer ick ’t aen mijn praten peyl, En de Sonne schier vercropen Opde cant van ’t Zuyder-steyl. 405 Daer beghint de straet te leghen Van haer morgestonts gewoel, Daer ontvolckeren de weghen, Daer is alle man in ’tcoel. 410

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Mij en suit ghij niet verjaghen, Felle straelder van om hoogh, Snelle meter van ons’ daghen, Jaren-passer, rondt om oogh; Dampen-trecker, Somer-brengher, Dach-verlengher, Vruchten-baet, Beesten-bijter, Vel-versengher Blondt-bederver, Joffer-haet. Wolcken-dryver, Nacht verjagher, Maen-verrasser, Sterren-dieff, Schaduw-splyter, Fackel-dragher, Dieff beclapper, Bril-gerieff, Linnen-bleycker, Tuyten-croller, Al-bekycker, Nummer-blindt Stoff-beroerder, Hemel-roller Morghe-wecker, Reyser-vrindt. Laet u vlammen elders blaecken Over ’tonbeboomde vlack, Mij en sullen sij niet raecken Door ’t gesloten Linden-dack: Hier beroep ick ’tbitste bijten Van u meer als dollen Hondt; Maer hij zou syn tanden slijten Eer hij mij te vatten vondt.

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[ll. 401-48] But the early hours are over, As I see while still I talk, And the sun has nearly climbed up To the zenith of the skies. 405 Now the street begins to empty Of its early-morning throng, Now the people leave the highways, Everyone has sought the shade. 410

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I refuse thus to be routed By sun’s fierceness from on high. By our day’s swift measurer, Compass of the years, world’s eye, Mist-disperser, summer-bringer, Day-prolonger, nurse to fruit, Scorcher of the skin, beast-biter, Blond hair-spoiler, ladies’ foe. Cloud-disperser, night-pursuivant, Moon-surpriser, thief of stars, Shadow-cutter, flambeau-bearer, Thief-betrayer, lenses’ friend, Linen-bleacher, tresses’ curler, All-regarder, never blind, Dust-disturber, azure-rider, Morning clarion, traveller’s friend. Let your flames go scorching elsewhere Over country bare of trees: Here they never can disturb me, Through the solid linden-leaves. Here defy I the sharp biting Of your more than mad dog days: He would wear his fangs with biting Ere that I became his prey.

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Jae vergadert all de dampen Daer het vochtigh Veen aff sweet, Laetse tsamen neder plompen In een dichte droppel-speet, Noch en ben ick niet verleghen, Noch en schrick ick niet voor ’t natt, Coel in hitte, droogh in reghen Sitmen onder ’t Linden-bladt. Wat en hadd’ ick niet te spreken Vande soete zephijr-sucht Die door ’t loome looff comt breken Met een ruysschende gerucht, Met een flauwe Somer-soelte? Ah! wat hebb’ ick dick geseyt! Sit ick in een groene coelte, Off een coele groenicheyt?

[ll. 497-576] Dauw en doncker zyn aen ’tsacken, Sonn’ en hoenderen te koy, Alle gevels, alle tacken, Alle meysgiens even moy, 500 Alle caeckgiens even bloosigh, Alle ooghiens even gauw, Alle lippgiens even roosigh, Alle mondtgiens even nauw. 505

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Achter nu verkeerde wijsers, Die de waerheyt lede-breeckt Hart-gehoofde loghen-prijsers Die voor reden noyt en weeckt. Die soo werckelycke stralen Als de keerssen vande nacht Over heel den mensch doen dalen Al gevoelende veracht.

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Gather up then all the vapours Sweated off the marshy fields, Let them all drop down together In a fountain-jet of rain. Still that cannot here disturb me Nor can rainfall trouble me, Cool in burning, dry in raining, Safe below the linden leaves What could I not say in praising Summer Zephyr’s gentle sigh, Stirring through the languid branches With its pleasing rustling noise Faint with balminess of summer. Ah, how often I have said, ‘Is my seat in a green coolness Or sit I in a greenness cool?’

[ll. 497-576] Dew and darkness are descending Sun and fowl alike in pen, All façades and all tree branches, All the maidens fair alike. 500 All cheeks equally are blooming, All eyes equally do shine, Equally all lips are rosy, Equally all mouths are fine. 505

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Away with you, all guides misguided Who’d put truth onto the rack, Grim-faced lovers of illusions In whom reason holds no sway. Who despise with all your feeling Efficacy of those beams Which the candles of the darkness Send to all who dwell below.

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Comt de Minne-moer niet blincken Even als de Dach verspaeyt, Even als de Wielen sincken Daer de Sonne-karr’ op draeyt? Sijn oick niet de avondtstonden Altydt soeter als het licht, Altydt handigher bevonden Tot de vrije Vrijer-plicht? Menich sletgien ongehavent, Menigh onbesneden Sloor Sal bekennen dat den Avendt Decksel is van alle goor, Datse met die slimme ghevel, Met dat muffe snot-verlaet, Met die spitsche sneppe-snevel ’S avondts op haer schoonste staet. Maer om lack bij lack te stellen, Menigh calver-jonghe maet Menich knechgien soud’ ick tellen Dat den Avondt niet en haet; Dat de duysterheyt doet breken Door het bloode schaem-verschiet, Dat den doncker meer doet spreken Dan het licht hem dencken liet. O! de malle mijmerijen Die een minnen-alver stort, Moeten veel geladder glijen Daer hij niet gesien en wordt; Maer oick in een jonghe schroomer Heeft het reden en bediet, Emmers is hij altydt vromer Die syn Vyandt niet en ziet.

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Venus, love’s own mother, glimmers As the day draws to an end Even as the fiery wheels of The sun’s chariot descend. Are not too the evening hours Ever sweeter than the light, Readier to lend assistance To the scot-free lover’s suit. Many an unkempt, blowsy slattern, Many a slut with an ill face, Will own that the shady evening Covers of all dirt the trace. Crooked faces there concealing, Snuffling noses hidden now, Pointed noses like the snipe’s beak Vanish in the twilight hours. But, to match deceit with folly, Many a mooncalf lad is there, Many a youth that I could number Who the evening doesn’t hate, Whom the gathering dusk emboldens, Conquers shyness felt by day, Who’ll speak out more in the twilight Than by daylight he could think. Wildest folly are the ramblings Of the love-distracted boy, And how fluently they run on When he is by dusk concealed, Even for the shyest of them Dusk has cause and reason, thus, After all, each man is bravest When the enemy’s unseen.

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Hier uyt groeyt het jeughdigh krielen Naer de Linden-duysterheyt, Hier uyt kittelen de hielen Met als ’tclockgie neghen seyt. Hier uyt is het niet te houwen Al wat op het vrijen gaet, Hier uyt moeten broeck en bouwen Met de Vleermuys opde straet. Linde-blaedtgiens luyster-vincken Van zoo menigh apen-clucht, Van zoo menigh traen-verdrincken, Van zoo menigh sotte sucht, Helpt mij tuyghen wat een karmen Wat een stommelend gelaet, Wat een blindelingh om-armen Onder u niet om en gaet. Trijntgie, seydt daer somtydts eenen, Bij men eer ick hebb’ je lieff, Vande cruyn aff tot de teenen Staen ick onder jou belieff. Laet me draeven, doet me loopen, Heet me stappen als en tell, Doet me schencken, heet me coopen, Siet wat ick je weyghren sel. Dirckgien (hoor ick weer een ander) Sel’t dan nummer wese, kint? Smackje staech een oogh op Sander, En mijn woordtgies inde windt? Staet syn mutsgie zoo veul trotser Zoo veul vlugger as het mijn, Hangt mijn rockje zoo veul schotser Soo veul loomer as het syn?

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So this causes lads to cluster, Swarm to the dark linden grove, Feet impatient to be gone there Once the hour of nine has struck. You can’t stop them here assembling, All of those who’d wooers be; Here resort both skirts and trousers When the bat flits through the street. Linden leaves have been eavesdroppers Of many a monkey-comedy, Of many a drowning flood of weeping, Of many a foolish gale of sighs, Help me witness to that moaning, To that fumbling carrying-on, To the sightless night embracings Which the linden-grove has seen. ‘Trijntje,’ there one said the other Night, ‘I love you by my troth, From head to toe entire I love you, Absolute at your command. Make me gallop, make me canter, Make me amble like a nag, Make me buy you gifts and trinkets, See that I cannot refuse.’ ‘Dirkje,’ there I heard another Say, ‘Will the hour never come? Have you still an eye on Sander, Casting my words to the wind? Does his hat sit then more jaunty, Sit more sharply than my own? Does my jacket hang less shapely, Are my clothes than his less fine?’

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[ll. 593-672] Noch een ander op een banckgie: Wel eseyt myn soete moer; 595 Jouwenthalven ick bedanckje, Maer hoe is’t met vaer en moer? Wat! se mochte zoo langh grollen, ’Ksou ons raeye met ons tween Op een waghentie t’ ontrollen Al dit moeyelicke Neen. 600

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Weer een ander aen een boompgie, Dats nou al men moertgies goet, Maer dan hebb’ ick noch en Oompgie, O wat ist een rycken bloet! Met sen bogert, met sen weuning, Met sen Coren met sen ooft; Claer, je Vrijer is een Keuningh, Al dit hanght hem over ’thooft. Noch een ander van ’tgebroetsel Dat off Pen off Deghen voert, Mijn soulas mijn vreuchden-voetsel, Ah! quittert U. E. la Court. Sult ghij eewich absenteeren? (’Kschatt de meyt naer Leyden voer) Wilt mijn flames obligeren Met een expedit retour. En noch een van sulcke Veeren: Wel bizearre van humeur, Sult ghij mij sans fin traineren Met ideen van faveur? Neen revesche, neen volage, Dus en macht niet langher zijn, Mespriseert ghij mijn servage Aussi fayje ton desdain.

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[ll. 593-672] Still another on the bench speaks, ‘That’s well said, my sweetest girl, 595 As for your own word, I thank you, But what will your parents say? They could draw their grumbling out so We’d be better, don’t you think, Just to flee them on a waggon, Leaving all their No’s behind.’ 600

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Yet another by a tree trunk, ‘That is all my mother has, Then again, I have an uncle, Who is rich beyond belief! With his orchard, with his fine house, With his harvest, with his fruit; Klaar, your wooer’s rich as royalty, When all this shall come to me.’ Yet another, of the kind who Wields a pen and wears a sword, ‘Solace, of my joys the marrow, Will your honour quit the Court? Will you (eheu!) part for ever? (I think the girl to Leiden went) Keep faith with me, your prostrate lover, With your expedite retour.’ And another of the same stamp: ‘Woman, ruled by strange humeurs, Pour toujours will you delay me, With illusory faveurs? Oh, obdurate, oh, so fickle, Let me not long in doubt remain, If my suit you are disdaining, Aussi fais-je ton desdain.’

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Dese zyn de soete vruchten Vande vrye vrydoms vreucht, Dese zyn de puyck-genuchten Van een ongebonden jeught. Al dit wonderlyck vertellen Volgh ick met een vroolick oor, En wie souder derven stellen ’Tselver seggen voor ’tgehoor? O! daer gaen ick vleughel-spreyen Als een henne-loosen haen, Lachen in een anders schreyen, Baden in een anders traen. Niet dat ick mij soeck te blyden In mijn even broers verdriet, Maer noch vindt hij vreucht in ’tlyden Die het sonder lyden siet. Hooger, hooger mijn Gedichte, Wt de laeghten op ’t gebercht, Ghinder crijgh ick in ’tgesichte Dat u all u crachten verght; Ghinder is een wolck aen ’t drijven Van een overwolckigh Volck, Maer wie sal u volck beschrijven Volle volckerijcke wolck? Pronckt op ’tschoonste, Linde-toppen Reckt zoo verr u groente reckt, Zoo veel zoo-veel-waerde coppen Hebt ghij nemmermeer bedeckt. Sien ick niet voor henen stappen Bhemer-eyghen-Vorst u voet, Die noch Arenden betrappen, Noch vertrappen sal en moet?

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There are the sweet fruits of courtship Of the free lads freely wooing, These are the best of the pleasures Of the free, unfettered boys: All these wonders of their speeches Hear I with a mirthful ear, Who would want to make such speeches When he could just sit and hear? There I flap my wings delighted Like the cock without a hen, Laughing at another’s grieving, Bathing in another’s tears: Not that I derive amusement From my fellow’s misery, Always the unscathed spectator Can find joy in suffering. Higher, higher mount, my verses, From the valleys to the hills, Yonder I catch sight of something Which deserves my verses’ skills; Like the clouds, there drift they yonder, People raised above the throng; Cloud, who may describe your peoples, Cloud, all nations carrying? Flaunt your beauties, crowns of lime-trees, Wider, wider stretch your leaves, Never has your foliage covered, Royal heads so great as these. Do I not see striding forward Great Bohemia’s royal King Who will tread yet on the Eagles, Who must, who will trample them?

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Sien ick niet u handt geleyden ’Twaerde Britten-landts Juweel Dat de Hope noch heet beyden Naer een dubbel Scepter-deel? Door-en-door gesifte Zielen, Die, in weynigh jaren-tall, Teenen hebt gesien en hielen Van het slibberigh Ghevall, Moete noch de spruyt herbloeyen Van uw’ vroech-besnoeyt gebiedt, Zoo ghij ’t Linden-looff hergroeyen Naer syn jarich snoeyen ziet; Weere noch des Hemels zeghen Zwaerder onweer van u bloedt, Zoo hij van u, zon en reghen Onder dese bladers doet.

[ll. 777-840] O die eewich buyten commer Van ontydelyck verlett Onder ’tspelen van uw’ lommer Aff te leven waer gesett! 780 O die eewich als gevanghen Binnen dese palen laegh! Wat veranderlyck verlanghen Voerden hem uyt uwen Haegh? 785

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Maer, o wieghe van mijn leven, Voedtster, minn’ en baecker-moer, Wildt mij, Vaderlandt, vergheven Wensch ick buyten ’t reden-snoer, Noch en legh ick zoo begraven In myn’ lecker’ lusten niet, Ick en wistse wel t’ontdraven Daer ’t mij uw begheeren riedt.

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Is your hand, extended, guiding Her, who is all England’s jewel, She still hoping, still expecting Double sceptre, double rule. Sorely have your souls been chastened, By the late years’ tragedies, First cast up by fickle fortune, Then cast down as well by her. May the shoots of your dominion, Cut back early, spring again, Just as the pruned Linden-branches Yearly flourish green again. May the Heaven’s blessing guard you, And your line from storm and rain, As the sheltering groves of lime-trees Here protect you with their leaves.

[ll. 777-840] Happy he to whom was granted Free of interrupting cares, Here to live his length of days out Underneath your dancing leaves. 780 Happy, who forever prisoner Should remain within this grove, Whom no fickle wish should ever Force, my Hague, beyond your bounds. 785

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But, you cradle of my childhood, Foster-mother, earliest nurse, You, my native land, forgive me This unreasonable wish, I lie not so lost and buried In sweet pleasures of these trees That I could not bear to leave them If to leave you ordered me.

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Emmers dat ick adem-suyghe, Dat ick vocht en voetsel treck, Dat ick tongh en leden buyghe, Dat ick lijff en leven streck, Emmers hoort u ’thalff bedinghen Deser gaven vruchten toe, Emmers hebt ghij halff te dwinghen Wat ick ben, en can, en doe. Isser dan off doen, off cunnen Off bedencken binnen mij, Houd’ ick van des Hemels gunnen Dat u gunste waerdich zij, Heet mij uyt uw’ boesem scheyen Heet mij vluchten met een wenck, Moet’ ick strack in Sout verkeyen, Daer ick maer te rugge denck. Hebb’ ick eens de krijtte stranden Westewaert voor u beseylt, Hebb’ ick eens der Zuyder-landen Steylste spitsen affgepeylt, Noch die handt om eer te winnen, Noch die voet om verder gaen, Noch dat hertte, noch die sinnen Bieden u haer plichten aen. ’Twaer te wijvelijcken sorgher Die niet allen werelts-grondt, Aller menschen medeborgher Vaderlandts-gelyck en vondt, Die niet even achten conde Off hem Zuyd off Noord besach, Off hem ’t bedde-gaen beSonnde, Off het rijsen vanden Dach.

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As first cause that I am breathing, That I taste my food and drink, That my tongue and limbs are moving. That my life and body stir, Native land, you have a claim to Half the fruits of all these gifts, Half of me you can command for What I am, what I can do. If there’s any gift or power, Or else any thought within, On me Heaven has bestowed it To be worthy of your gifts, If you order me to leave you, Make the sign that I should go: May I turn to salty pillar If I backward cast my eye. And if once for you I sailed To the chalk-cliffs to the west And another time I scaled the Steepest hills of southern lands, Yet my hand for further honour, Yet my foot could further go, Yet my heart and yet my senses All are at your service still. Only the unmanly fearer Fails to see the world as one, Every soil and every climate Equal to his native land; Only he would feel a difference Whether north or south him saw; If the setting sun shone on him Or the rising of the day.

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Is doch ’tVaderlandt te minnen Boven al dat min-verleydt, Stijght dan Hemelwaert mijn zinnen Daer uw Vader-erve leyt; Ziele streckt uw traghe vlercken Daer ghij hergesonden zijt, Leert op ’t sonder-ende mercken Eer uw eyndelyck verslijtt. Leert het stoff u stoff bevelen, Leert ontstrammen eer ghij loopt, Leert u van u selven stelen, Leert genaecken dat ghy hoopt; Maer oock, Heer, om Dyner eeren, Eewich Een, en eenich Goedt, Leert haer uyt dijn Leere leeren Wat zij leeren leeren moet.

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If to love one’s native country Is the highest love of all, Rise up heavenward, my spirit, To where your true homeland lies, Soul, stretch forth your tardy pinions To the heights from whence you came, Learn to live the life of heaven Ere your earthly life shall end. Learn to let the dust command dust, Learn to stretch before you walk, Learn to stand outside your selfhood, Learn to approach the things you hope: Also, Lord, for your own honour Ever One and ever Good, Let my soul learn from your scriptures, Learn those things which learn she should.

3 MS dated November 1621 (Huygens 1892, pp. 214-36). 1-4 The year moves from Cancer to Leo in the zodiac: i.e. the poem is placed in late July. 199200 May. 270 August to September. 300-3 Aurora, goddess of the dawn, loved the mortal Tithonus and begged eternal life for him, but forgot to ask for eternal youth. 513 Venus: the Evening Star. 654-660 The exiled Frederick, Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia, and his wife Elizabeth, sister of Charles i of England (Protestants), were dispossessed of both Bohemia and the Palatinate by the Catholic Hapsburg Emperors (whose badge was an eagle), and fled to The Hague where they lived as pensioners of the Dutch government. 807 Refers to Lot’s wife, who looked back on the destruction of Sodom and was turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19.26). 810 Dover (i.e. England). 812 Refers to Huygens’ embassy to Venice (1620), when he travelled over the Alps.

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De uijtlandighe herder. Aenden heere Daniel Heins, Ridder etc. Aende blancke Britter stranden, Daer de Son ten Zuijden blaeckt, Daer de vlacke Vlaender-landen Eertijds laghen aengehaeckt, (Kan de ghissing over weghen Vande leeper letter-liên, Die tot voorden grooten reghen Indes werelts wieghe sien:) Onder aen die krijtte rotsen Die den heeten water-draff Vande Noorder golven trotsen En haer siltich op en aff, En haer lochte vochte spronghen, En haer kabbelend’ gewelt, Lagh een Hollandtsch Herder-jonghen Droeffelick ter neer gevelt. ’Tjeughden-pack van minne-perten Hadd’ sijn ziele niet gelaên, Onder duijsend jonge herten Hadd’ hij altijd vrij gegaen, En het oogh was noch onschapen (Emmers noch te vinden was’t), Daer hem ’tsijn’ aen sou vergapen Eer ’t den Hemel hadd’ gepast. Scherper oorsaeck dan genuchten, Dan vermakelick verdriet, Kapte sijnen aêm in suchten, Smolt sijn’ ooghen in een’ vlied. Die de weeld’ haer’ tranen leenen Proncken garen met haer’ pijn, ’Tis quaet mallen en met eenen Stilleswijgens droeve sijn.

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The Exiled Shepherd: To the Lord Daniel Heinsius, Knight etc. On the chalk-white strand of Britain, Where the sun to southwards burns, To which shores our Flemish lowlands Were connected, long ago (If we may believe the theories Of deep scholars of our days, Who are looking to the cradle Of the world before the flood): At the foot of those chalk-cliffs which Stand against the gnawing waves Of the driving northern breakers In their brackish ebb and flow, And their light-foot springing waters, And their rippling assault – There a shepherd-boy of Holland Sadly lay, by grief brought low. Love’s conceits their youthful burden Never laid upon his soul, Of a thousand youthful hearts, his Heart alone remained his own And that eye was not created, (Or at least was not yet found) That his own eye would gaze into, Before Heaven ordained the hour. Sharper grief than lover’s grieving, Pleasurable melancholy, Cut his breathing into sighing And disolved his eyes in tears. Those whose grief is sensual weeping Love to flaunt their lovers’ woes, Shows and follies do not join with Silent grieving and real pain.

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Klachten van verijlde koppen, Stenens-kunst, verweende sangh, Tranen van gemaeckte droppen Soecken allesins ’tgedrangh: Hij was rijckelick te vreden Met de tuijghen die hij vond, Van sijn’ ongeveijnsde reden; Son en hemel, zee en grond. Ebbe, seijd’ hij (’tgingh van ebbe) Dubbeldaeghse water-beurt, Die ick lieff en liever hebbe Om de kielen die ghij beurt Met de Westelijcke vlaghen Naer de deuren vanden Rhijn, Die nu zes mael zestich daghen Mijnes onbevaren zijn; Als ghij daer mijn’ overburen Naeste reijs genaken sult, En haer’ bancken overschuren Die de droochte nu vermult; Seght hun, Ebb’, op mijn bevelen Hoe ’t haer balling-borgher gaet, Hoeder in sijn’ vochte schelen Stadich ’t volle springh-Tij staet. Hoe sijn’ sorghen altijdt wacker, Hoe sijn’ suchten altijdt vers ’s Vaderlandts bebloeijden acker Overwandelen van verrs; Hoe sijn’ rusteloose nachten Mijmeringhen sonder end, Knoopen zijn van werr-gedachten, Schilderijen van ellend:

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Empty heads are always moaning, Artful mourning, sensual song, Facile, fabricated tear-drops, These an audience require; But the shepherd was contented With the auditors he found, For his unfeigned lamentation: Sun and sky and sea and strand. ‘Ebb-tide,’ said he (tide was ebbing) ‘Current changing twice a day, Ebb-tide which I love so dearly, For the shipping which you bear, Riding with the west-wind blowing To the portals of the Rhine, Waters which I have not sailed for Six times sixty days by now. If you go there on your journey To my neighbours over sea, Washing with your flood the banks which Drought has left as dry as sand: Tell them, Ebb-tide, as I order, Of their exiled citizen, How his eyes are ever brimming With the spring-tide of his grief. How his cares are ever wakeful, How his sighs are ever new, How his exiled mind runs over Holland’s battle-blooded fields; How he spends his sleepless nights in Speculations without end, Whirling thoughts in knots of grieving, Images of misery:

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Hoe de Son hem dunckt te grijsen Die van over ’tSchelde komt Met gevaren en affgrijsen Droeffelicken overmomt; Hoe hij in haer wolckigh wesen Op het Suijdste vanden dach All’ de grouwelen kan lesen Die sij rijsende besach; Hoe de donder hoe het weerlicht Daer sijn Vaderlandt aff beeft Daer hij over zee ter neer light In zijn’ herssenen herleeft; Hoe hij all’ die eere-graven Met sijn tranen overtelt, Hoe sijn ziele wordt begraven Daer een borgher wordt gevelt. Seght hun Ebbe. Maer de platen Laghen meest te zeewaert blick. Soo besnoeijden hij sijn praten Met een opgekropte snick: Tsnicken brocht hem weer aen ’tsteenen, Dat hij weer betranen most, Soo voleijnden hij met weenen Die met schrijen hadd’ begost. Doen hem ’tredelijck beschamen Achterhaelden onbedacht, En het mannelijck betamen In bedenken hadd’ gebracht, Viel hij schielick aen ’tbeduchten Aen ’tbesichten langs het gras Offer van sijn vrouwigh suchten Gheen getuijgh’ om herr en was:

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How the sun that cames from over Scheldt, seems to screw up his eyes, Covered in a mask of sadness, Dangers and atrocities; How he in the sun’s dim aspect, At the zenith of the day All too well can read the horrors Which the sun saw as he rose. How the thunder and the lightning, Which affright his native land, In his mind are re-enacted Where he lies across the sea; And how all those graves of honour He counts over in his tears, How his soul itself is buried When a countryman is slain. Ebb-tide, tell them this.’ The sandbanks Now showed clear far out to sea. So his speech he interrupted Cut it with a half-choked sob: But this sob renewed his mourning, Which he wet with tears again And so ended he in weeping As in weeping he began. Sudden reason stirred within him, Sudden shame in him arose, Shame and reason him reminded Of what best becomes a man, All at once he looked round, fearing Looked he at the fields around, Fearing there had been a witness Who had heard his grief unmanned:

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Eenicheijt hadd’ alle paden All om dubbel veijl besett, Stilte doock in tack en bladen, All’ de winden in haer bedd. Die drij vredighe gesellen Die hij vond en niet en sagh Porden hem aen ’t overspellen Van sijn onvollendt beklagh. Over sijn’ gekruijste kuijten Lagh sijn’ Haechsche Herder-tromp, Sijn’ volmaecktheijt van geluijtten, Sijn beruchte rammelromp, Sijn’ bespraeckte schapen-darmen, Sijn’ van ouds verechte bruijdt, Sijn behaechelickst omarmen, Sijn bevall, sijn boel, sijn’ Luijt. Speelgenoot, mijn soet bekommer, (Sprack hij ’tdoove klinck-hout aen) Die met mij in Son en lommer Soo veel ganghen hebt sien gaen, Soo veel hielen hebt sien lichten Daermen op uw’ maten sprong Moglick snaren hebt sien swichten Daer ick door uw’ ribben song: Doet die vrolickheijt vertragen; Kleedt die toonen inden rouw, Tempertse met langhe slaghen Soo ick voor met suchten houw. ’Tzijn de konstelicke grillen ’Tzijn de krabbel-grepen niet, Die mij lust te zien bedrillen, ’Kvergh u heel een ander lied.

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Solitude had in possession Safely every path around, Branch and leaf were rapt in silence All the winds were laid asleep. These alone his quiet companions Which he found but did not see, Led him to resume the mourning Which unfinished he had left. On his crossed legs lay his shepherd’s Pipe which he’d brought from The Hague; Also there his sound’s perfection, Celebrated rattling strings, Sheepgut fashioned into speaking, His long-faithful married wife, That which he joyed in embracing, With delight and love, his lute. ‘Companion who delights me ever,’ Said he to the unhearing wood, ‘Who with me in sun and shadow Many journeys have endured, Who have seen so many heels lift, When they danced your measure played, Who perhaps have felt the strings break When through your ribs I did sing, Slow your sound of joy to mourning; Dress your notes in grieving strains, Speak with slow articulation Consort of my struggling sighs For of you I ask no longer, Fantasies to show my art, Sounding virtuoso chord-work: We must sing an altered song.

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Hebben oijt mijn’ drooghe longhen Heeft mijn schrale gorghel oijt Hemel-ijverich ontspronghen En uw hulp te baet genoijt, Om den Schepper aller wesen In sijn dreijghende gerecht Met het smeecken te belesen Van sijn Herder-Coningh-knecht; Oh! beleijdt noch nu de schichten Die ick derwaert steijgren doe, Vleugelt mijn’ ontleende dichten, Swiertse tot de vierschaer toe Daer het ziel-berouwigh karmen Noijt vergeeffs en wierd gestort, Daer het loonrecht en ’t erbarmen Pondsgelijck gemeten wordt. Moglijck off wij ’toore boorden Dat den uijtgepersten sangh Vande balling-harpers hoorden, Daer sij onder vijandts dwangh Aenden Babijlonschen oever Trage snaren deden gaen, Hoe bevallicker hoe droever, Opden drop van Sions traen. Moglijck off die groote Goetheijt Dat oneijndigh Over-all, Dien mijn ziele voor de voet leijdt, Sijn genadigh welgevall Quam te willen laten dalen, Op Sijn’ waerdeloosten worm, En mijn treuring te bestralen Door Sijn’ heetsten toren-storm:

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Have my dry lungs or my parched Throat attempted song to raise, Sending forth their plea to heaven, Asking help from you, my lute, Begging God to temper Justice, With his mercy on us all, Begging with the pleading cadence Of his servant, Shepherd-King; Now, my lute, guide you the arrows Of the songs I send to God, Give wings to my borrowed verses Hurl them to the Judgement-Seat Where the groans of souls repentant, Never sounded forth in vain, Where God’s justice and Compassion Equal in the measure are. This our song may come to pierce the Ear of God who once did hear Songs which enemies exacted, By the streams of Babylon, Where the exiled harpers, singing, Touched their strings in measures slow, Lovelier the more they sorrowed To the fall of Sion’s tears. Perhaps that Goodness all-embracing, That unending Everywhere, At whose feet my soul lies prostrate, Might, in mercy, favour send Sending mercy down upon me Me, the undeserving worm, Shining on my lamentation Even in his direst wrath.

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Moglijck off ’t dien Eewich-trouwen Sijner kudde heughen mocht, En der geesseling berouwen Die se t’onder heeft gebrocht, Moglijck off hij langher ’t stortten Sijner weesen niet en droegh, En Sijn’ lemmer quam te schortten Metten vré-roep, ’Tis genoegh. Luijstert dan bewoghen wolcken (Met ontschorden hij sijn’ keel Om sijn’ handen te vertolcken) Naer mijn waterigh gequeel: ’Ktapp het uijt veel dieper’ gronden Dan van onder tongh en tand, ’Tzijn de wiecken uijt de wonden Van mijn seerigh Vaderland.

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Maybe, He, the ever-faithful, Will remember his poor flock, And regret the just chastisement Which of late has brought it low, Maybe he will bear no longer, Deaths of creatures he has made, And will lift his sword from off us With the cry of peace, Enough. Listen then, clouds moved by singing,’ (At the same time he his voice Raised, to the lute’s lamentation), ‘By my singing full of tears: Not from throat and tongue alone come These my words, but from the deep, These wing forth from the deep wounds of Holland, my beloved land.’

4 This, the first of the three parts of the poem, is undated; part ii of the MS (which Huygens wrote first) is dated 13 November 1622, and part iii London, 12 December (Huygens 1892, pp. 269-81; text from Huygens 1976, pp. 15-30). Addressed to Daniel Heinsius, humanist, jurist, professor at Leiden, and an old friend of Huygens’ father. In 1621 a twelve-year truce between the United Provinces and the Catholic powers of Spain and the Hapsburgs had come to an end, and Huygens writes at a perilous time of renewed hostilities. Frontier fortresses in the east were attacked, the town of Bergen-op-Zoom in the south was besieged. The English embassy, to which Huygens was attached, received no promises of support from James i, who was at this point negotiating an alliance with Spain and the marriage of his son, the future Charles i, to the Spanish Infanta. 136 Servant, Shepherd-King: Huygens would express his prayer in the words of the Psalms, written by David, the Shepherd-King. 148 Psalm 137.1.

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Een gesant Hij is een eerlick Spie; een buytens-baet-besorgher; Een hier, een allesins gevaerlick medeborgher; Eens Vorsten langsten Arm; een ongeroepen gast, Die nochtans nootelick aen ’thooger ende past; Een staende licht, een balck, een waterloop verkregen Op Tuyn, op muer, op grond van verr’ of naest gelegen; Een Oogh op ’t sien gehuert, en daerom soo verhooght, Op ’t sluymeren gelaeckt, op ’t slapen noyt gedooght. Een sprekend Tafereel van die hem heeft gesonden, En weder t’ eener sprongh ontlijst, ontlast, ontbonden; Een heiligh buytens lands, aensienlick om den rock; Een meest vergeten t’huys of half verschimmelt block; Den vreemden meer als mensch, den sijnen meest geraemte; Een Bode sonder buss; een Taelmann sonder schaemte; Een Schiltwacht buytens walls; een Klappermann by daegh; Een balling die sijn honck liefst weder noyt en saegh; Een Koning bij der maend; een voll-op Herberg-houder Daer ’s Koninks bors’ uyt hangt; een algemeene schouder Van all dat Landsman heet; een machtigh Advocaet, Die van kort recht te doen of van vergelden praet; Een schadelick geweer daer Princen mede steken; Min schadelick nochtans dewijl sij ’t laten wreken, En ijeder een te huys den Brill verdragen moet, Dien hij sijn’ Weder-buer ten spijte dragen doet.

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The Character of an Ambassador He is a noble spy; who takes pains without fee; And here and everywhere a dangerous indweller; A prince’s longest arm; an uninvited guest, Who nonetheless belongs in high place at the feast; A watchlight for the garden, a strong beam for the wall, A moat about the grounds, lying near or lying far. An eye which has been hired, therefore exalted so, In dozing only closed, never allowed to sleep. A speaking picture of whoever sent him forth, Then in an instant free, unframed, without a task. A saint when he’s abroad, respected for his clothes, But half at home forgotten as a half-moulded block, To foreigners a man, a skeleton at home; An unarmed messenger; a shameless orator, A sentry outside walls; a nightwatchman by day, An exile who would never wish his home to see; A King but by the month, a bountiful innkeeper Where his king’s colours hang, a public shoulder To all his countrymen; a powerful advocate To do swift justice or to speak about redress, A killing weapon with which Princes give the blow, Less harmful though it be since used for punishment, And everyone at home must suffer the rebuke Which he compels his neighbour, out of spite, to hear.

5 MS dated 18 August 1623 (Huygens 1893a, p. 1). This poem was first published in the first Dutch collection of ‘characters’, the Zedeprinten (moral prints) of 1623-24.

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Scheeps-praet, ten overlyden van Prins Mauritz Mouring, die de vrije schepen Van de Seven-landsche buert Veertigh jaren, onbegrepen, Onbeknepen heeft gestuert, Mouring, diese door de baren Van soo menigh tegen-tij Voor den wind heeft leeren varen All en was ’t maer wind op zij, Mouring, Schipper sonder weergae, Die sijn’ onverwinlickheit Waer de Sonn op, waer sij neer gae T’aller ooren heeft gespreit, Mouring, die de Zee te naw hiel Voor sijn’ zeilen en sijn wand, Die de voghelen te gau viel All bezeilden hij maer ’t sand. Mouring was te koy ekropen, En den endeloose slaep Hadd sijn wacker oogh beslopen En hem leew gemaeckt tot schaep, Reeërs en Matroosen riepen, Och! de groote Schipper och, Wat sou ’t schaen of wij all sliepen, Waeckte Schipper Mouring noch! Schipper Mouring, maer je leghter, Maer je leghter platt evelt, Stout verweerer, trotz bevechter Beij te Zeeword en te veld, Kijck de takels en de touwen En de vlaggen en het schutt Staen en pruylen inden rouw, en Altemalen inden dutt.

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Ship’s Talk, on the Death of Prince Maurits Maurits who for forty years has Steered and guided the free ships, Of the seven-landed nation, Never fettered, never caught, Maurits who has taught his shipping How to fly before the wind, Through the adverse seas of troubles, Even when the cross-winds blew, Maurits, helmsman without equal, His unconquered prowess, famed From the sunrise to the sunset, Has come to the ears of all, Maurits, keeping sea too closely For his rigging and his sails, Who was faster than the sea-birds Even when he sailed the land, Maurits has lain down to rest him And the everlasting sleep Has o’ercome his watchful eyelids, Turned our lion to a lamb, Crew and Owners cried together, ‘Woe, for our great helmsman, woe, All of us could sleep in safety When our skipper was on watch! Skipper Maurits, now you’re lying low, Now you’re lying brought down low, Brave defender, gallant fighter, On the land and on the sea, See the tackle and the rigging, See the flags and see the guns, See them droop and sulk in mourning, How completely they are lost.’

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Dutten? sprack moy Heintie, dutten? Stille maets, een toontje min, Dutten? wacht, dat most ick schutten, Bin ick angders dien ick bin, Khebb te langh om Noord en Suijen Bijden baes te roer estaen, ’Khebb te veul gesnorr van buyen Over deuse mutz sien gaen. Kselt him lichtelick soo klaren Dat ick vlaggen, schutt en touw En de maets die met me varen Vrijen sel van dutt en rouw. Reeërs, (jouwerliefde mien ick Die van vers op ’t kusse vicht) Wiljer an? kedaer you dien ick, You allienich by dit licht. Weeran, riepen de matroosen, ’Tis een man oft Mouring waer, En de Reeërs die him kosen Weeran, ’tis de jonge vaer. Heintgie peurde strack an ’tstuer, en Haelde ’t ancker uyt de grond, ’Tscheepje gingh deur ’t zee sopp schuren Offer Mouring noch an stond. Maer hij stond so dra an ’t stuer niet, ’Tscheepje vlootte niet so dra, Off de doot die altyd suer siet Treften him mit niewe scha. Goeije Jan die all syn heul was, Die hem nergens en begaff Die sijn weinich en sijn veul was Viel van voor sijn voet in ’tgraff.

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‘Lost?’ said handsome Hendrik, ‘mourning? Steady, shipmates, steady now, Laid down low?, I’ll speak against it Or I’m not the man I am. Long enough to north and southwards I’ve stood by him at the helm, I’ve seen many raging tempests Passing over this my cap. This will be my course of action, Flags and cannon, ropes and all And the shipmates who sail with me, I’ll set free from grief and sleep. And ship-owners (you I mean who Fight along with us from far) Will you take me on? I’ll serve you You alone, I’ll take my oath. ‘To it then,’ the seamen shouted ‘Skipper Maurits lives in him’, And the ship owners who chose him Cried, ‘Young master, to it then!’ Handsome Hendrik grasped the tiller, Hauled the anchor from the strand, And the ship sped through the billows As if Maurits held the helm. Barely had he grasped the tiller, Barely was the ship on course, When death (death who’s ever grim-faced) Struck him with another blow: Honest Jan, his faithful helper, Jan who never let him down, Who was all in great and small things, Fell into a sudden grave.

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Tquam hem wonder ongelegen Jan te delven in een kerck Juyst in ’tdichtste vande regen Van sijn ongeweune werck, Jan kon schrijven, Jan kon lesen, Jan kon rekenen mit krijt, Jan was minnelick van wesen, Voll van trouw en sonder spijt: Goeje Jan was alle dingen, En now was hy nimmendall; All die Heintjes haert begingen Treurden over ’t ongevall. Heintje self uyt sijn beleeftheit Voor sijn leste en beste loon Tuygde dat hij vroom eleeft heit, Met een traentgien op syn koon.

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It came at a time untimely, Then to lay Jan in his grave, Just when duties fell their heaviest Of his hard, uncommon work; Jan could read and write untiring, Jan could reckon up the score, Jan was loyal and never petty, Jan was loved by high and low. Jan had once been all in all things, And now he could nothing do, Every friend of Handsome Hendrik Suffered with him in his loss. Hendrik then himself in kindness, As Jan’s last and best reward, Publicly proclaimed his virtues, While a tear shone in his eye.

6 The MS is undated; Worp dates it some time ‘during the course of the year’ [1625] (Huygens 1893a, pp. 126-28). Stadhouder Maurits (‘Skipper Maurits’) died on 23 April 1625, and was succeeded by his brother Frederik Hendrik (‘Handsome Hendrik’ in the poem). His secretary (the ‘Jan’ of the poem) died in June of the same year. Huygens applied successfully for his post, obtaining it on 18 June. The direct speech in the poem is in argot, not attempted in the translation. The poem is an interesting artefact: the courtier Huygens, not perhaps without an element of wishful thinking, is painting an energetic, vernacular picture of the country united as one under the benign and vigorous leadership of the House of Orange. 16 The reference is to wind-powered land vehicles. 56ff. There is a horizontal line in the MS under line 56: the last three stanzas, with their pathetic celebration of the dead secretary, into whose shoes Huygens himself stepped, were not printed in Korenbloemen or elsewhere in Huygens’ lifetime.

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Aen Joff.w Tesselschade Crombalch met mijne vertalingen uyt het Engelsche dichten van Dr. Donne ’T vertaelde scheelt soo veel van ’t onvertaelde dicht, Als lijf en schaduwen: en schaduwen zijn nachten. Maer uw’ bescheidenheidt en maghse niet verachten; Tzijn edel’ Jofferen, ’tzijn dochteren van ’tlicht.

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En schaduwen zijn scheef, als ’taensicht inde Maen: Soo dese dichten oock: maer, magh ick ’tselver seggen, Gelyck aen schaduwen die lamm ter aerde leggen, Men sieter noch wat trecks van ’trechte wesen aen. En schaduwen zijn swart en duijster in te sien: Soo dese dichten oock: Maer ’tzijn gemeene ooghen Die door het swacke swart van schad’wen niet en moghen: Wat schaduw soud’ den dagh aen Tessels oogh verbien? En schaduwen zijn koel, en op haer heetste lauw: Soo dese dichten oock: maer ’tkoel en is maer korst-koelt’; ’Tvier schuylt’er in, gelijck’t in ’s minnaers koele borst woelt, En peper is niet heet voor datme’r ’tvier uyt knauw’.

En schaduwen zijn, niet; dat’s droomen bijden dagh: Soo dese dichten oock: maer ’tzijn gelijfde Nietten: En slaet ghij ’tvoetsel gae daer uijt mijn’ droomen schieten, 20 ’K hadd pitt en mergh geslockt eer ickse droomd’ en sagh. Komt, koele Tesselschae, wel eer mijn gast op Yet; Siet waer mijn’ schaemte gaet: ick derv’ uw’ koelte terghen, En uw’ langhmoedicheit bij mij ter maeltyd verghen Op schaduwen, op scheef, op swart, op koel, op niet.

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To the Lady Tesselschade Crombalch with My Translations from the English Poems of Dr Donne Translation falls as short of untranslated verse As shadows of the substance: shadows are of night. But your discrimination’s power should not condemn them; They’re noble women all, the daughters of the light.

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And shadows are awry, like the face seen in the moon: These poems are so too: but, if I dare to say it, Like to the strengthless shadow on the earth extended Some traces of the substance still can be discerned. And shadows strengthless are, and darkling in our sight As are these poems too: only to common eyes Which cannot see beyond weak darkness of the shadow: What shadow dares to bar the day from Tessel’s eyes? And shadows all are cold, but tepid at their warmest: These poems are so too: their cold’s but surface chill With hidden fire within, like the cold breast of the lover, The peppercorn is cold until you bite its fire. And shadows nothings are, like dreams in the full day, These poems are so too: but nothings bodied forth, Know what fed my dream, which I digested into dreams: I’d swallowed pith and all, before I dreamed and saw. Come, cool Tesselschade, once my guest for solid fare, See where my shame may lead; I dare to taunt your coldness, Now, of your tolerance, I bid you dine with me On cold, deformity, shades, nothings, dark.

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Hoe lijvigh en hoe recht, hoe witt, hoe heet, hoe swaer Waer ’t Engelsche gerecht, als uw vernuft kon dalen Tot overzeesch gekoock in Nederland te halen, En all dit laff gedroom een Tesselschaduw waer! Maer ’tzuyderlicker soet van Roomens schaduw-tael Besitt uw besigh hert: Jerusalem langs Roomen Op Tassos Lauwer-koets met Nederlandsche toomen Te voeren daer ghij woont, bewoont v altemael. (Hoe langsaem loopt die huer! Wanneer will ’t besigh hert Geleggen van die draght, en ’t machtighe bekeeren Dat Circe niet en kost, den Alckemaerder leeren, Daer door de Schaduw ’tlijf, en ’tlijf de schaduw werdt?)

Soo viel mijn’ taeck Noord-west: die gaf mij uw bevel. Myn’ onmacht beefde’r voor, en ’tkon mijn’ hand ontroeren, En, meend’ ick, ’twas soo soet als qualick uijt te voeren; Maer, ’tQualick, dat ghij wilt, werdt van uw willen, Wel. 40 Nu poch ick tegens mij, en vleij mijn selven blind, En segh mij, dat de hand die Tessels heeft getoghen Geen misslagh machtigh was; en wentel in de loghen, En vind mij sonder feil, mits ghij mij sonder vindt. 45

Is ’tlydelick gefeilt, treckt d’oude goedheidt aen, En van de dweeghe handt, die noijt en konde stryden In Tessels wederwill, verdraegt in medelyden ’T onweerdighe bedrijf, om ’twillighe bestaen.

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How solid and how true, substantial, warm and clear The English fare would be, if you your mind could lower, To import this foreign fare into the Low Countries: If this insipid dream my Tessel’s shadow were. But the meridian sweetness of the shadow-speech of Rome Fills all your busy heart: from Jerusalem to bring, Through Rome, with a Dutch bridle, the laurelled coach of Tasso To bring it home, is all your business now. (This lease runs slowly on! When will the busied heart Lay down its load: and teach that transformation, Which Circe could not work before, on Alkmaar’s Lady, To make the shadow flesh, and flesh the shadow turn?) My task lies north and west: which you command of me. It stirred my weakness on, and moved my heavy hand. I found it was as sweet as difficult to do; Such ill tasks which you will, come, through your will, to good. So now I pride myself, with blind self-flattery, Saying to myself, that hand can scarcely err Which Tessel fosters, and I wallow in this praise, Find myself faultless, only if you should find me so.

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My failures may be borne if you are merciful And from the humble hand, that knew not how to fight With Tessel’s will, compassionate, accept This poor attempt, but for its good intent.

7 MS dated 24 September 1633 (Huygens 1893a, pp. 267-68). For Huygens’ translations of Donne, see Appendix iii. 4 Daughters: the Muses, daughters of Apollo (the sun). 31 Torquato Tasso (1544-95), author of a very widely read epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata (1581). Huygens owned a copy of the 1594 edition. Tesselschade was engaged in a Dutch translation at the time of writing. 35 The sorceress Circe had the power to turn men into animals (Homer, Odyssey, bk. 10).

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Ad Barlaeum Vix possint nostros multae, Barlaee, liturae Emendare jocos, una litura potest.

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To Barlaeus Many changes, Barlaeus, can scarcely alter Our pleasantries, but one blot can.

8 MS dated 20 January 1634 (Huygens 1893a, p. 280). The poem plays with meanings of the Latin litura: literally, erasure or blot on a piece of writing, but with an extension of meaning as ‘alteration’.

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Op de dood van Tesselschades oudste dochter, ende van haer man strax daeraen doodt gebloedt De groener vrucht als rijp, de rijper vrucht als wrang, De voor-vrucht in de rij van Tessels echte planten Verrotte van quaed vier: God raeptes’ uijt het sand, en Verhief ’er ’tbeste van in ’theilighe gedrang

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Van d’onverderflickheid. De Moeder weeck den dwang Van ’teewighe beschick: haer worstlen was geen kanten In’s hemels wederwill; sij dreef maer bijde kanten In beider ooghen zee. Maer ’twerd den Vader bang Van’s Moeders wee en ’tsyn; en, omse beij t’ontvaren, Verdiept’ hij ’s moeders zee, met droppen eerst, doen baren, Bloed-baren; en ghing t’ zeil, van Tessel opwaert aen: En bloedde noch dit woord van uijt de laeste stuijpen; Het bloed van vrienden kruypt daer ’tniet en weet te gaen, Tbloed van een vader springt daer ’tniet en weet te kruijpen.

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On the Death of Tesselschade’s Eldest Daughter, and on Her Husband Thereafter Bleeding to Death The fruit more green than ripe, more ripe than sour, The first fruit all of fruits of Tessel’s scions Rotted with smallpox; God has plucked it up To raise its best part to the immortal throng.

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The mother bowed to obey the doom of heaven: Her struggle not opposing heaven’s will, She drifted rather on the flood that flowed From both her eyes. The father seized by fear, Seeing the Mother’s grief and his, took flight, Deepened the Mother’s sea, at first with drops Then waves of blood, and set sail for the skies. And bled this word from his last agony: If friends’ blood crawls to where it could not go, The father’s blood will spring which cannot crawl.

9 MS dated 13 June 1634 (Huygens 1893a, p.291). 13-14 Huygens plays on the Dutch equivalent of the saying that blood is thicker than water (‘blood crawls where it could not go’): if friends’ blood can be said to be crawling (in sympathy), the father’s blood gushes out (from sheer pain).

10 Luna alba Pallida luna pluit, rubicunda flat; alba quid? omnes Dixisti; superest, alba serena siet.

10 The White Moon If the moon is grey, rain comes; if rosy, wind will rise; What of a bright white moon? You have named all; what remains: Let the white moon bring peace. 10 MS dated 24 September 1636 (Huygens 1893b, p. 18).

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Nebula descendens Provocat audaci superos certamine Titan, Quantas de terra tollere possit aquas. Excidit ingens urna deo: ridetur ab omni Coelite: non niteat laetior illa dies?

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The Mist Descending The Titan sun calls forth the gods to battle, Drawing up the waters from the earth. A great urn rains from the god, gods laugh: Shines not this day more joyfully?

11 MS dated 29 September 1636 (Huygens 1893b, p. 18).

12 D’eerste steen vanden doel in ’s Gravenhaghe geleght by Prins Willem van Orange, ’s daeghs voor biddagh 2.en Decemb. 1636 De wel geboren hand, die God sal leeren stryden, De schutterlijcke hand, die Schutster heeten moet Van Hollands schutterij, van Holland, eens bebloedt, Nu bloeyende over ’tbloed van die sijn Bloem benijden, 5 Sijn vrijheid, fiere Bloem, stelt Holland in verblyden In ’tbotten van haer’ Jeughd: versorght een’ vasten voet Aen Doel en Schutterij; Het strydbare gemoed Voorseght der Wapen-school een struijckeloos bedijden. Merckt met een’ Witten steen de hoop van desen dagh; 10 Bidt merghen, Hof en Haegh, dat waerheid werden magh Wat nu waerachtigh is: ’Tsal aen de Hand niet schorten, (Verworpen Hoeck-steen, steunt en stijft het morwe been!) Haer doel sal ’t voorhooft zijn, en Goliath sal storten, En David sal ’them doen, en met den eersten Steen.

12 The First Stone of the Marksmen’s School in The Hague, Laid by Prince William of Orange, on the Day of Public Prayer, 2 December 1636

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The well-born Hand, whose prowess God will foster, Sharpshooter’s hand, which Guardian be called Of Holland’s marksmen and our blooded land, Which flowers, fed on the blood of those who hate Its freedom, its proud flower, makes Holland glad Of youthful budding: is the cornerstone Of marksmen’s guildhall. May the martial mind Foster this school of arms as it grows free. Mark with a white stone all our hopes today: Pray, court and town, that what we have begun Comes to achievement, this hand will not fail (Rejected stone to strengthen the weak limb). Our mark shall be the brow; Goliath fall At David’s hand, and with this first-shot stone.

12 MS dated 3 December 1636 (Huygens 1893b, pp. 31-32). The Doelen in The Hague to which the poem refers was a clubhouse and training-school for the town marksmen. The marksmen’s guild or schutterij was a feature of the life of most major towns in The Netherlands in the early modern period, as witnessed by the Guild portraits by Frans Hals in Haarlem, Rembrandt’s Night Watch in Amsterdam, etc. 9 White stones were used as votes by the Romans: ‘alicui rei album calculum adicere’ was to approve of, or authorize it. In particular, the Thracians preserved the recollection of fortunate occurrences with white stones. A day thus marked was noted for the future as auspicious (Pliny, Historia vii. 40, 41, and his Letters, vi.ii. iii). 12 Refers to Matthew 21.42: ‘the stone the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner’. The reference may be to the troubled relations between Prince Frederik Hendrik and the States of Holland after 1633. 13 The first public exploit of David, future king of Israel, was to kill the gigantic Philistine Goliath with a sling-shot (1 Samuel 17).

13 Ad Stellam, uxorem charissimam defunctam Confundunt elementa vices, natura noverca, Ut paterer, voluit me patiente pati. Nascitur alba dies, nigra nox perit, ut perit omnis Stella, mei pereunt te pereunte dies.

13 To Stella, My Dearest Wife, Now Dead

With elements disordered, fostering nature Orders their sorrow to my suffering. White day breaks, black night dies, you die with them; My Star, my days all perish in your death. 13 MS dated December 1637 (Huygens 1893b, p. 43). Huygens’ wife, Susanna van Baerle, had died on 10 May. Huygens’ Latin notes in his day-book (Huygens 1884, p. 30) read, ‘10 May. She returned her spirit to God at half past five in the evening. Alas, my delight. Alas my soul [unconsciously quoting Catullus on the sparrow]. 16 May. Her body committed to earth attended by many. 17 May. Move to the new house, alas, without my dove. 19 May. Return to Court, summoned by the Prince.’ The epigram foreshadows the ending of the long poem Dagwerk (no. 14 in this edition).

14 [Uit] Daghwerck. Huys-raed

[ll. 1-68]

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Sterre, die mij inde sterren Menigh ontij doet verwerren, Keurigh of mij een’ van all Als mijn’ eighen sterr gevall; Sterre, die veel sterren aen sien, Als de keersen bij de Maen sien, Als de Maen (in mijn gesicht) Bij de macht van ’t Moeder-licht. Sterre, mergh van all’ mijn’ vreugden, Die mij eens met Ja verheugden, Noijt bedroeven sult met Neen, Tegen ’tja-woord van de Re’en. Sterre, regel van mijn’ reden, All van doe mij mijn’ gebeden Voor uw’ reden stelden veil; Sterre, alleen en all mijn heil, Nu ’t den Hemel soo gepast heeft Dat mijn’ siel aen d’uwe vast leeft, Dat Ick Gij, en t’eener tijd, Ghij tot Ick geworden zijt, Nu wij maer van naem en schillen, Nu mijn’ lusten zijn uw’ willen, All uw willen all mijn lust, IJeders vrede elkanders rust; Luijstert nae de overslagen Die mijn’ siele, lang gedragen, Nu voldragen, barens-ree, Als een’ droppel in uw’ zee Van bescheidenheid will schencken, En uw krachtigher bedencken Halen over ’tkinder-kraem Daer sij gaern te bedd af quaem. ’Tkint sal Ernst van Voorraed heeten; Helpt mij door den arbeid sweeten,

14 [From] The Day’s Work: The Order of the House [ll. 1-68]

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Stella, starless, I examine Constellations in the heavens: Does there shine above but one Star to please me as my own? Stella, other constellations (Candles in the moonlight fading) Fade like moonshine in my sight, Dim beside the mother-light. Stella, of my joys the marrow, Who with ‘yes’ did once delight me, Ne’er with ‘no’ will sadden me, ‘No’ to reason’s affirmation. Stella, ruler of my reason, From the time my suit accepted To your rule delivered me, Stella, sole and whole salvation. Now that Heaven has ordained it That our souls live on as one, I am you, while you conversely Are turned me in that same moment, Names are all that part us now. My desires your will becoming And your will my sole desiring, Peace for one’s the other’s joy. Hear now the deliberations (Long gestated, now completed, Come to birth) which now my soul Longs to pour, like water dropping In the sea, into your wisdom. Through this birth my Soul would lead on Your strong thought, find consummation Find completion, brought to bed. Make the child’s name Calm Advisement: Help me through the pains of labour

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Daer Ghij Ick zijt, en Ick ghij, Moet de moeder heeten, Wij. Soo en vrees ick voor uw’ straff niet, Off ick hier te schielick af liet, Daer te langhe lagh en sponn Over wat ick eens begonn, Of mij hier mijn’ hand ontholde, Om een Rijm die ronder rolde Dan de Reden; of ick daer Wrang, of hier te lecker waer. ’Tis uw hert dat in mijn’ adren Dese krachten helpt vergadren, ’Tis het mijn dat in u schuijlt, Ziel is tegen Ziel geruijlt. Staet u niet in aller feilen Wederhelft met mij te deilen? Of wat feilen kander zijn Dat of ’tuwe zij of ’tmijn’? Luijstert dan; en hoort ghij dolen, Denckt, dat was ons beij verholen, Soo u ijet om ’therte lacht, Segt, soo hadd’ ick ’t oock gedacht. Hoe wij dese kleine wereld, Die ghij, Sterr, alleen beperelt, Die ick, verr van uws gelijck, Ick, en ick alleen beslijck, Dese, om nauwer te beschrijven Bedd-gemeente van twee Lijven, Van twee lieven, segg ick best, Tortelen van eener nest, Tamelixt bestieren sullen, En met vreugd op vreugd vervullen, Hebb ick, hebben ick en ghij Dus beregelt, seggen wij.

[ll. 537-88] Stilte soeck ick in mijn’ Haven, Moed’ van slingeren en slaven Over ’t Hollands-dieper holl:

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You are me and I am you, so ‘We’ must be the mother’s name. Here I do not fear your censure If too suddenly I halted Or if I drew out and spun Out too long the thing begun, Or if here my hand out-ran me For a rhyme whose sound was sweeter Than its matter. If I here Too harsh, or there too gentle were. In my veins your heart is beating On, to muster strength together, And my heart beats hid within you, Soul being now exchanged with soul. This being so, do you inherit The full half of all my errors? Can our errors be divided Into your part, into mine? Hear me, then, and if you hear me Err, say that we erred together. Or if anything should please you Tell me that you thought the same. How should we now rule our kingdom: You its star and pearl together; I, so far am I below you, Being its serpent and its stain. This our world (to speak precisely Commonwealth and marriage-bed Better, commonwealth of lovers, Turtledoves in common nest) We shall fill with joys unending I have ordered matters thus. But it is not ‘I’ who orders You are me and I am you, so All things are ordained by ‘We’.

[ll. 537-88] Calm I seek now in my haven Worn by the rough seas of Holland Labours of the Holland’s Deep.

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Stilte kan ick, als een toll Dien de kinderen begapen En all draeijende doen slapen, Veinsen en genieten me’, Met de sinnen uijt der zee Noch voll duijselings gebleven, Even als de beenen leven, Beenen die van gaen vermoedt Tintelen van gistigh bloed. Loop ick over van geruchten, Die ick melden met genuchten, Die gij sonder afsien meught Menghen onder ander vreughd, ’Ksall u ’swerelds meeste maren Binnens muers doen wedervaren, Soomen door ’t gelasen gat ’tLeven van de dingen vatt Die sich op het heetste daghen Buijtelende binnen dragen. Buijtelende, Sterre; Merckt: Dat’s gelijck de Loghen werckt Op de nieuw-geboren Waerheit, Niewgeboren inde klaerheit Van des middaghs hooghen dagh. Diese soo ten teersten sagh, Sou’se van geen vuijl verdencken: Maer, wie kan soo schielick wencken Als het neen voor ja verschijnt, Als het ja tot neen verdwijnt? Gaet geleerde werelds pennen, Die dat buytelende rennen Van der dinghen ja en neen, Dusend jaren achter een Inde vlught bestaet te vatten, En verkoopen nu voor schatten Van een ongeschendde waer, ’Tgeen ten eersten, met een Maer, Schier als met een mael, geboren, ‘Tware wesen hadd verloren Tuschen ’tkraem-bedd en de wiegh,

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Like a top, the toy of children Gazed on, whirled and spun to stillness, In its balance finds its rest, So can I feign rest and pleasure With my mind still whelmed in oceans Numbed with labours of the seas; As the limbs which, faint with walking, Though exhausted still are stirring, Moving with the heated blood. When my mind is filled with rumours I shall whisper news to please you, Things which you may hear with pleasure I shall add unto your joys; These are things reflected to you, Secrets told within our fortress, Mirrors of the world without: As the camera obscura Topsy-turvy through its lenses Draws the sunlit world inside. Topsy-turvy, Stella, mark this: Not the real thing, but reflection, Just as lies may work upon Truth that’s tender and new-born, Transparent as the noonday sun. Who have seen her at her gentlest And believed that sin could touch her? But whose eye can blink so swiftly, Winking ‘no’ and ‘yes’ confounded, Making ‘yes’ make way for ‘no’? Go, you learned worldly writers, Whose whole task is catching flying The unstable, topsy-turvy Running of the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ Of those fluid, worldly no-things, Which a thousand years you’ve studied, Things which you now dare to peddle As if they indeed were treasures, When they are but air-born rumours, Rumour-born from their beginning (Insubstantial as a birthmark

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En geswachtelt in ’tbedriegh, En gebakert in de Leugen Noijt en heeft begost te deugen; Staegh verergert is, en staegh Is wat ijeder meest behaegh’. Hoe moet nu de waerheit hincken, Die soo jong begon te pincken! Kaes verrott en werdt gemint: Maer wat quaed verrott en wint?

[ll. 643-756] Binnens deurs sal uw gelaet ’Tvoorslagh zijn van ons gepraet. Staet het als uw’-minder stralen, 645 Sterre, die den nacht in halen, Staet het als een sterr in ’t holl Van een’ wolck, die, vuijl en voll Van gereede somer-plassen Om den hoij-boer te verrassen, 650 ’t Lieve licht sijn tintel staeckt; Staet het soo de sonn ontwaeckt, Eer sij van haer nuchter’ ooghen All het nacht-goed hebb getoghen, En noch in de slaep-muts steeckt 655 Die sij selver maeckt en breeckt: ’Ksalder mijn gesegh nae setten, En beslaen mij in de wetten Die de reden en ’tbescheidt Heeft gestelt op uw beleidt. 660 ’Ksal mij ernstich doen verklaren Van ’tonlustigh wedervaren, Van het overkomen leed Dat mijn’ Sterre verComeett. 665 ’Toverkomen leed sal mijn zijn, ’Ksal ten halven vande pijn zijn Met ick ’t van de waerheid zij: Met de wederhelft daer bij Sal ick mijn geduld bevrachten, 670 En het uw met reden trachten, Met die reden, Sterre, die,

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Lost between childbed and cradle) Swaddled in deceit and lies, Never virtuous from the start, Growing more vicious steadily, And this pleases people most. Poor limping Truth, from childhood lame, And limping still. The cheese matures, Is prized for it; sin, corrupting, Rots and in corruption ends.

[ll. 643-756] Within the house, your countenance Will be discourse’s governor; If it should set, like meaner stars, 645 Which are the harbingers of night, Or sit in the occluding cave Of troubled clouds of summer storm Clouds that surprise the harvester, And rob the farmer of his hay, 650 That hide your loved and glimmering light; Should your face fade like early sun (Before the sun unclothes her face, Sheds nightclothes from her sober eyes Involved still in her cap of clouds 655 Her cap which she dissolves and spins) I’ll fit my utterance to you Speak in subjection to your laws Which reason and judiciousness Have imposed upon your acts. 660 I shall be diligent to know Any cause of grief to you, Any sorrow which might turn My Star into a comet burning. 665 All your sorrows shall be mine, I will own but half the pain As but half the truth is mine. With the other half being added I shall burden my enduring, 670 Try to lighten yours by reason, Stella, by that reason guided

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Die ick altijd bij u sie, Met die reden sien te lichten, Even als men pack van wicht, en Swaericheit van over zee Platte bod’men opde ree Siet ontfangen uijt de ronde, Door gemackelicken vonde, Wel gewoghen, wel gestelt, Sonder openbaer geweld. Maer bevind’ ick ’tpack soo tilbaer, Dat het, soo ’t mijn’ Sterres will waer, Bij haer’ eighen redens macht Off vermijdt waer of verkracht: ’Ksal het leed een’ leer ontleenen, En bespreken ’thaestigh stenen Met een minnelick verwijt: En verwijten u den tijd Doe noch ghij noch ick en waren; Doe het vaderland in ’tbaren Vande vrijheid lagh en kreet: Doemen sich de schand verweet Van een onverhoedsche suchten, Van een’ traen gevloeijt in ’tvluchten, Van een suer gesicht in ’t vier, Aende pleij, in ’tsmooren schier. Doemen, trots de beter’ eewen, Sagh in mans gekleedde Leewen Vrouwen vond als heele mans, En in allen weerspoed kans. Sulcker stammen zijn wij spruijten, Sal ick seggen, en besluijten, Sou soo welgeboren tack Buijghen onder ’tminste pack? Staet mijn Sterre niet in ’thooghe, Siet haer onbetimmert ooghe Over heen de welvaerd niet, Watter wolcken van verdriet Bijder kimme rijsen mochten? O, God suijvere de locht en Weere ’tweer van ongenae,

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Which I always see in you. This shall be as easy to me As the lighters in the sea-roads Take aboard their heavy burdens, Merchandise from distant seas, When the balance of the windlass Fitly poised and fitly weighted From the great ship to the small ship Shifts the heavy loads with ease. If I find my burden easy, So light, that had Stella wished it, It could well have been avoided Or by reason overcome, Then I’ll teach her sorrow’s lesson And return the swift complaining With affectionate reproof: And remind you of the time when Neither you nor I existed; When our Holland cried in labour, Bringing liberty to birth; When our parents held disgraceful Even inadvertent sighs, Even tears they dropped while fleeing, Even the least sign of weakness At the gallows, at the stake. In those times, just as in better, Women were of manly courage, Men were lionlike in valour, Hope found in each overthrow. Let me speak it out with courage: Of such roots we are the flowering. Would such stems of noble flowering Bend with weight as light as wind? Does my Star not shine in glory With immortal eyes unclouded, Does not Stella see beyond The calm weather of this hour to Distant clouds, prospective thunder? Sweet God, purify this season, Drive off weather of disgrace;

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Maer, om ’tongewiss Hier-nae, Laet ons sucht en traen-sucht sparen Tegen meer gewelds van baren (Langhe legg’ het wegh en wijd) Datmen redelick bekrijt’. Staen uw’ sterren, Sterr, als sterren Die haer oogh in punten sperren En betintelen schoon weer Huijden eerst en merghen weer, D’eerste locht van ongenucht en Salmen in mijn oogh niet luchten: Sondeloose vreughd om vreughd Kind en moeder van de deughd Sal ick wisselen en ruijlen: Uyt de wegh ontijdigh pruijlen, ’Tleven is soo korten spann, ’Tslapen steelt’er soo veel van, Kleeding, reeding alle morgen, Straetsche, Staedsche, steedsche sorgen, Elck ontsnijdt het sulcken sne Dat sij’t van de vier op twee Vande twee op een verenghen: Maer ’tgenoeghen kan ’t verlengen, Tweemael is, die welgesint Allerzijds genoeghen vindt. Vinden sal ick ’t sonder soecken, Soo diep sien ick in de boecken, In ’tgekoppelde bestier Van der dinghen verr-van-hier. Socht ick ’t, ’twaer soo haest verloren Als gevonden off geboren; Vind ick ’t, Sterr, off vindt het ghij, Die niet Ick en zyt maer Wij, ’Tsal voor eens gevonden blijven, En gemackelick beklijven als het entjen aenden tack, Als aen een gesmolten lack. Sulcke sal de tweespraeck wesen, Stilleswijgend’, van ons wesen, Sprekende, van beider mond,

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But, since all to come’s uncertain, Let us husband all our sorrow, Saving all our lamentations For rough weather if it strikes us (For us may that day be distant), When we have true cause to cry. Stella, when your eyes shall open Wide as points of starlight shining, Glimmering to portend fair weather For tomorrow, for today. Then my eyes shall find but pleasure: Joy and innocence combining, Virtue’s mother, virtue’s child, All your joys I shall requite you. Leave me now, untimely sorrow, Life is short enough already, Sleep steals much of it away, Rising, dressing every morning, Cares of street and state and city Take their share of time allotted Cutting time away, reducing Four to two and two to one. But life’s lengthened lived in pleasure: He who seeks joy every moment Doubles his allotted span. I shall find joy without seeking: Deep I see in books predicting, In the congruent ordering Of the future of all things. If I sought it, I would lose it Lose it quick as found or born; If I found it, if you found it (We who are not ‘I’ but ‘we’), Joy then will be found forever Found forever and remain, As the buds which end the branches As the wax fused by the seal. Such will be our discourse; silent Countenance and mute expression, Speaking tongues’ articulation.

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Still of niet, van ijeders grond; Still en sprekend’ onder ’tmalen Onser dagelickscher maelen, Over suijcker, over wijn Sal ’t de beste sauce zijn.

[ll. 1044-64] Sterre, daer ghij met mij zijt, 1045 Daer ons twee paar wielen draghen, Sal de grootste sterre-waghen Die om ’t noorden rent, bij mijn’ Vroegh noch laet benijbaer zijn: In die stilte van twee menschen 1050 Vind ick ’tuyterst mijner wenschen, Mijner tochten leste witt, U, en eenicheits besitt. Daer in sullen wij de daghen Die wij sien en die wij saghen, 1055 Die wij lang of kort mischien T’samen hebben t’oversien, Oversien ten weder zijden, En verstrammen soo het glijden, En verlenghen soo het touw 1060 Van der uren rapp getouw. Die soo kan, kan drijmael leven: Maer wien is het soo gegeven, Dien ghij niet gegeven zijt, Hoochste gift van onsen tijd? [ll. 1969-2061] Spreeckt ghij, Sterre, neffens mij. 1970 Maer wie staet neffens mij? wat spreeck ick, en waer henen? Mijn Lezer valt in slaep, mijn’ Sterre is uijt geschenen, Daer sleept een witte wolck haer’ dampen over heen: Sy strijckt ten Tijden uijt: Ick sie het, en versteen, En steen als steenen doen, van onderaerdsche dompen, 1975 Die haer doordonderen, en scheurense tot klompen. Soo ruijscht mijn’ steene Milt, mijn moeijelicke klomp: Soo scheurt mij mijn gepeins, en mijn verwerde romp

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Silent, speaking, minds together; Eloquent or mute together As we take our daily meals, Discourse gives our meals their relish Sweet as sugar, sweet as wine.

[ll. 1044-64] Star, now you are ever with me 1045 Now one Chariot conveys us, The great chariot of heaven (Charles his wain the pole revolving) Is bedimmed compared to ours. In this silence of two spirits 1050 All the sum of my desiring: Solitude companionable Rests united in possession. In this silence of two spirits We’ll survey the days before us 1055 And the days which lie behind us, Those which we may live possessed of For a long or shorter time. Thus controlling, slow the moving Of the spinning of the minutes, 1060 Lengthen thus the thread of hours. Who lives thus lives three times over, But who may live thus without you – Stella, Star once given to me, Grace and honour of my days. [ll. 1969-2061] Speak forth, Star, beside me still: 1970 Who stands beside me now? What do I utter? Who hears me? My reader drowses now, my Star’s light is occluded. The clouds invade, involve her, the paler vapour bedims her. Time is behind her now: I see and am turned to stone, Crying as the stones do, crying through the mists under earth, 1975 Thundering through them, riving them, tearing them piecemeal, Rages my spleen of stone, rages my tortured clay. My thoughts rage through me, and my tormented body

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Huijst mijn’ verslagen ziel als haspelen in scherven; ’Thuijs met den Huijs-raed woest; de muren aen ’tbederven, Den inboel hoecksch en dwersch. ô, Godheid, siet om leeg; Bekent mijn eenighe, mijn eewighe t’ondeegh. Oh, Sterre, noch wat straels! noch een oogh van medoogen Op des’ onwaerdighe, die noijt en sullen drooghen. Hoe treckt ghij t’zeewaerd in, en laet mij op het strand? (Wat segg’ ick dweepende?) hoe geeft ghij u te land, En laet mij inde Pinck ter wellust van de baren, De baren deser eew? Wij wilden t’samen varen, En deelen ’tonweer half, en half de blijde vaert; ’Tgevaerlixte gevaer was welvaert daer ghij waert; En daer ghij niet en zijt is welvaert, qualick spoeden. Hoe spoedt ghij dan te land, en laet mij in het woeden, In ’twoeden tegens Mij, mijn’ Onlust en mijn’ Lust? Eij, Sterre, voelt noch wat mijn onrust voor uw rust. De Wereld is soo barsch, soo koel van medelijden: Wien sal ick, sonder u, doen deelen in mijn lijden? Wie sal mijn toevlucht zijn? wie sal mij eenen dropp Van tranen leveren uijt half soo vollen kropp Als mijne dagelix ter halver vloed sal swellen? Wie sal sich waerdighen te quelen in mijn quellen? Wien sal ick d’aenklacht doen van onverdient geweld, Van hoon te loon voor goed, van spijt voor vlijd gevelt, Van ruggeling beklapp, van opgestoockte quell-raed, Voor onberoemde gunst, voor onverdiende weldaed, Van vre in tween geruckt, van twist met list geweckt, Van vuijlen arghewaen met roosen toegedeckt? Wie sal sich pijnen tot een troostigh, Weest te vreden, ’Tis werelds werck, en wind; God leeft, en weet de reden, En d’uijtkomst, en ’tgevolgh ten besten van die ’tlijdt: Waer wacht ick soo veel heils? de wereld is soo wijd Gemaegschapt inden nood; wien sal ick onderhalen, En rugglingh over mijn’ oft mijner misvall halen, Wie sal mijn’ siecke ziel geleiden, als een Hert Door ’tdrooge woud ten stroom, ter koeling van haer’ smert? Wie sal mijn’ duijsigh hooft, mijn’ rijelende leden Van bijds bekoesteren, van verre met gebeden Ontlasten van haer leed? Wie sal mijn haev off eer, Gekrompen off gekroockt, betreuren als sijn zeer?

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Houses my broken soul, broken walls, splinters, all broken, My house is fallen, all its sweet order is broken, Its furnishing scattered. Look down O God out of Heaven That you may know my long solitude and my affliction. Stella, lighten me now, one look of compassion Cast on these worthless eyes which will never be dry. Why do you pass to seaward and I on the strand? (What am I saying, unreasoned?) Why pass you to landward, And I in the cockleshell boat devoured by the seas And storms of this time. Once, we hoped once together To ride out the storm and delight in the calm of the ocean: I’d ride out dangers in safety when you were beside me. Where you are absent there is no safety, no headway. Why do you travel to landward, leaving me weltering in turmoil, Seas and turmoil against me, Stella, my sorrow and joy? O Stella know my disquietude, know it beyond your peace. The world is harsh, the world is cold in compassion: And who will share my suffering now you are gone? Who is my refuge now? Who will spare me one tear, Spare me one tear alone from a source the half as full As mine is daily, daily flooded with tears. Who will trouble now to suffer with me in my sorrow? Who will hear my complaint, when I am injured unjustly: Scorn returned for kindness, spite returned for devotion, Whispers, aspersions, hirelings plotting to harm me, Repaying me thus for my charity, good done in secret. Who will hear my complaint of quarrels fostered by guile And the loss of my peace and slanders hidden in roses? Who will speak to me gently, consoling, saying Be tranquil, This is the world’s way, is nothing; God knows the reasons, Knows the event and the final good born of sorrow. Does good then await me? The world is so cold and so distant To me in my sorrow. Who will I run down as quarry, Bring down like the stag with misfortunes of those who are mine? And who will lead my soul like the suffering deer Through the parched forests to water, slaking of sorrow? Who will sustain my dazed head, my limbs grown uncertain, Sustain me in body being near, sustain me in prayer being distant? Who will lament with me dwindled possessions or honour Offended, lament for me as if the hurt was his own?

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Wie sal mijn’ reisbaer’ Geest ten huijs uijt helpen packen, Ten huijs uyt van dit slijck; als steen, en stijl, en dack, en Verrotte soldering niet langer, sonder pijn, D’onsterffelicken gast huijsvestens machtigh zijn: Wie sal mijn’ stijve Lipp, mijn’ lichteloose lichten Beluijcken met een’ hand diens vriendelick gewicht, en Betraende klammicheit mijn oogh noch voelen sou, Mijn mond noch troetelen door stervens leste kouw? Of blijf’ ick later op, door’s Hemels heiligh hengen, Naer uw te-bedde-gaen, en sie mijn’ daghen lenghen In tamelick vemoegh; de wereld is soo bits Op ’snaesten voor-de-wind: soo nijdigh en soo spits Op vetter vee als thuijs, op weeldrigher geburen Dan d’eighen mergentael: waer sal ick een’ om hueren, Een’ uyt den dicken drangh, die met geduld en smaeck Mijn welvaert melden hoor’, die deel’ in mijn vermaeck, En gunne mij ’tgeluck? En, magh ick ’tminste klaghen, De wereld is soo vies, en onse leck’re daghen Soo satt, soo walgende van ’tdagelix gerecht: Wie sal mijn Leser zijn; hoe sal ick in ’tgerecht Der strenghe keurlickheit bestaen, en u onbeeren, U, Polla van mijn Penn, die, sonder u, geen’ veeren, Of vochte veeren voert, van zilte tranen, vocht, En eertijds achter u gestegen inde Locht Nu bijder aerde kruijpt, en vreest voor alle tacken, En, waerder ijet min hoogh als d’Aerde, soud’er sacken? Eij, Sterre, noch wat straels, off voert mij daer ghij gaet, Of licht mij daer ick blijv. Wij spreken veel te laet, Mijn Hert, en t’enden hoop; en hopeloose wenschen Zijn droomen by schoon dagh van vaeckeloose menschen: Sij reist, en siet niet om, sij rijst en siet niet neer. Eij, Sterre, noch. wat noch? Sy is geen’ Sterre meer, Sij treedt op sterren. Troost, troost, vrienden, die mijn’ reden Van schrick en haer te bergh gevoelt hebt in uw’ leden, Soo emmer levend lid van levend lid geschroeft Uw uijterste geweld van lijden heeft geproeft: Kent wat ick lijd’, en troost: Mijn wederwilligh spreken En sal den stracken draed van uw gesegh niet breken; Tot spreken hoort noch kracht; de mijne gaet te niet: Spreeckt, vrienden, ick besw....

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Who will assist my soul, now wearied and ready to travel Out from this mansion of dust: brick flaking, beams rotten, Roof and ceiling both gone, unable to serve without pain, Any longer as lodging to the immortal within? Who will close now my lightless eyes at my death With fingers sprinkled with tears, with the weight of the hand Which, dying, my eyes would feel and recognize still, Caressing my mouth as it chilled with the coldness of death? Or if it be Heaven’s wish that I should watch late, being wakeful Long after your falling asleep, and see my days lengthen In health and prosperity still, the world is so hostile To neighbours’ prosperity, envious and covetous still Of cattle’s increase, growth of land, growth of estate. What might the cost be, and at what rate could I hire Out of the throng of so many, one, who would listen with pleasure And patience to talk of myself, and my gains; share my joy, Not grudging my happiness? If I have leave to complain Even of small things, the world grows all too disdainful And weary of these our spoiled times, growing scornful Of all our day’s nourishment. Who, in this time, is my reader? How shall I stand my trial in the court of the world, Without you, Stella, the sharer and guide of my pen? Without you my quill is no wing, wing wet with salt of my tears Which flew the empyrean before, and followed your train in the skies. My pen now lies earthbound, no heart for flying, not even To the lowest tree branches, but would sink lower than earth. Star, shine still but a little, or let me follow your journey, Or shine for me still where I stay. We talk in the dark now, My heart, too late, without hope: the wish with no hope of fulfilment Is the dream in broad daylight of those who in grief cannot sleep: She travels and does not look back, she rises and does not look down. My Stella, Star still? Still? My love is no star now, Rather she treads on the stars. Comfort, you friends who have listened, Friends who have felt my sad words’ hurt in your hearts, If the live limbs torn living one from the other Have tested endurance, tested your suffering strength, Know at last what I suffer. Console me. My voice Protesting will never cut the thread of your discourse. Speech requires strength, all strength I had has now left me. Speak, friends, I succ...

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2060

A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Daer leijt mijn plompe Penn: en most sij weer te ploegh, Sij sou’ niet leveren als leeden-lied en lijcken. Maer, Leser, ’tkan bestaen, veel minder waer genoegh; Waer ’tkind volmaeckt, ten sou syn’ vader niet gelijcken.

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There lies my blunted pen, and should it stir Its utterance were lamentation still, Reader, enough, much less would be too long: Flawed poem, child of the imperfect man.

14 MS dated 18 June 1638 (Huygens 1973, pp. 74-152). Stella (‘Sterre’) is Susanna van Baerle. 58 Pearls, greatly loved by the Jews, often stand poetically for the beloved or the soul, following the parable of the pearl-merchant in Matthew 13. 60 With reference to the serpent who tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1.3). 556 The camera obscura was basically a Renaissance toy: a camera without a film, which produced an upside-down image of whatever was in its view. They were sometimes used by artists as an aid to landscape-painting. 698 There was a number of famous stories of heroines of the war of independence, such as Kenau of Haarlem or Trijn of Utrecht. 1047 The constellation of Ursa Major, also known as the Plough or Charles’s Wain. 2012-13 Indirectly refers to Psalm 42.1, ‘As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my heart after thee, O God’. 2039 ‘Polla’ alludes to Polla Argentaria, wife of the Classical poet Lucan, said by Sidonius Apollinaris (Letters, ii, x) to have composed parts of his poems.

15 Conclusus niveis…

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Conclusus niveis in amatae languidus ulnis, Dormi, dixit amans, non omnia possumus omnes. Illa facem veneris simulato frigore velans, Dormi, dixit, Amans, non omnia poscimus omnes. Sed, quod pelle nequis, pretium lue noctis in aere: Solve quod oblatum est, haec omnia poscimus omneis.

15 In Her Snow-cold Arms

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In her snow-cold arms, half-asleep, half-awake he was lying. ‘Sleep,’ said the lover, ‘all of us cannot do all things.’ Shrouding her burning fire, feigning a snowy indifference, ‘Sleep, love,’ she answered, ‘we cannot all command all things. If you cannot in flesh, spend the price of your night in cold money, Pay what is offered: that is what we ask of all men.’

15 MS dated 5 March 1642 (Huygens 1893b, p. 176).

16 Gebed over des Heeren Avondmael

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Ghij maeckte Water Wijn: dat’s klaer als wijn of water: En ’twas een wonder-werck. Ghij noemde Brood uw Lijf, En Wijngaerd-sap uw Bloed. en ’twas een tucht-bedrijf Tot uw’ geheughenis: soo lees ick, en soo staet’er. Mijn ziel vergaept sich niet aen wat vele eewen later De grove gronden leij van eewelick gekijf: Wie u ’tmirakel, Heer, of aenschrijv’ of ontschrijv, Houd ick voor even boos van opsett en van snater. Gunt mij het recht, het slecht, het oud, het all-gemeen, Het onbemorst gebruijck van wat ghij hebt gesproken; En dit mirakel toe: O God voor mij gebroken, Breeckt nu dit lichaem oock en dese Ziel van een. Neen, neen, verworpen steen, ghij zijter van gewroken; Maeckt maer mijn’ steen tot vleesch, en maer mijn vleesch tot steen.

16 Prayer for the Holy Communion

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You made the water wine: a miracle Transparent as the water. You called bread Your flesh, and wine your blood. This was alone Commemoration. Thus I read. It stands. My soul’s untroubled that far later times Make this the ground for an unending strife; Your miracle to celebrate or spurn, Are equal evils in intent or speech. Grant me the universal, true, plain, old And unsoiled usage of your sacred words. Grant one more miracle, my broken God, To break at once my body from my soul. Rejected stone, who suffered once for me; Turn but my stone to flesh, my flesh to stone.

16 MS dated 25 April 1642 (Huygens 1968, pp. 41-42). 2 Luke 22.19-20. 5-8 Huygens refers to the long and bitter debate between Protestants and Catholics as to whether the bread and wine at the Holy Communion are actually transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. 13 A reference to Matthew 21.42: ‘the stone the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner’.

17 De vijver Qui nostram, pueri, Tiliae spectatis ab umbra, Discite perspicuae quid valeamus aquae. Si quod agunt homines vapor est, et fumus, et umbra, Ambiguum est potior res sit an umbra rei.

17 The Lake My boys, regarding our shadows from under the shade of the lime tree, Learn the true value of things from the clearness of water. If all that man’s business amounts to is mist, smoke and a shadow, Which has more substance now: the thing or its watery reflection? 17 MS dated 18 December 1642 (Huygens 1893b, p. 240). This short meditation on reflections is expanded upon in ll. 2715-37 of Hofwijk (no. 30).

18 ’s Heeren Avondmael

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Is ’tweer dijn’ hooghe Feest, en ick weer van de gasten? Maer, Heer, het Bruijloftskleed daer in ick lest verscheen Is over halver sleet, jae ’ten gelijckt’er geen, En ick sitt moedigh aen als of ’t mij puntigh pasten. Hoe waer de wraeck besteedt, soo Ghij mij nu verrasten, En uijtter deure dreeft in ’teewighe geween! Noch borght ghij mij ’tgelagh, en, op Geloof alleen En wat boetveerdicheids, en laet mijn’ ziel niet vasten. Dit’s dan ’tboet-veerdigh Hert. maer ’tveerdigh gaet niet veer: ’Tis geen begonnen werck. Wanneer wil’t boetigh wesen Voor nu, voor gisteren, en voor den tijd naer desen, Eens boetigh voor altoos; en wanneer wilt Ghij ’t, Heer? Is ’t altijds weer op niews, en altyd weer op ’t ouwe? Oh dat mij ’tholl berouw eens endtelick berouwe!

18 The Holy Communion

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Is this again your feast, and I a guest? But, Lord, the wedding clothes which I last wore Are half worn out, unrecognisable, Yet I sit proud as if they fitted well. Just wrath would fall on me, if you should now Surprise me, drive me out to endless woe. But still you give me credit for my score, Against a pledge of faith and some contrition. My heart would move to penitence, but this Is not enough being scarce begun. When will It truly contrite be, for present, past And future time? When will you will it so? Must all be done anew, done as of old? Contrition make me contrite once for all.

18 MS dated 31 December 1644 (Huygens 1974, p. 71). This and the following poems (nos. 19-23) are from the sequence of nine poems written between 31 December 1644 and 7 January 1645, published in 1645 as Heylighe Daghen (Holy Days). The metaphor of the worn clothes which express the sinful soul is taken up in the following sonnet New Year (no. 19).

19 Niewe Jaer ’Tis uijt. de leste Sonn gingh gisteren in Zee, Getuijghe van mijn jaer voll ongeregeltheden. O dien daer dusend jaer zijn als de dagh van heden, Voor wien ick desen dagh mijn vuijle Ziel ontklee Van ’tsmodderigh gewaed van veertigh jaer en twee, 5 En drij, en noch eens twee, die Ghij mij hebt geleden, All vergh ick’t dijn geduld met sondighe Gebeden, Gunt mij een schoonder pack dan ick’er oijt aen dee. In d’eerste niewicheid sal ’tVleesch en Bloed wat prengen, En ’tpast haer moijelik: maer ick betrouw dijn’ hand; 10 Die sal ’t mij lichtelick wat ruijmen en wat lenghen. Maeckt mij maer op de Reis naar ’teewigh Vaderland In dese Wilderniss een’ dijner Israelijten, En laet dit niewe Kleed mijn leven niet verslijten.

19 New Year

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It’s past. The sun passed seawards with the year, Last night, last witness of my sinful year. O God (whose thousand years are as a day) I would unclothe my ragged soul today From all the muddied garments of my years (The forty year and seven you’ve allowed) Taxing your patience with my sinner’s prayer. Grant me new garments, cleaner than I’ve known: Though, in this first renewal, blood and flesh May stretch the clothing, as their nature strains; Your hand shall shape me for these garment’s wear. O guard my steps to the eternal land, Your Israelite in this world’s wilderness, And may my life these new clothes never spoil.

19 MS dated 1 January 1645 (Huygens 1974, p. 64). 3 2 Peter 3.8: ‘one day is with the Lord as a thousand years’. 8 New garments marked baptism: the shedding of an old life and its sins; Huygens may also be thinking of Revelations 3.5, ‘he that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life’. 13 Contemporary Dutch writers repeatedly describe their nation as a new Israel: the reference is to the wanderings in the wilderness, Exodus 16.

20 Goede Vrijdagh

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Wat lett de Middagh-sonn? hoe lust haer niet te blincken? Is ’t avond opden Noen? Ten minsten, Volle Maen, En, Sterren, haer gevolgh, hoe haest ghij ’tondergaen? Moet ghij ter halver loop van’t koele Zee-natt drincken? Neen, neen; ick sie’t u aen, ghij voelt den moed ontsincken. Voor ’tschandighe Schavott, daer Sions dochtren staen En swijmen voorden schrick van ’theiligh, ’Tis voldaen En opden drooghen Bergh in tranen gaen verdrincken. O mijn volldoende God, vergeeft ghij mij een woord? ’Tvoldaen voldoet mij niet, ten zij ghij mij vermoort En van mijn selven scheurt, en brieselt de gewrichten Van mijn’ verstockte Ziel, soo dats’ haer weder-plichten Gedwee en morruw doe: soo dat ick haev en huijs, En lijf en lust en tijd leer’ hangen aen dit Cruijs.

20 Good Friday

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What clouds the midday sun? Too weak to shine: Nightfall at noontide. Tell me, waning moon Your starry train attending, why you set, Drinking sea water, with your course half-run? No, now I see your strength is failing you: Seeing the gibbet where Zion’s daughters weep, Drowning in tears upon the parching hill, Hearing the sacred death-cry ‘All is paid.’ My God, atoning, may I speak a word? Your ransom ransoms not, unless you kill And tear me from myself, the sinews break Of my insensate soul, that it fulfil Its duty. May I learn my goods, my house My body and my time, to hang upon your Cross.

20 MS dated 1 January 1645 (Huygens 1974, pp. 66-67). 7 In place of the usual Biblical ‘’Tis volmaeckt’ (it is consummated) Huygens writes ‘Tis voldaen’ (‘it is paid for’ as well as ‘it is fully done’); the further connotations of ‘voldoen’ (‘satisfy, make satisfaction for’) are present in the sestet of the sonnet, in a way which ‘ransom’ in the translation cannot convey in full.

21 Pinxteren Soo overdadigh is des Heeren milde hand. Sijn’ sprekers hadden hem ’twel-spreken sien beloven Voor ’s Werelds machtighe. noch stort hij haer van boven Elck sijn’ ontsteken tong en tael voor yeder land. 5 Waer toe het overschot van gaven allerhand? Hij had de Hemelen sijn’ almacht leeren loven, De dagh, de stomme nacht verkondight het den doôven; En all sijn maexel spreeckt. Maer sonder grond en strand Zijn sijne wonderen, gelijck sijn’ vriendlickheden. Heer, deelt ghij Tongen om, siet noch eens naer beneden, 10 En deelt’er mij een’ toe die Dij in mij bevall, Die niet en stamer’ daer de boose sullen beven, Die naer den doem verlang van dood en eewigh leven, En onbekommert zij wat sij daer seggen sal.

21 Pentecost

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How lavish is the gentle hand of God. His orators He promised eloquence Before the great. Still sends He from above The tongues of fire, and speech for every land. Why this diverse abundance in his gifts? He had the firmament to praise his power; The day and silent night to tell his glory, Creation all articulate. Beyond All bounds extend his wonders and his love. Lord, giving gifts of tongues, look down on me, Grant me a voice with which to please you ever, That, when you speak the doom of life and death, It shall not stammer as the wicked quaver, And may untroubled be what words it speaks.

21 MS dated 4 January 1645 (Huygens 1974, pp. 69-70). 4 Acts 2.1-6. 6-7 An adaptation of Psalms 19.1.

22 Kersmis All is de herbergh voll, all light Gods Soon in ’thoij, Mijn ziele mach’er in, en wild’er bij vernachten. Kom vleeschelicke mensch, de vleeschighe gedachten Zijn heden van verdienst. Daer schreidt wat in dit stroij 5 Dat voor ons schreijen will. daer all het ijdel moij Van Koninghinnen kraem voor stroij is bij te achten. Daer light in dese Kribb dat ons geloovigh wachten Voll-tijdelick vervull’ en all ons leed verstroij. God light’er in ons Vleesch; God, Vaderloos op aerde, God, moederloos bij God; het mede-scheppend Woord; 10 God, Vader van de maeghd die hem ontfing en baerde En nu te voete light. Hier light. En gaet niet voort, Mijn ziele, maeckt een end van d’ongerijmde Rijmen: Ons beste seggen waer ootmoedelick beswijmen.

22 Christmas

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Though the inn is full, though God’s Son lies in hay, My soul can enter, watch by him till dawn. Come fleshly creature, mortal thoughts today Can serve us well. He cries out in the straw Who would cry out for all. All beauty’s vain Of royal cradles, set beside this straw. Our faithful waiting’s in this Crib fulfilled In season, and our sorrows driven out. God comes to us in flesh, now fatherless; God motherless, as God, creating Word, The father of the Virgin Mother here Lies at her feet. Lie here. No further now, My soul, here end conceited words and rhymes: The fitting eloquence is silence now.

22 MS dated 5 January 1645 (Huygens 1974, p. 70).

23 Paeschen Den Engel is voorbij: de grouwelicke Nacht Der eerstgeborenen is bloedeloos verstreken: Ons’ deuren zijn verschoont; so warense bestreken Met heiligh Paeschen-bloed, dat d’uijtgelaten macht, 5 Die Pharaos kinderen en Pharao t’onderbracht, Doorgaens verschrickelick, verschrickt heeft voor het teken. Wij zijn door ’troode Meer de slavernij ontweken, Ægypten buijtens reicks. Is alle dingh volbracht? Is ’tschip ter haven in? Oh! midden in de baren, De baren van ons bloed, veel holler dan dat meer. 10 Den Engel komt weerom, en ’tvlammighe geweer Dreight niewen ondergang. Heer, heet hem over varen. Merckt onser herten deur, o leew van Judas Stamm, En leert ons tijdelick verschricken voor een Lamm.

23 Easter

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The angel has passed by: the fearful night Of first-born deaths now bloodlessly is past: And spared have been our doors that so were signed With holy Easter blood. The power unleashed That brought the Pharaoh and his children low, That terror went in terror of this sign. The Red Sea crossed, our slavery now past, Safe out of Egypt’s power. Is all fulfilled? Our ship in port? No, yet amidst the waves, Waves of our blood blown higher than that sea. The angel comes again, the flaming sword Threatens new death. Lord, bid him pass us by, Sign our hearts’ doors, O lion of Judah’s tribe, That timely we learn terror of the Lamb.

23 MS dated 6 January 1645 (Huygens 1974, p. 68). This complex sonnet plays on the dual sense of ‘Paeschen’: Easter and Passover. Christ is the ‘first-born’ of the dead in parallel with the first-born of Egypt; the doors of the Israelites are signed with the blood of the redeeming Christ. The second half of the sonnet is particularly rich: the waves of the Red Sea stand for death and resurrection, for human sin and the need for deliverance. There is a further layer of meaning: the image of Israel coming out of Egypt is central to the discourse of the emergent Dutch Republic, as is the image of safe land as opposed to high water, the sea of enemies threatening the safe walls of the emblematic garden of Holland. 1 Exodus 11.23: ’The Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel and on the door posts, he will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses.’ 7 Exodus 14.21-30. 11 Genesis 3.24. 13 Christ is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God in Revelations 5.5-6.

24 Aen Tesselschade

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Mijn’ Tong en was noijt veil, mijn’ Penne noijt verkocht, Mijn’ Handen noijt in strick van Goud of Diamanten, Mijn’ Vrijheid noijt verslaeft, om met fluweele wanten De waerheid aen te gaen, en anders dan ick docht. Ja Tong, en Penn, en Hand, en Vrijheid zijn verknocht Aan ’t Vorstelick bevel dat onse Vrijheid plantten, En tegen ’t Spaensch geweld sijn weer-geweld dorst kanten, En Babels (lijdt noch eens mijn’ rondheid) vuijl gedrocht. Maer ’t Wereldsche gesagh en gaet niet aen de wortel Van ’t heilighe Gewiss. ’Ten is geen’ strydigh’ eer, Een eeuwigh’ God t’ontsien, en een’ bescheiden’ Heer, Die lyden kan, en moet wat uyt de Waerheid bortel’. Dus eisch ick U strengh recht; geen’ gunste, geen’ gena’, Beroemde, maer, eilaes! beRoomde Tesselscha.

24 To Tesselschade

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My tongue was never hired, nor my pen e’er sold, My hands were never snared by gold or jewels, My freedom ne’er enslaved, so that I handled The truth with velvet gloves, against belief. Yes, tongue, pen, hand and freedom all have served The princely order that our freedom sowed, ‘Gainst Spanish force its counter force opposing, And Babel’s filthy creatures (I’ll speak plain). But wordly power strikes never to the root Of holy knowledge; ’tis no contentious use To fear eternal God, and a prudent Prince Who can and does suffer what truth may yield. So I ask justice of you, and no grace, Famous, alas, but Papist Tesselscha.

24 MS dated 22 January 1645 (Huygens 1894, p. 25). Despite (or, as Huygens writes in another poem, precisely because of) their warm friendship, Huygens passionately disapproved of Tesselschade’s conversion to Catholicism, and for many years harassed her with fiercely critical and often indelicate poems. In answer to one of the most offensive of them (of 14 December 1644; Huygens 1894, pp. 8-9), she apparently suggested that Huygens’ implacable stance was prompted by his official position at the Protestant court. 7 The identification of Rome and Spain of course came naturally to the Dutch mind. 8 Babel: probably an abbreviation for ‘Babylon’ with reference to Isaiah 13.19-21; and implying the complete decay of the Roman church. 14 The pun in ‘Beroemde/ beRoomde’ (‘Celebrated/ be-Romed’) is unfortunately untranslatable.

25 In praestantissimi pictoris Dan. Segheri rosas

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Ardua Naturae Matri cum Patre Seghero Lis fuit, utrius cederet utra Rosae. Succubuit coniu[n]cta Parens, se judice: vivus Coram factitio flosculus umbra fuit. Si quis es emunctae naris, iam desyt, adde, Vivus odoratu vivere, pictus olet. Adde, minor Pictore Dea est. invenit Olivam Pallas, at hie Oleum fecit olere Rosam.

25 On the Roses of the Most Eminent Painter, Daniel Seegers

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When Mother Nature contested with Father Seegers, It was a hard case, the roses passed to their Father. Nature as judge, conceded defeat in the contest: The painted flower rendered the real one a shadow. Have you a fine sense of smell, there is more. Add this: Living it lives through its scent, and painted smells sweetly. And thereto add this still: the goddess is less than the painter, Pallas but brought us the olive: with oil Father Seegers Creates, in his painting, the fragrance of roses.

25 MS dated 23 January 164 (Huygens 1894, pp. 25-26). Daniel Seegers (1590-1661) worked in Antwerp, associated with Rubens, painter of flower still-lives and guirlandes. 7 In Greek myth, Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom, gave mankind the olivetree.

26 Aen Tesselschade, vertreckende

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Pas hebt ghij hier geweest, en dreight weer te vertrecken. Ey, Tessel, is de dagh niet eenen dagh te recken? Is Alckmaer by den Haegh soo haeghelick, soo soet, Dat all het Haeghs behaegh voor ’tonhaeghs wijcken moet? Ten minsten, gaet niet wegh, om wegh te willen blijven: Ten minsten, laet wat hoops mijn’ weecke wanhoop stijven; En staet wat woeckers toe. en miss ick ’tCapitael, Gedooght dat ick het op den interest verhael. Ick geef ons sestien jaer (God, hoop ick, sals’ ons geven) In ’tvrolicke besitt van Lijf en Ziel te leven. Maer u geef icks’ op rent. Al valt de hooft-somm schaers, ’Tis tegen ’tjaer sestien noch een besoeckje ’s jaers.

26 To Tesselschade, Departing

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You hardly have arrived, but now you say you’ll leave. Ah, Tessel, will your day not stretch out one more day? Compared then to The Hague, is your Alkmaar so sweet, So sweet that Hague’s delights must to non-Hague give way? At least, do not depart wishing to stay away, Leave me a little hope to comfort my despair. Allow some interest too: if capital I lose, Let me recoup some losses from this interest. I give us sixteen years (and hope that God will grant them) To live and thrive, possess life and soul. I give them you at interest: though the capital be small, In sixteen years you’ll owe me a visit once a year.

26 MS dated 1 March 1645 (Huygens 1894, p. 49). 3-4 Untranslatable pun ‘den Haegh/haeghelijk/tonhaeghs’ (‘The Hague /Pleasant/ not-Hague’).

27 In Alb. Dureri picturam chalcographicam Thesaurum, Spectator, habes, quem dicere fas est Aureum, ut abjecto ducat ab aere genus. Dureri divina manus quidcumque sub ullo Sydere, Naturâ luxuriante, viget, Aeternum facit aere suo. Stupet ipsa superstes 5 Ad recreatoris vim recreata sui, Duritiemque datam fluxis quam vel Jovis ira Non possit, vel edax non abolere dies. Nos vero mage miramur, nil durius esse Durero quo nil mollius astra vident. 10 Vive, vir excellens, quando dedoctus obire Quantus hic est Orbis totus in aere tuo est.

27 To Albert Dürer on His Engraved Picture You have a treasure, gazer, and a golden one: Transmuted gold from lowly bronze. A brazen treasure, made by Dürer’s divine hand. Generous Nature guards him, under kindly stars. All who gaze, wonder, seeing divine re-creation: 5 The thing itself living anew, through artist’s skill. Fixing changing things into the durable picture Where time’s tooth cannot spoil them nor Jove’s anger. We gaze at the marvel, Dürer’s achievement enduring, Made by the gentlest man, under the fostering sky. 10 Prosper, master! We’ll never escape you: Now all of creation is caught in your pictures. 27 MS dated 1  February 1646 (Huygens 1894, p. 71). Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), court painter to the Hapsburg emperor Maximilian i, was one of the first Northern artists to be influenced by the new painting of the Italian Renaissance. He was greatly admired for the minute accuracy of his representation, and particularly well known for his woodcuts and copper engravings, which were widely reproduced.

28 Voor ’s Heeren Avondmael Ick will, Heer, dat ghij wilt, en hebb het lang gedaen, Ick hebb dijn’ loop-baen lief, en loopse met vermaken, En doe ’t van over lang, en hoop het niet te staken, Maer van de dertigh grein tot hondert toe te gaen. 5 Hoe pleit ick evenwel? is dus de maet voldaen, Is ’twitt of met mijn’ will of met mijn’ loop te raken? Oh, soo veel ijdelheids en laet mij noijt genaken: Onnutte dienstknecht, hoe soud ick bij mij bestaen! Mijn will is wilde will, mijn loop is staegh te rechten. Oh die de voeten wiescht van dijn’ onvuijler knechten, 10 Wischt met den minsten dropp van dijn onschuldigh wee, Mijn’ vuijl-geloopen af, eer ick ter Tafel treê. Ick segh’t, ô God, en meen’t, en ween’t, en steen’t: och armen, ’Ten geldt noch will noch loop; mijn heil is dijn ontfarmen.

28 On the Holy Communion

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My will, Lord, is your will, and this has long been so, I love your course and run it with delight, Have run it long enough, and do not hope to finish, But from the thirty grains, a hundred to attain. What plea is this? Is thus the measure full? Should I then reach the goal by will or else by running? Let so much vanity come near me never: Unprofitable servant, I can’t do it unaided! My will is wild, my course needs much correction. You who did wash the feet of your much cleaner servants, Wash with the smallest drop of your all-guiltless pains My feet stained with the course, ere I to table come. My God, I say, weep, groan it: neither will nor race Will serve: Your mercy is my only hope.

28 MS dated 2 October 1649 (Huygens 1968, pp. 48-49). 2 Hebrews 12.1. 4 Matthew 13.8. 10 John 13.5. 11-12 In these lines Christ’s saving blood, shed to redeem the sins of humankind, is parallelled with his washing the feet of his apostles. The concluding lines stress that Huygens places his hope in Christ’s atonement and mercy, not in any efforts of his own to run ‘the race of life’ well.

29 Noch op des Heeren Avondmael

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Het kleed most wit en klaer, jae spier en sneew-wit zijn, Daer med’ ick op dijn’ feest, Almachtighe, verschijn: Maer ’tis een’ sneew vol slijx, en ’tis een spier vol vuijlen Die ick ter Maeltijd breng. Wat sal ick aengaen? schuijlen? En schouwen dijn gesicht? De vijgen van al ’t land Zijn breede-bladen-loos tot mijner sonden schand. Neen, Heer, ick bergh mij niet; ick wil van dij geberght zijn. O, wilt het om dij selfs noch dese reis geverght zijn! Ick sal haest sneew-wit zijn, soo ghijder maer toe doet Den IJsop van dijn’ Geest, de Looge van dijn bloed.

29 Again on the Holy Communion

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Clean must the garment be, white as white meat or snow, Almighty God, that I unto your feast shall wear: But it is mudded snow, white meat with spot and stain I bring to you. What should I do? Hide now? And shun your face? The figtrees of our land Grow leaves too thin to hide my sins and shame. No Lord, I will not hide. I would by you be saved. For your own sake, I make this prayer once more: Soon to be white as snow, if you but grant to me The hyssop of your spirit, caustic of your blood.

29 MS dated 2 July 1651 (Huygens 1968, pp. 50-51). 1 Refers to Revelations 19.7-9: ‘to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ 4-6 Genesis 3.7-8: ’they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons... and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God’. 10 Hyssop, a cleansing herb, referring to Psalms 51.9 and Exodus 12.22.

30 [Uit] Hofwijck [ll. 1-32]

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Degroote webb is af; en ’tHof genoegh beschreven: Eens moet het Hofwijck zijn. Wie kent den draed van ’tleven, Hoe kort hij is, hoe taeij? de snaer die heldste luijdt Scheidt d’eerste menighmael van leven en van Luijt, Verkracht en over-reckt, of met der tijd versleten. ’Khebb over-reckt geweest; maer bend’er deur gebeten. Op ’tslijten komt het aen. Twee dingen maken’t waer; Of ick ’t ontveinsen wouw, mijn’ jaren en mijn haer. En als de snaer begint te ves’len en te pluijsen, Soo staet sij meestendeel op ’tschielicke verhuijsen. Wie weet of ’tschielicke verhuijsen deser ziel Niet voor mijn deur en staet? En of ’t God soo beviel, Sou Hofwijck onberijmt sijn’ stichter overleven, En wijcken voor ’t Voorhout? en soud’ ick mij begeven, Die anderen mijn’ penn baldadigh hebb geleent, Met reden eischte men de schuld van mijn gebeent, ”Met reden schreefm’ er op: Hier light een Mann begraven, ”Die meende te volstaen met planten en met graven, ”De slechte boeren-konst, en moght de moeijte niet ”Sijn eighen maeckseltjen te cieren met een lied. Mijn sterven weet ick met lang leven niet te weeren; Maer, leef ick weinigh meer, het Grafschrift will ick keeren, En singhen wat ick poot, en rijmen wat ick bouw, Eer dese keel verschorr’, eer dese Penn verouw. ’Kwill Hofwijck, als het is, ’kwill Hofwijck, als ’t sal wesen, Den Vreemdeling doen sien, den Hollander doen lesen. Soo swack is menschen-werck, het duert min als papier. De tijd slijt struijck en steen: eens salmen seggen, Hier, Hier was’t daer Hofwijck stond, nu Puijn en Queeck en Aerde. En dan sal Hofwijck noch staen bloeijen in sijn’ waerde: Ja, waerde, sooder oijt ijet waerdighs van mijn’ hand De Jaren heeft verduert en ouderdom vermant.

30 [From] Hofwijk [ll. 1-32]

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The first great web is woven, the court described enough, Time now to flee to Hofwijk. Who knows the thread of life How short, how strong it is? The loudest sounding string Will often break the first, in life and on the lute, Being tuned too high, too taut, abraded by the times. Such tension I have known, but safely have endured it, It comes down to attrition. And this has two signs (I were a fool denying it): my years and my grey hairs. When the stretched lutestring frays, abraded, split and worn, It shows that it is ready, quite suddenly, to go. Who knows if the sudden hour of your going forth, my soul, Lies not before you now? And if it should please God To take me, would my house outlive my days unsung, Be outdone by my Tempe? Would I stint my own, Who have so often lent my pen to others’ work? Justly I’d be accused of negligence, when dead, With justice would my epitaph begin, ‘Here lies A man who thought it would suffice to plant and dig, Who followed farmer’s arts and never took the time To ornament his own creation with a song.’ My death I can’t postpone simply by living long, But, if I live a while, I will prevent that charge: That which I plant I’ll sing, and rhyme all that I grow, Before my voice grows hoarse, before my pen grows old. I’d make the stranger see and make the Dutchman read Hofwijk as it stands now, the Hofwijk that shall be. So frail are human works, paper outlasts them all, Time wears the shrub and stone: in time it will be said, ‘Here once his Hofwijk stood, now rubble, weeds and spoil.’ And then shall Hofwijk stand, still flowering in its pride If any words that come, my reader, from my hand Have ever braved the years and conquered ruinous time.

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The plan of Huygens’ country seat Hofwijk, included in the first publication of Hofwijck, Den Haag, 1653. The letters in the plan correspond with the letters printed in the margin of the poem.

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[ll.127-64] Ick will u Hofwijck doen aenschouwen, of ’t te nacht, Gelijck als duijvels-brood, te voorschijn waer gebracht. Jae meer, ick will het u, en mij oock, doen betreden 130 Als waer ons gisteren een’ gansche eew geleden ’Kwill met kinds kinderen goed deelen voor mijn’ dood, Als waer ick Grootevaer en twee drij mael soo groot. Het wereldsche besitt en is toch niet als droomen, En oft gekomen is, of mogelick te komen, ’Ten is maer binnen ons het ghen’ het schijnt of is, 135 ’Tzij bij voor-sieninghen of bij geheugheniss. Dus sal dan Hofwijck zijn, neen (wij zijn hondert jaren Geboren naerden dagh dat wij geboren waren) Dus sien wij Hofwijck staen: Ten Noorden van ’tgroot spoor Nae Voorburgh, ’t schoone dorp (of seght’er, Steetje, voor) 140 n.o.p. Light een aensienlijck Bosch in mindere gesneden: Vraeght naer de lengde niet bij Roeden of bij Treden; Die aenden ingangh staet en siet den uijtgang niet, En ’teind is verr genoegh daer men geen eind en siet. Een’ tamme wilderniss van woeste schick’lickheden; 145 Soo noemt sich dit vertreck, ter liefde vande Reden En gulde middelmaet, die ick soo waerdigh houw. Te tamm waer all te stijf, te wild waer all te rouw, Daer is wat tuschen tween, dat tweederhands begeeren Voldoen kan, tamm en wild, en dit door dat vermeeren; 150 Gelijck wat etens dorst, wat drinckens honger maeckt; Gelijck lang slapen weckt en lang gewaeck vervaeckt. Den tammen lust voldoen vier wonderlicke dreven o.p. Van Eicken saeghbaer hout, van Boomen die daer streven Om dickte bijder aerd, om hooghten inde lucht, 155 Om breedten onder weegh en groen en koel gerucht. ’Khebb saeghbaer hout genoemt: maer laet het niemand waghen Mijn Trouw-verlaet t’ontdoen, mijn’ dreven om te saghen. Daer’s Pott-geld, soo men’t hiet, siet dit voor post-geld aen. 160 Ick segg’ het eew voor eew, kinds-kinderen, laet staen, En brandt of warmt u niet aen hout dat ick hiet wasschen: Ondanckbaer’ erffeniss en is niet af te wasschen: Ten minsten moet hij doen het gheen de Sterver hiet, Die ’tleven door hem kreegh en van sijn sweet geniet.

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[ll.127-64] I want to show you Hofwijk, as if it sprang by night, Grown sudden, like a mushroom, to maturity. And more than this, I want to make us walk it round 130 As if our yesterday a century were past: Before my death it is my wish to share this place With my children’s children, think myself three times as old. Possessions in this world are not at all like dreams, And whether things have come, or are things still to be They lie within our minds, the real thing and the dream, 135 Either in hope prospective, or in memory. And so shall Hofwijk be (no, we see Hofwijk stand Mature, for we were born a hundred years and more After our true birthday): lying north of the great road, To Voorburg (handsome village, village almost town) 140 n.o.p. You find a good-sized wood, in smaller parts divided: Don’t ask me for its size in roods or feet—but stand At one end and you see no ending to the trees, The end is quite far off where eyes discern no end. This the tame wilderness of wild civility; 145 Or so I call the wood, as Reason I love well And love the balance of the Golden Mean, you see, Too tame would be too formal here; too wild, too coarse, So that which lies between can satisfy us best In our desires for tame and wild, contrasting things: 150 The way that food breeds thirst, and drink breeds appetite, Long slumber wakefulness, long wakefulness breeds sleep. So the desire for tameness is answered by four rides o.p. Of serviceable oaks, my avenues compete In thickness at their root, in eminence in air, 155 For spread of branches round, for cool green murmuring. Perhaps I called them timber: but let nobody dare To break my faithful refuge, fell my avenues. Think of invested gold, this planted capital 160 Matures in centuries; grandchildren, let them stand, And never burn the trees I planted for you here: Inheritance unworthily disposed is lasting shame: The pious heir respects the wishes of the dead, Who toiled for him and brought him into being.

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[ll. 341-426] v. De Bercken staen om mij als toortsen, die in kercken Niet half soo dienstigh staen en druijpen opde sercken, Blanck-stammigh is de Boom, gelijck ’twasch vande Bije, Sijn maker werdt onthaelt: noch is ’tveel dat ick ’tsie; 345 Soo duijster is ’tin ’tgroen, soo groen is ’t inden duijster; Den duijster, daer ontrent de flickerigste luijster Van Wolle-weverij, die t’huijs mijn’ muren deckt Nau voor een’ schaduwe van somer-groente streckt. Wat magh de sotte konst haer selven onderwinden? Haer uijterste geweld is qualick werck van blinden 350 Bij ’tminste Bercken-blad, den minsten Elsen-tack, Mijn’ muer-tapijten hier, mijn’ sold’ring en mijn dack. In dese wonderen bergh ick de soeticheden Van mijn’ gesnoepten tijd: hier spreeck ick met de reden, Met mij, met d’eenigheid, met vrienden verr van mij, 355 Met eewen, goed of quaed, te komen, of verbij: Maer ’tis altoos geen emst: Ick hoorder oock wel spreken, Soo sich een vriend met mij in ’tgroene komt versteken, En opde prate-banck van zoden daer geplant Sijn’ uertjens wagen will en helpense van kant. 360 Neemt een’ gelijckeniss tot keers-licht van mijn’ reden: De Peerel-vischer duijckt tot dat hij gansch beneden Den Bodem vande Cuijp die ’t zilte zee-natt houdt Geluckelick betreedt en als sijn’ acker bouwt. Daer tast en grabbelt hij naer Oesters, die haer’ schalen 365 En daer sij groot af gaen sijn’ lijfs gevaer betalen: Maer ’tis niet altoos prijs in sulcken Loterij: De Nieten zijn te veel. noch is de vischer blij, Als baet bij lasten komt, en d’een den ander’ draghen. 370 Die in mijn’ groene Meer met mij den brand der daghen, Of booser weer ontsitt, is hier als opden grond Van een’ ontstelde zee. de baren, boven rond, Gaen als ’t den wind behaeght; beneden is’t still water; Daer soeck ick peerelen, ick en mijn mede-prater; 375 Maer beter peerelen dan daer den lndiaen Sijn’ adem om verkracht en hanghts’ ons vrouwvolck aen, Die kralen zijn maer kalck, bij d’onse niet te tellen, Bij d’onse maer Aijuijn van schilferen en vellen, Bij d’onse maer Schotsch goed. Ons’ peerelen zijn puijck

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[ll. 341-426] v. My birches stand around, as white as the church tapers Which drip their wax on graves, stand not so strong; White barked this tree, white as the virgin wax New-gathered from the hive; I see these things but dimly 345 So shadowy the greenness, and so green the shade. Compared to this green shade, the brightest weaving Of woollen tapestries which deck my house’s walls Is but a shadow set beside the summer’s green. How foolish overweening art, made bold, can be: Art’s utmost work is fumbling, blind man’s work 350 Compared to the least beech-leaf, smallest alder spray, Which leaves are Arras here for me, and roof and walls. Amidst these wonders, I can hide away the pleasures Of my sweet stolen time, can speak with Reason here, In discourse, with myself, with solitude, with friends 355 Far distant from me now, with past or future times Not always heavily: there’s conversation too If friends will come as well to hide with me in greenness, To talk on the turf-bench, for conversations made, Wishing to risk their hours and lay them out in pastime. 360 A metaphor to show, like candle-light, my thoughts: The diver seeking pearls dives deep into the waves, Until with joy he treads the bottom of the trough Which holds the briny water, there he tills his field. It’s there he feels for oysters, which, with their rich shells 365 And what’s contained within, reward him for his toil; In such a lottery, he wins not every time: And draws blank all too often: the diver is well pleased If profits come near costs, each balancing the other. 370 Whoever shares my green lake to escape the fire Of dog-days or worse weather, here, as if on the bed Of a tempestuous sea, with hollow waves above Which drive at the wind’s whim, sits in the tranquil water And looks for pearls with me, in discourse flowing on. 375 We seek for better pearls than those the Indian dives, For which he strains his breath, with which we deck our wives. His pearls are only chalk, not to be matched with ours; Compared to our pearls, they’re but onions, scales and rind, Poor as Scots merchandise. You see, our pearls are flowers

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Van deughd of wetenschapp, bei dingen van gebruijck, Die soecken wij in ’t still, in ’t groen diep mijner baren, Mijn’ zee van bladeren, die wij wel hooren baren En ruijschen over ons, maer die ons niet en deert. Daer visschen wij somtijds ijet dat ons sticht oft leert; Daer mischen wij somtijds dat stichten kan of leeren; Gedachten gaen als wind, en buijtelen en keeren, En springen oost uijt west, eer dat hij ’tweet, die denckt, Eer dat hij met een oogh of met een oogh-scheel wenckt: Soo sliptmen lichtelijck van goede in slechter sinnen, Die dan uijt d’eene webb een’ andere verspinnen, En warren in een’ knoop van soete vodderij. Dat’s dan een mis-slagh van verloren visscherij, Een Schotsche peerel, of een’ Oester-schelp die holl is. Soo komt het dat de mensch strax zedigh en strax doll is: Jae, neemt van ’tstadighste; ’tschijnt levend vleesch en bloed En all de menschlickheid beweeght bij ebb en vloed: Ernst will getempert zijn, jock wilder onder wesen: Ick hebb het soo gesien, ick hebb het soo gelesen; Wij zijn geen’ Engelen: de Reden doet haer best, Maer ’twispeltureloos en komt niet als op ’tlest. ’Kwill uijt mijn Bossjens niet; daer is noch wat te hooren. Is ’t mogelick voorbij, het tuijt noch in mijn’ ooren. ’Kspreeck van geen’ nachtegael; die heeft’ er oock sijn’ nest, En maeckt’er meer geschals dan all’ de vlugge rest: ’Kspreeck van gevogelte met kostelicker veeren, Veel aerdigher gebeckt en in wel langher kleeren. Voor allen noem ick een, utricia, voor all, Ons’ Swaen, of ons’ Swaeninn, of hoemens’ heeten sal. Die hebb ick hier gehoort, die dunckt mij noch te hooren, Die hebb ick hier gesien de nachtegalen stooren, Gelijck de mergenstond de fierste sterren stoort, En houdt alleen het veld en vleidt sich met die moord, En pronckt met dat gesagh; Aensienlixte der vrouwen, Aenhoorlixte daer toe; ick hebb’t soo wel onthouwen Wat dat ghij schoon geschals gemaeckt hebt in dit groen, In dit still-wilde louw, dat ick ’tu noch hoor doen, Noch voor de waerheid hou, dat van mijn’ beste boomen De beste naer uw’ keel mijn Bosch in zijn gekomen, Noch voor mirakel hou, hoe ’t mog’lick is geweest

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Of Virtue and of Learning, both these things of use: For these we search the still and green depths of my waves, My moving sea of leaves, which we hear clamouring And moving still above us, whose waters yet don’t hurt us. There sometimes we may catch a thing to teach or help us; There sometimes too we miss the things which help or teach us, Our thoughts move like the wind, go whirling in the wind, Being blown from East to West, before you are aware: A movement rapid as the moving of the eyelid. Thus tumbling and slipping, good thought blows to bad, Which thoughts then weave their web, one fabric to another, Entangling in a knot, a snare of pleasant trifles. Those thoughts are fishing when the catch has failed, Scots pearls, or no pearls in the hollow oyster shell. Thus we are sober and extravagant by turns. Even the gravest man is human flesh and blood, And moves, as all do, like the ebbing, flooding waters: Our gravity still seeks a balanced levity. This is my observation, my reading and my thought, We are in truth no angels, Reason does its best But fickleness is not the last thing to affect us. I’d linger in my wood a while; for here remains One thing to hear, when silenced still remembered. I speak not now of nightingales, although they nest Within my grove, outsinging other darting birds: I speak of one more eminent still for plumage Far lovelier of throat, lovely in flow of garments. I name you paramount, Utricia, first of all, Most swan-like, Lady Swann, whichever name best names you. I heard her singing here, I think I hear her still Out-sing the nightingale, eclipse the nightingale, As dawn will vanquish all the proud and glimmering stars And hold the sky-field as sole victor in the fight, Displayed in power. Of women you the loveliest, Most worthy to be heard. The memory’s so strong That still I hear your song, first heard within this greenness, Heard in my calm of leaves below the stormy trees, That I still think it true that these, my finest trees Were drawn into the wood, all through your voice’s power, And hold it still a miracle that it was possible

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Dat daer gelegert hebb soo velerhande Beest Als ghijd’er hebt gelockt; waer d’Olijfanten stonden, Waer dromedarisen en kemels ruijmte vonden, Waer d’Esel en de Bock, het vercken en den uijl, Want, liegh ick van haer’ komst soo valt d’historij vuijl, Die haer’ komst van eertijds op ’tspel der Griecksche velen De wereld heeft verthoont met min gewelds van kelen.

[ll. 891-928] a.a. Waer zijn wij? tuschen Bosch en Bogaerd. staet wat still; Dit’s oock mijn eigendom; ick doed’er wat ick will; En wat ick hebb gewilt en sal u niet vervelen, En wat ick wilde, zijn twee wanden van Abeelen, Die nu ten Hemel gaen, en proncken met haer’ kruijn 895 (Denckt aen mijn’ hondert jaer) tot in het noorder duijn. Wel voeght haer dat gepronck; sij moghen sich beroemen Voor schutters van Geboomt, van Cruijden en van Bloemen; En, sooder een van all ten einde levens kom’ Daer sij ten scherme staen, ’tis maer van ouderdom. 900 Aen haer en sietmen’s geen; en ’tmagh haer wedervaren Dat een den loover-drill van haer’ ongroene bla’ren Tot minder waerde duij’: maer dat’s ’thaer van haer’ hoofd, En dat’s daer noijt wijs mann een mann sijn’ eer om rooft. ’Tgrijs heet de Kerck-hof blomm; maer ’theet soo tegens reden; 905 ’Tis ’tmerck van rijpicheid van sinnen en van zeden. Gaet bij d’Abeelen op, tot daer sij spitser zijn, Daer is noch krack, noch kreuck, noch schaduwe, noch schijn Van buijgen voor ’tgeweld van ’t vinnighe Zuijdwesten, Off van ’t verdelgend Noord met all sijn’ Boomgaerd-pesten. 910 Abeeltjens, oud grijs volck, oud krijchsvolck seid’ ick recht; Ghij hebt voor ons gestaen in ’theetste van ’tgevecht, Dat’s ’tkoudste vanden strijd; en Appelen en Peeren Of met uw’ wapenen gedeckt, of met uw’ kleeren, 915 Wel heeft den Hemel u gerechtelick geloont, En inden ouderdom met stijve jeughd gekroont. Heel Voorburgh heeft met mij te deelen in ’tbedancken, Als ’top uw’ stammen siet en als ’tsiet op uw’ rancken; Het siet u niet alleen voor Voorburghs Voor-burgh aen; 920 Maer voorde cierlickheid daer ’tschier om werdt begaen; Dat weet de vreemdeling, de wandelaer van buijten,

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That multitudes of beasts were drawn into the grove To your attracting song. That elephants were here That dromedaries, camels took their places too, The goat and donkey with them, the owl and the wild swine, If here I lie in saying that you drew the creatures here, The ancient fable were a falsehood too, which showed The beasts flock to the lyre, to lesser force of song.

[ll. 891-928] a.a. Where are we now? Between the wood and orchard. Stay a while, This too is my estate, my wishes give it form. What I have wished for here will not, I trust, be dull. Here by my wish there stand two walls of the white poplars Which reach to heaven now and flaunt their crowns of branches 895 (In a century, remember!) as far as the North dunes, Well may they flaunt in pride, well may they pride themselves As marksmen who protect the trees and herbs and flowers; And should these die, and should they withered fall, While poplars stands on guard, old age alone’s the cause. 900 These poplars show no age: spectators might mistake them, Thinking them old with all their shimmering grey leaves Think them of lesser worth, their leaves are but their hair No wise man ever slights another for his hair. Grey hair’s called graveyard’s flower, but called so without reason: 905 Grey hair is the true sign of ripened heart and mind. Look up at my white poplars, gaze up to their crests, You’ll see no split or fissure, not the slightest trace Of bending at the onslaught of the fierce south-western wind, Or to the spoiling northerly which threatens orchard trees. 910 White poplars, old grey folk, old warriors, I said true; Well you have guarded us through all the battle’s heat, Which is the ice-born wind; you have protected well Apples and pears with pikes of timber, shields of leaves: 915 And for this service done, Heaven has rewarded you, Your old age crowned still with all the strength of youth. All Voorburg too must join to thank you here with me, Seeing your trunks and all your boughs with me surveying: It can regard you well as Voorburg’s first defence, 920 Regard you too for beauty, which makes it visited: The traveller knows this well, the walker from the country:

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925

Dien sulcke’n Galerij doet gissen en besluijten Wat van uw binnen is, daer ’t buijten staet en lacht Met sulcke’n trotsen vreughd, met sulcke’n soeten pracht. Danckt mij toe, vreemdeling, die, t’uwer gunst genegen, Noch schooner hebb gemaeckt den schoonsten wegh der weghen. ’T is maer half prijsens waerd, sich selven te versien; Heel is hij ’t, die betracht dat voor ’tGemeene dien.

[ll. 965-90) Voor d’eerste quellingh, hoort drij woorden, eens voor allen; 965 ’Twaer meerder quelling staegh op ’tselve platt te vallen, En staegh te seggen, staegh te hooren, voor of na, Dit’s dus in ’tOost geschickt, in ’tWest de wederga. Daer is een’ middel-lijn, die Hofwijck scheidt in deelen, Daer van de slincker van de rechter niet en schelen: 970 Een’ Oost’ een’ Wester poort, een’ Oost’ een’ Wester laen, Een Eiland oost, een west, in beij gelijcke pa’en; Een Boomgaerd midden in, een Plein, een Huijs, een Vijver, Ten Zuijden opde Vliet een open Tijd-verdrijver. y. Dit tsamen (kost het zijn) in ’t Goud-gewicht geleght, 975 Soo stond de tong in ’t huijs, en beij de schalen recht. Wie die verdeeling laeckt, veracht voor eerst sijn selven, En ’tschoonste dat God schiep. Eer ick bestond te delven, Nam ick des Wijsen less tot richtsnoer van mijn doen; ’Kbesagh mijn selven; meer en had ick niet van doen. 980 Twee vensters voor ’tGesicht, twee voor den Reuck, twee Ooren, Twee Schouderen in ’tkruijs, twee Heupen daer sij hooren, Een’ Dij van wederzijds, een’ Knie, een Been, een Voet; Is, seid ick, dat Gods werck, soo is’t volkomen goed, 985 En, waer ick henen sagh, ick wist geen wett te soecken Die bij dees gelden moght: wegh, riep ick, scheeve hoecken, En oneenpaericheid, en ongeregelt scheel, Dat niemand en vermaeckt, dan die sijn’ neus, sijn’ keel, Sijn mond, sijn kinn, sijn’ buijck, sijn alle dingh, kan lijden 990 Verr vande middel-lijn slimm uijt gestelt ter zijden. [ll. 1293-324] Dit Plein is, als ick zeij, twee salen; maer twee salen Met eene kapp gedeckt; en die kapp doet ons dwalen. 1295 Die Kapp is ’thalve rond des Hemels, dat wij sien;

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The gallery of trees leads him to speculate What lies within, beyond, the outworks seeming fair With such proud joy, such seemly handsomeness. So thank me, traveller, who for you and your ease Have beautified still more, this loveliest of roads: To labour for oneself alone is half worth praise, Real praise accrues to those who serve the common good.

[ll. 965-90] 965 Endure these first few words which serve to sum it up: It would be an ordeal should I repeat myself And say again each time (and you again should hear): ‘The East is ordered thus; the West’s its counterpart.’ Briefly, there’s a mid-line which parts Hofwijk in two To which the left and right are balanced perfectly: 970 An East gate and a West, West avenue and East, An East island and West, with equal paths enclosed, The orchard lies midway, a forecourt, moat and house, The south side to the Vliet lies open for our pleasure. y. Now, if this could be weighed like gold in balanced scales 975 The house would be the pivot, scales level either side. Who carps at symmetries like this must hate himself, His own shape which God made. Before spade touched the soil, I let the precepts of the wise guide my design. Examining myself, I sought no model more. 980 Two windows, then, for sight, nostrils as well and ears, Two shoulders either side, two hips where they belong, A thigh to either side, a knee, a foot, a leg; That shape is God’s own work and it is therefore good, 985 Whichever way I looked, I failed to find a rule That bettered this: I cried, Away, oblique, Irregular, twisted things, disjunctions lacking rule, Things which will only please the man who would not care If that his mouth, nose, neck, chin, stomach, other things 990 Broke symmetry, defied the middle line. [ll. 1293-324] This forecourt, as I said, is, as it were, two halls, But these halls have one roof, a roof that can deceive us. 1295 That roof is all the hemisphere of Heaven, which we see,

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En tegens sulcken Kapp wat is dit Plein? Misschien Een punt, in dusenden van punten doorgesneden. Doe pleitt’ick tegens mij, doe vraeghden ick mijn’ Reden, Is ’twonder dat het krimpt en klein wordt in ons oogh? Is ’twel een stuckjen van een pees tot sulcken boogh? Langs die leer klomm ick op tot boven all’ de buijen Die ’t Zuijden tegens t’Noord, ’tOost tegens ’tWesten ruijen Bij dagelix krackeel: van daer tot bijde Maen, Van daer verbij de Sonn, tot daer de Sterren staen, Van daer tot daer Gods mann sijn’ heilighe gedachten Sijn lichaem, of sijn’ Geest (hij kon’t niet seggen) brachten Ten derden Hemel in; en ’kwas mijn pleintjen quijt, Als of’t’er niet en waer. Doe viel ick aen ’tverwijt Van ’swerelds ijdelheid, en, seid ick, sotte menschen, Besteedt men daer bene’en dat sorghen en dat wenschen, Dat eewigh tommelen aen sulcken nietmetall? Is heel de werelds kloot niet meer als sulcken ball, Is’t sulcken balletje? en, als wij ’tall besaten, Met all den mieren-nest van Croonen en van Staten, Waer ’t wel een datje bij het onuijtspreeckbaer dit, Waer ’t wel besittens waerd bij watmen hier besitt? Mijn’ ziel was soo vernoeght in’t geestigh omme roeren Van all haer binnenste, en ’theilighe vervoeren Verwerdden haer soo soet in ’t dencken wat sij docht, Dat ickse pijnelick van boven neder brocht. Mij docht sij futselden, en haere lusten spraken Van Tabernakelen om hoogh te moghen maken: Soo wel was ’t daer se was, en daer se gingh soo slecht. Nochtans hier is sij weer. Hoe raken wij te recht?

[ll. 1985-2032] 1985 ’Khebb menigh’ uer verpraett: hier hoefden ick meer weken, Meer maenden te verdoen, meer jaren uijt te preken, Dan uren allerweegh. Om schielick door de pijn, De pijn van overvloed, de stamering, te zijn. Lett op den overvloed; verdraeght mijn’ stameringen 1990 All voegen se noijt min als midden in het singen, Mijn’ onmacht sal ’t gewicht der dingen doen verstaen, Als daer een mensch de Sonn derft malen of de Maen. Stae bij Castagnenboom, staet bij bree Notenbladen,

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Compared to such a vault, what is this courtyard then? A point, a speck, a thing cut up one thousand times And smaller still divided. I reasoned with myself Why should I wonder if this dwindles in my eye? Bare section of a chord, to such an arch above? I climbed by Jacob’s ladder, higher than storm-winds blow Wind driving North to South, wind driving East to West, In daily battles driven: thence I mounted high Past moon and sun, attained the region of the stars, From thence I passed to where his meditations led God’s holy servant, Paul, (in soul or else in body, Which he knew not) passed on to the third heaven; there lost My courtyard, gone as it had never been. I cursed All worldly vanity, saying, Foolish men below Do you, below, expend such worry and such hope Such lifelong drudgery upon a thing which is a nothing? Is all the world’s sphere then no more than such a ball, Than such a little sphere? If we possessed it all With all its antheap made of Crowns and States and Powers, Would it be but a trifle beside this wordless all, Would it be worth possessing compared to what is here? My soul thus overjoyed, possessed by inward motion Of all within it, and the holy ecstasy Bathed there my soul so sweetly in all her inward thoughts I found it hard to draw my soul down from on high. She tarried all unwilling, and all desires she spoke Were to frame tabernacles there in empyrean heights, So fine it was above, so ill it is below. But here my soul returns. How will we find our way?

[ll. 1985-2032] 1985 I’ve talked for many hours: but here I’d need to spend More weeks, indeed more months, to speak here more full years Than hours elsewhere. I know we must rush through this pain, Pain of abundance, and choked speech from a full mind, Attend to the abundance and bear my stammerings, 1990 Even if they disfigure this centre of my song, My powerlessness of speech brings home the weight of things, Like to the man who dares to paint the sun or moon. So there are chestnut trees, broad leaves of the nut trees,

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Staet bij bloed-droppeltjens op qualsteren geladen, Van d’een’ in d’ander’ schaeuw verdwael ick in de keur; Elck troetelt mijn vermaeck met schoon om schooner geur: Maer ghij zijt schaduwen, en meer niet, van de planten Die ick te melden hebb. mijn’ lieve bloed-verwanten, Mijn’ echte kinderen, mijn’ spruijten, mijn geslacht, 2000 Mijn’ afkomst, door mijn’ sorgh ter aerden uijtgebracht, Mijn eighen mannetjens, mijn’ leen-luij en mijn’ erven, Die all dat Boomen kont, kost ghij, als Boomen, sterven, Maer ’tsterven niet en kent: u stell ick voor in spijt Van ’t eten vande locht, van ’t slicken vanden tijd. 2005 ’Khebb trotse Tempelen sien proncken inden duijster Van kelderlijck geboomt, en ’tstreckte tot haer’ luijster Gesien en ongesien te duijcken in dat koel, En soo veel ’tbuijtenst kan op ’tbinnenste gevoel, Die naere schaduwen zijn ’tmachtige om te roeren, 2010 En ’thert beweeght’er af. Spreeckt Stede-luij, spreeckt Boeren, Spreeckt vriend en vreemdeling die langs den Polder-dijck Des somers in het stoff, des Winters in het slijck, Voor Hofwijck werdt gestutt; wat seggen uw’ gedachten, Wanneer ghij Hofwijck siet twee doncker-groene nachten, 2015 Twee nachten van geboomt bevleugelen met pracht, Als warens’ uijt het wildst van Pruijssen herr gebracht En door de locht gevoert, gelijck de luij te Roomen Van ’tongelooffelick Loretto derven droomen, (Hoe werr’t de menschlickheid van d’een in d’ander mist 2020 Als s’eens het heiligh spoor van ’shemels waerheid mist.) Daer ’tkostelick gebouw geen’ minder metselaren Dan Engelen vermeldt, die over bergh en baren In eenen nacht met kerck en Autaer zijn gezeilt: Hoe pijnt ghij neck en hals naer d’ ongemeene steilt’ 2025 Van weerzijds masten-bosch, hoe tergen sij uw’ sinnen, Om eens die wonderen van onderen, van binnen, Te mogen over sien! hoe quelt u ’t Vlieder-diep, Hoe wenscht ghij dat het droogh door Booner-sluijsen liep En ebde tot den grond! roept schepen aen en schuijten, m. 2030 Daer staen twee heckens voor; maer vromen uijt te sluijten Is niet van haer bevel; de sloten zijn van stroo Voor d’openhertighe; van ijser, voor de snoo’. 1995

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There are the drops of blood, loaded on rowan trees; Moving from shade to shade I falter in my choice; Each feeds my sense, competing in loveliness of scent; But trees are shadows all, and no more, when compared To plants that I would speak of, children of my house, My lawful and real children, my hope and lineage, 2000 My future, through my care raised up as from the earth, No trees but my own planting, these are my heirs and liegemen, Who could do all trees can do, could they, like trees, die, But are immortal souls; I write about you here To foil devouring air and spite consuming time. 2005 I have seen proud shrines all radiant in darkness The cool vaults of the trees, and it made for their splendour, Being seen or being unseen, to dive into that coolness, So far as external things can touch the soul within Those shadows in the dark have power to move my soul 2010 And stir my heart. Speak, you my countrymen, Speak stranger or speak friend who stopped at Hofwijk here, In Summer in the dust, in Winter in the mud Along the polder-dyke. And what do your thoughts say On seeing twin dark-green nights, the balanced nights of trees 2015 Which form wings to my house, and splendour lend to Hofwijk, As if they’d been brought here out of the Prussian wilds And carried through the air (as followers of Rome Dare to believe the unbelievable, the flying House of Loretto—men stray from one mist into 2020 Another mist when once they lose the truth of heaven— That handsome structure which acknowledges no lesser Masons than angels, sailing over hill and deep Transporting in one night Loretto’s church and altar.) How you can strain your neck, such high trees to survey 2025 My mastwoods either side, whose heights can stir your souls With a desire to see the wonders which they hide, And see them from within. The boundary water taunts you, So that you wish it ran dry through the Booner sluices And ebb-tide showed the bed. Call to the boats and barges, m. 2030 Two gates here close it off, but they are not set here To keep good people out: the locks are made of straw For honest-hearted people, of iron for the evil man. 1995

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[ll. 2053-104] Wie derft van IJpen-hout naer sulcken puijck-goed spreken? Het moet’ er uijt nochtans; daer magh’ es geen gebreken. 2055 En, is de schilderij voltrocken, laet de Lijst, Daer menigh onverstand de schilderij om prijst, w. Haer beurte zijn vergunt: tot u dan, IJpen boomen Door langhe droomen heen, tot u ben ick gekomen, Scheid-palen van mijn’ grond, belenders van mijn Erf, 2060 En, als ghij spreken kost, lijfwachten van mijn werf. Ghij staet niet daer ghij staet om ’teenighe vermaken: Om Eer, om Nutt, om Lust, die drij beroemde saken Daer all ons doen op loopt, staet ghij in ’t voor-gelid, Op ’tuijterste gescheid van ’tHofwijcker besit. 2065 Schoon voordoen heeft sijn’ kracht, als alle Koopluij weten, En dickmael is het huijs bij ’tvoorhuijs af te meten. De selfkant van ’tfluweel belooft wat vande stoff, En bijde Heininghen voor-oordeelt men den Hof. Soo kan uw’ Heerlickheid, soo moet sij wat beloven, 2070 En die daer Hofwijck prijst heeft u voor all te loven, En die van Nootdorp af, en, mogelick van Delf, Hofwijcker Hof ondeckt, moet seggen bij sijn self, Daer schuijlt wat achter ’tschoon van die verheven kruijnen, Dat prijsens waerdigh is; soo seker als de duijnen 2075 Beteeckenen de zee ten einde van haer sand: Daer med’ is d’Eer voldaen: wat Nuttigheid mijn strand, Mijn soeten oever treckt van uw’ getrouwe wortel, Dat weet de Schipper best, die ’tstadighe gebortel Van d’omgeroerde Vliet in ’tzeilen door haer nat 2080 Afgrijsselick verweckt en op mijn’ Kuste spatt. Wat soud’er tegen staen, stondt ghij d’er niet soo teghen, Als oft ghij nacht en dagh mijn vijand met den deghen, Van mijn’ lands-palen dreeft, als of ghij dagh en nacht Mijn’ Helbaerdieren waert, en pasten op de wacht 2085 Van Hofwijck en sijn’ rust; en hielpt mij, niet verliesen Dat Platingen alleen, en Bitterling, en Biesen Vergeefs verdedighden, ’ten waer’ uw’ stevigheid De golven overwonn en all’ haer hevigheid? Maer Lust, de derde dienst die van u werdt genoten, 2090 Gaet boven d’eerste twee: ick sie u soo geschoten,

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[ll. 2053-104] Who would dare speak of elm, after the mastwood’s praise? But speak I must, none of my trees should pass unnoticed. 2055 The painting being complete, the frame must have its turn (So often praised by fools instead of that within) w. The frame must have its praise. I praise you thus, my elms, After long meditation, it is to you I come, My boundary stones, definers of my lands’ extent, 2060 And if you had but speech, my garden’s frontier guards Set in your place for use, and not for joy alone. For dignity, for use and for delight, these three The eminent goals of all that we attempt, you stand In your outlying ranks, to guard my Hofwijk’s bounds. 2065 There’s point to show of beauty, as all merchants know, The entrance hall may give the measure of the house: The selvage of the velvet tells the nature of the cloth, And by the fence and hedge, we judge the garden whole. Thus can, thus must, my elms, your beauty promise something. 2070 And he who praises Hofwijk, must praise you first of all Who comes the Nootdorp road, or on the way from Delft, And finds the Hofwijk garden, should say first to himself Behind your high crowns’ beauty, cause for praise lies hidden, Something of dignity; as surely as the dunes 2075 Hint at the nearness of the sea that bounds their strand. We’ve spoken now of dignity, the use next which the bank, My water’s edge, derives from your most faithful roots, The skipper knows it best, who makes the waters slap Along the churning Vliet, as his craft passes by, 2080 Churning the waters, sending water-shocks against my shore. How would embankments stand if you should not withstand, As if by day and night you held my foes at bay Held with the sword my frontiers, as if night and day You were my halbardiers, and kept your constant watch 2085 On Hofwijk and its peace; and helping me to hold What no stakes by themselves, no roots of weeds or rushes Could hold or could defend, did not your constancy Vanquish the waves and all their force against my shore. Delight is the third service you perform, and stands 2090 Above the other two: I see you spring up so

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Soo weelderigh gespreidt, soo deun en dicht gewerrt, Dat ick veil onder u den felsten middagh tert. Waer zijt ghij werelds oogh dat allom door wilt booren? Blaeckt over wegh en weij; hier is uw’ kracht verloren: Hier lacch ick met het sweet dat vanden maeijer loopt, Hier hebb ick over mij een IJpenzeil geknoopt. Een dack van bladeren, die voor de volle manen, En voor de volle sonn, jae voor des Hemels tranen Mijn hoofd verdedighen. hier vlied’ ick louw en koel, Hier lijd ick sonder leed haer grouwelixt gewoel. Hier voel ick het vermaeck van naestgelegen lijden Bij naestgelegen vreughd: hier smaeck ick het verblijden dat menschen wedervaert die bij de quelling zijn, En voelen geen verdriet, en weten van geen’ pijn.

[ll. 2457-88] Nu is de dagh ten eind, nu seggen Maen en Sterren, ’Tis tijd uw’ herssenen in ’tbedd te gaen ontwerren. Ick weet het, en ick voel’t: noch gaet het langsaem toe; 2460 Want wij zijn kinderen, en hoeven schier een’ roe Die ons te bed de jaegh’: Ick wil’t van mij bekennen, Het zij een goede drift; het zij een quaedt gewennen, Het slaepen houd ick voor geen menschelick vermaeck; En, als ick kiesen moght, ick wenschte mij noch vaeck 2465 Noch slapen opgeleght. foeij, dagelicksche sterven, Foeij, platte peuluw-dood, foeij, quistigh tijd-verderven, Die u onbeeren moght, wat waer sijn leven lang; Hoe leefden hij in ’truijm, in stede van ’tgedrang Der uren, die den dagh versnipperen tot leuren, 2470 En, als den avond valt, de menschen van haer scheuren, En werpense voor dood, als krengen, op het stroo. Maer emmers, die het kost niet schicken, schickten ’tsoo. Te bedd, ’tis Gods bevel, men magh niet stadigh leven; Daer hoort wat stervens toe: de bladeren die beven, 2475 En houden aenden draed van een verdordden steel, Gaen met den voet in ’tgraf, het groene gras wordt geel; Dat’s even of ick seij, de dood is opde lippen: De wereld sterft eens ’sjaers. Staets’ inden herfst op ’tglippen, Des winters is sij dood: te weten diep in slaep,

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And spread so lavishly, so closely intertwine, That safely I outbrave the fiercest noon below you. Where are you, the world’s eye that would pierce everything? Scorcher of road and meadow; here your force is lost: Here I may laugh secure at sweat the mower sheds, Here with my canopy of elmcloth over me. My roof of leaves protects me from full moons And from the scorching sun, and from the tears of heaven. Here do I flee for refuge, sheltered here and cool, I suffer without harm the rages of the skies. Here is my pleasure, knowing how close my joy, How close it lies to suffering: here I taste the joy Of the spectator watching others in their suffering, Who feels himself no pain and knows himself no grief.

[ll. 2457-88] The day is ended now, the moon and stars proclaim That time has come for sleep, for mind’s unravelling. I know and feel this, but I go reluctantly, 2460 We are like children still, and almost need a stick To chase us to our beds; indeed, I must admit, (Whether the desire is good, or the habit bad) That sleeping is no human joy, to me no joy at all; And if my choice were free, I’d never wish to sleep, 2465 Wish for no drowsy visitation. Shameful daily death! Shame, vulgar mattress-death, you lavish thief of time; He that could live without you, long his life would be. How he could live abundant, instead of in the press Of hours which tear the day into the rags of time, 2470 And, when the evening comes, tears all men from themselves And casts them as if dead, like carcasses in straw. We can’t reorder things from their great ordering. God orders us to bed, and we are not immortal, Some dying is part of life: the failing leaves which shake 2475 And hang by a thread onto the stem that’s withering, Have one foot in the grave; green meadows turn to sere, Which is the same as saying that death hangs on our lips: The world dies once a year. In autumn she is failing, In winter she is dead, that is, enwound in sleep,

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Totdat se ’tvoorjaer weck’, soo dat se geew’ en gaep’; En inden Somer kom’ vollkomentlick aen ’twaken. De kleine wereld, mensch, dien God eens wilde maken, Hermaeckt hij dagelix, en, sonder dat respijt, Wij waren ’slevens kracht in weinigh’ dagen quijt. Die kracht hanght aen die dood: wel hem die ’tkan bezeffen, En stelt sijn’ rekeningh soo met den Hemel effen In ’tdagelix versterf, als waer’t sijn’ leste kouw, Daer uijt hem de Basuijn des Richters wecken souw.

[ll. 2713-824] Goud-jagers holl en doll, en spott niet met mijn’ winsten, Sij gaen voor d’uwe verr, of wegens’ op, ten minsten: 2715 Ghij meent een’ dobb’le kans te nutten, en ick ook; Ick teer op schaduwen, en ghij verteert in roock: Mijn schaduwen staen vast, uw roock en kan maer vluchten, Uw’ zijn verdwijnende, mijn’ stadighe genuchten; Uw’ droomen kosten geld, de mijne niet een duijt, 2720 En duren, dat ghij ’tweet, all gaet de dagh-keers uijt: De nacht-keers volght er op en thoont mij weer mijn’ schatten, Soo, datt’er een Narciss sou poogen naer te vatten: En ’twaer den jongelingh vergeven, als hij sagh All wat ick sie bij nacht, en bijden vollen dagh. 2725 ’Ksie boomen voet aen voet, ’ksie menschen met de voeten, En sonder struijckelen, malkanderen ontmoeten, ’Ksie, of ick meen te sien, de weder-zij van ’t Rond, Als of ick in Japan aen geen’ zij Banda stond. ’Ksie schuijten kiel aen kiel met averechtsche vrachten, 2730 ’Ksie hoeck en hengel-roe versien van dobble schachten, ’Ksie swanen dompelen en boven ’twater uijt, ’Ksie alle dingh noch eens. en even als ’tgeluijd Dat van de Bergen stuijt en van de wilde wouden, En van een’ hollen muer, voor soeter werdt gehouden 2735 Dan Trommel of Trompett, die’t doen doen wat het doet, Soo zijn mijn’ schaduwen, of schijnen, noch soo soet, Als ’tschepsel dat haer baert en schepselen doet schijnen. ’Tis waer, sij gaen te niet; maer sien wij niet verdwijnen All wat de wereld draeght? en Croonen, en Gebied, 2740 En sulcke schaduwen vergaens’ in ’tende niet?

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Till spring awakes her, and so makes her yawn and stir, And summer brings her to full wakefulness again. This Man, this little world which God created once, He makes anew each day, and we, without that grace, Would lose the force of life in but so little time. Our life draws from this death: happy who knows this true And makes his reckoning with heaven in such a way, In this his daily dying, as if it were his last Cold sleep, from whence the Judge’s trumpets will arouse him.

[ll. 2713-824] Idle and vain gold-hunters, do not mock my gains: They are of yours the equal, or surpass them all. 2715 You think of double gain; the double gain is mine; I thrive on shadows doubled by my waters: while you live On smoke. My shadows last; your smoke dissolves away. Yours are the fugitive and mine the lasting pleasures; Illusions cost you dear, my dreams to me are free. 2720 My dreams outlast the twilight, the suns’s candle dimmed; And flourish by the tapers of the night, which show My treasures still, so that Narcissus would attempt To grasp my shadows, and with sense, if he but saw All that I see by night, all that I see by day. 2725 I see my trees reflected foot to foot, reflected feet of men Meet in my mirroring pools, not stumbling. Looking still Down to their depths, I see antipodes imagined As if I stood beyond the Indies in Japan. I see inverted barges, keel to keel reflected 2730 I see the double float, the double-mirrored quill, I see the diving swans above and still below, I see all doubled things; all doubled, like the sound Rebounding from the cliffs, redoubled from the forests Echoing from sounding walls, which sound is held more sweet 2735 In echo than the drum’s or trumpet’s actual sound. So are, or seem, my water-shadows twice as sweet As the things that cast the shadows, make them creatures seem. In truth my shadows perish, but do we not here see The perishing of every wordly thing? Aren’t Crowns 2740 And Kingdoms also shadows, fading in their ends?

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Zijn alle dingen dood, is ’tvijvertje bevrosen? Ick vraegh mijn’ rappe jeughd, of ’tqualick was gekosen. Wat waters voor wat grass, een’ rij-baen voor een’ weij? De schaetsen swegen’t niet, als ’t anders niemand zeij: 2745 Die schetteren’t mij toe, terwijl sij dusend quicken In heen en wederbaen om Hofwijck henen stricken, En tuijgen bijden draed van ’tslingerende stael Hoe oneenparigh is het menschelick gemael, Hoe vele naer een witt door vele wegen trachten, 2750 En elck door andere; hoe ’twerren der gedachten De wereld overkruijst. kortom, waer uijt ontstaet ’Toneindigh vuijl papier dat Cassen over laedt, Dat boecken swellen doet, daer solderen af stenen, Die d’oude walgen doen, die kinderen beweenen, 2755 Van kinds been af verbeent met schrick van wetenschapp. Dat schrijven, segh ick, en dit kruijsseling geschrapp Van schaetsen slaen op een: de waerheid is te vinden Door weghen recht en kort: wij soeckens’ als de blinden, En swieren gins en weer, en maken lang van kort, 2760 Soo dat een rijs tot Boom, een blad tot bladen wordt, En bladen tot een Boeck, en Boecken wilde wouden, Daer wij den overlast soo wel af missen souden, Als ’t konstigh ongesont van spijsen overvloed Die ons doet quijnen en den Apotheker voedt. 2765 Hoe rijp is dese text om bladen voll te preken! Maer ’twaer een sott bestaen, het quaed met quaed te wreken, Veel schrijven met veel klaps; mijn Rijdertjens zijn moe; Sij doen de schaetsen af en ick de venster toe. Verheught u, Leser-lief; ’tis met mij omgekomen, 2770 Mijn’ penn is af gedicht; vreest voor geen’ langer droomen; ’Tkan soo voor eens bestaen; en, nu ick, uijtgemaelt Naer schijn en schaduwen tot schaets-spel ben gedaelt Soo wist ick lichtelick niet lijvighs meer te vinden Daer om ick uw geduld aen ’tmijne sou verbinden. 2775 Gevalt u, voor de moeijt, van ’tkinder-mael te zijn; Wij sullen uw verdriet verdrincken in mijn’ wijn, Komt peist’ren in mijn’ Hutt (’ksal ’t geen Casteel meer noemen, Ick ben soo satt als ghij van rijmen en van roemen) Als ’tmael te maeghwaerd is en ’tlaken vanden diss,

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Is the dead winter come, are all my waters frozen? I’ll ask the young how well I ordered my estate With water now for grass, a driveway for a field. The skates would hiss their answer, even if no-one spoke: 2745 The skates cry out reply and tie a thousand knots And bows, skating around the pond about the house. And witness by their wavering thread of cutting steel How random are the whirling courses of our life; How crooked are the roads by which we reach our goal, 2750 Each by a different road, how our gyrating thoughts Weave crossing webs about the globe; from these entangled Webs of our thought come the shelf-burdening pages Which swell to books, which strain the timbers of the house Which weary the old men and make the schoolboys weep, 2755 Who’ve learned to fear their weight and from their earliest youth. That writing, I am saying, and crossing, knotting scraping Of skates are one: the truth itself can be discovered By straight and simple ways, we seek it like the blind Swerving this way and that to make short into long, 2760 So a branch grows a tree, a leaf will grow to leaves, And leaves grow into books and books into wild woods, Surfeits of words which we could live without, just as We’d better live without unhealthy, artful foods Which sicken us but make apothecaries prosper. 2765 How apt this text to fill these leaves out, being expounded! But it were folly here evil to match with evil, Much writing with much talk. The skating boys are tired; They take their skates off now; and I now close the window. Be glad, my patient reader, I have almost done, 2770 My pen has finished rhyming. No long discourse to fear now. This will suffice. Now that I harp no longer, being come From thoughts of shadow and of semblance down to skating, I could not now imagine anything of substance With which I’d further try your patience and my own. 2775 If for reward it please you to join my children’s meal We shall now recompense your patience with my wine. Come rest in my poor house (castle it is no longer: I’ve had, like you, my fill of rhyming and of praising.) And once the meal is eaten, the cloth being cleared away

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Dan sal ick u in ’tkort doen sien wat Hofwijck is, En voeden noch uw oogh met lieffelicker dingen Dan die ick mij vermeet te seggen of te singen, Ten oosten met een dorp dat geen gelijck en kent, Ten zuijden met een’ weij die tegen ’tveen belent, 2785 En duijsend wandelaers met vier gekloofde voeten, Die Hofwijck met den dagh beleefdelick begroeten En loeijen mij ’tbedd uijt, en roepen in haer’ spraeck, ”Op, luijaert, uijt de pluijm, en schaemt u vanden vaeck; ”Past op de Peerelen die in ons’ eet-sael flonck’ren, 2790 ”Eers’ ons ’t steil sonnen-vier kom’ rooven en ontdonck’ren; ”Daer komt de roover; in de vodden; ’tis hoogh tijd, ”Of denckt, ghij zijt uw deel in ons ontbijten quijt. Zuijdwestwaerd Hoef aen Hoef, en Voorburghs Ambachts-heeren, En Delft, haer vaste vest, daer hondert molens keeren, 2795 En tuijgen watt’er meels tot soo veel monden hoort, Daer van men ’t straet-gerucht schier binnen Hofwijck hoort. Dan Rijswijck, ’tschoone vleck, dat Princen kon bekooren. Ter westelicker Sonn den lieven Haeghschen Toren, En, over ’tBroecker Hoij der Graven hooghe woud, 2800 En voorts de witte wall van ’tScheveninger sout. Kiest venster en gesicht; en weet’er af te seggen, Dit keur ick voor het schoonst, dit soud ick liefst verleggen. Soo weet ghij meer als ick, die noch een weerhaen ben, En twijffel waer ick best mijn ooghen henen wenn. 2805 Verveelt u ’tuijtsien, keert; met insien sal ick ’tsoeten, En doen u in een’ Cass van Boeren-boeckjens wroeten, Van Boecken uijt de Stadt, van wijsheid in’t Latijn, Of in sijn’ moeder, Grieksch, of, dat nu Talen zijn, Parijs-werck, en niew Roomsch, of inde ronde lett’ren 2810 Van’t prachtighe Madridsch, of in het Engelsch quett’ren, De tael van alle tael, die nergens thuijs en hoort, En all om boortigh is; of diem’ in Holland hoort; Of in besaeijt papier met letteren en noten Van over zee gebracht, of in mijn’ vorm gegoten. 2815 In velen, soo ghij ’tsoeckt, in Luijten, soo ’t u lust: Tot dat ghij bidden sult, eij, gunt mijn’ sinnen rust; ’Kben Hofwijck satt gesien, gelesen, en gegeten, En wend het naerden Haegh: al wilt ghij hem vergeten,

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In summary I may show you what this my Hofwijk is, And feed your eyes with things which are much lovelier still Than I dare say or sing. So eastwards turn your eyes To the peerless village, south to the water meadows 2785 Filled with a thousand strolling, cloven-footed cattle Who gently greet my Hofwijk as they greet the day, Who low me from my bed, who call me in their tongue, ‘Up, sluggard, leave your bed and be ashamed of sleep. See all the pearls which glimmer on grasses where we feed 2790 Before the fiery sun should rob us of these gems. The thief approaches now, pull on your rags, it’s time Or else you’ll miss your share of this our morning’s meal.’ Look southwest, farm by farm and Voorburg’s hundred-lords And Delft’s strong circling walls, where turn a hundred mills, 2795 To show the weight of flour that so many mouths require, I almost hear their grinding, here inside my house. There’s Rijswijk, handsome village that has our prince’s favour, Westwards there rises exquisite the tall spire of The Hague, Across the Broekerhooi the tall woods of the Earls, 2800 Beyond lies the white wall of dunes at Scheveningen. Choose window and choose prospect, then could you say Which view of these is finest, which to set aside, You would know more than I: I’m but a weathercock Turning, unstill, unsure which way to turn my eyes. 2805 When you have gazed enough, turn then your eyes within, I’ll suit you from my shelf weighed down with farmers’ books, Or books brought from the town, of wisdom made in Latin Or Greek, great mother tongue, or in new languages, French works, Italian works, or works in the round letter 2810 And sweet speech of Madrid, or chattering English (Language made of all languages, belonging nowhere Coming from everywhere) or in the speech of Holland. Or you may browse through music, words and notes on paper Brought from overseas or moulded by myself, 2815 In violins if you wish, in lutes too at your liking, Until at last you ask, ‘Grant me respite at last, Hofwijk I’ve seen, Hofwijk I’ve eaten, Hofwijk read, I go back to The Hague, though you wish to forget it.

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’Tis oock een soet verblijf, spijt Hofwijck en sijn Heer: Ja (segg ick suchtende) maer was’t voor desen meer. Soo scheid ick van mijn’ vriend, soo breeckt hij uijt mijn’ banden, So treed ick uijt mijn Touw, so raeckt ghij uijt mijn’ handen, Moe Leser, dien ick flus voor d’eerste groete gaf, Nu voorde leste geef. De groote webb is af.

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It’s pleasant there, in spite of Hofwijk and its Lord.’ And ‘Yes,’ I sighing say, ‘it was more so before.’ And thus I leave my friend, thus he escapes my bonds, I lay my yoke aside, thus you escape my hands. My weary reader, greeted when this work began, Farewell, for my last greeting. The great web is done.

30 MS completed 8 December 1651 (Huygens 1977, pp. 1-290). See Appendix iii for an extended note on this poem. 32 Probably a reminiscence of Horace Odes iii.30.1: ‘I have completed a monument more lasting than bronze’. 141 The letters in the margin refer to the plan of Hofwijck on pp. 178-79. 147 The Golden Mean: the principle of ‘nothing in excess’. 352 Arras: a town in France famous for its tapestries and wall-hangings. 359 A raised bank made as a seat, planted with grass or scented herbs. 377 Pearls, like chalk, are formed of calcium carbonate. 379 Scotland exported a cheap, poor-quality cloth called ‘shoddy’ via Veere. 393 Scots pearls come from freshwater mussels, and do not have the lustre of deep-sea pearls. 408 See Appendix ii for information on Utricia Ogle. 420 An allusion to the myth of Orpheus, whose voice could charm wild beasts and even inanimate nature. 1301 Jacob dreamed of a ladder stretching between earth and heaven, with angels going up and down on it (Genesis 28.12). 1307 St Paul was ‘caught up to the third heaven’, and saw visions he was unwilling to reveal (2 Corinthians 12.2-3). 2019 Loretto, a shrine near Ancona, in Italy, preserves a tiny stone building believed to have been the home of the Virgin in Nazareth, which was brought to Italy by angels. 2723 The beautiful Narcissus saw his own reflection in a pool and fell in love with it, but drowned trying to embrace himself.

31 Ontwaeck

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Hoe goed is God! hier ben ick noch, Vrij van gekreun en van gekroch, Als uyt een’ korte dood verresen. Moght ick het uyt mijn’ sonden wesen Die staeghe dood mijns levens! Heer, Kroont dese weldaed met wat meer: Laet my mijn selven niet verslapen. Dry daghen was dijn vriend ontslapen, En stonck den vierden, als hy rees. Hoe is ’t met mijn bedorven vlees, En met mijn’ vuijle ziel daer binnen? Sy stincken beij voor alle Sinnen, Jae voor dijn neus-gat, jae voor ’tmijn; En, Heere, soo en kant niet zijn, Of dese niewe vonck van leven Hebt ghij mij voorde hand gegeven. Soo zijn myn’ ooghen beij niet toe; Ghij doet dat ick’er een op doe: Ick droom niet, want ick sie mijn’ droomen Mijn open oogh te voren komen, En ick vertelse dij, o Heer, En werpse voor dijn’ voeten neer Als vuijle vodden van de leden Die tegens dij ten stryde treden, Jae tegens mij, die beter weet En steeds van Evas Appel eet. Maer emmers, nu ghy mij siet geewen, En hebt ghij niet soo luyd te schreewen, Als, Lazare, komt uyt de Kist; Ick weet wat dat hij niet en wist, Ick weet ghij zijt mij by gekomen, En grijpe selfs niet naer de zoomen Van dijn door-en-door-heiligh kleed: Mij heelt, dat ick geloov en weet,

31 Awakening

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How good is God! Here I am still, Free from complaint and free from moan, As had I from a short death risen. Would I had risen too from sin, My constant death in life. O Lord, Crown this your favour with yet more: And let my self not sleep too long. Once for three days your friend did sleep And stank the fourth day when he rose. How stands it with my flesh corrupt, And with my fouler soul within? They stink alike to every sense, Offend your nose as well as mine; And so, my Lord, it cannot be But that this spark of life afresh Was given me to spend by you. So my two eyes are not closed; You make me open one of them: I dream not, for I see my dreams Come before my open eyes, And tell them through to you, my Lord, And throw them down before your feet Like the foul rags of those limbs which Have moved to combat against you, Yes, against me, who should know better Yet always of Eve’s apple eats. But now as you do see me yawn, You have no need to cry as loud As ‘Lazarus come leave your tomb’; I know that which he did not know, I know that you have come to me, And do not even clutch the hem Of your all-holy, holiest robe: It heals me that I trust and know

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Hoe Ghij, gezeghen door de wolcken Ter saligheid van alle volcken, Voor alle volcken van dijn’ Kerck Getreden zijt in ’tbloedigh werck, En hebt de wyn-pers self getreden; Met wonderwercken en met reden De Kieckens van dijn’ eighen’ renn Vergadert, daer ick een af ben: Ghij hebt van dijn’ verdoolde schaepen De Cudde t’samen komen raepen, En van die Schaepen ben ick een; Dat weet ick uyt dijn’ eighen’ re’en. Dat weten kond ick niet bereicken, Hadt ghij de hand niet willen reicken, Om mij te slepen uyt den nacht Van myn’ onkunde sonder macht. Hebt medelyden met den Weter, En, dien ghij wel deedt, doet hem beter: Gedooght niet dat in wetenschap Mijn wanckelend Geloove slapp’. ’Twas een mirakel my te scheppen, En, dat sich dese leden reppen, En dese ziel met haer bedrijf, Is meer mirakels dan mijn lijf: Maer ’tschepsel over eind te houwen, Is minder niet als ’teerste bouwen, En, schiept ghij mij niet alle daegh, ’Tgebouw laegh duysend mael om laegh. Schept en herschept verstand en reden, Soo dat sij, meesters deser leden, Haer weten buygen naerde wet Die ghij den weter hebt gesett: Soo sal dat wettelicke weten Gehoorsaemheid en Liefde heeten, En strecken tot des weters nut;

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How you descended through the clouds, To work salvation for the world, For people of your holy church You came into the bloody work, And did yourself the wine-press tread With counsel and with miracles, Gathered your fowl into their pen, Amongst whom I do count myself; You have, from all your straying sheep, Gathered your own flock together And of your own sheep I am one; And that I know from your own word. I could not understand that truth Did your own hand not reach to me To draw me forth out of the night Of all my strengthless ignorance. Have mercy, Lord, upon the knower, To whom you have done well, do better, Suffer not, that in knowledge deep My wavering belief should sleep. A miracle was my creation And, that these limbs themselves should stir And this soul herself should act, Is more a miracle than life: To keep the creature upright Is no less work than first rough hewing: Did you not make me new each day, The frame would fail a thousand times. Shape and re-shape reason and mind, So that these masters of my limbs Their knowledge bend unto your law That you have set for us to know. So shall all lawful knowledge be Love and obedience called in me, And serve in time for wisdom’s use

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Soo sal de roede zijn geschutt, De dobb’le roede dijner slagen Die ghij den knecht dreight te doen draegen Die ’s Meesters wil weet en verstaet En willens wetens tegen staet.

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To ward off the chastising rod, The double rod of your just blows, With which you threat the servant who His Master’s will does understand But knowing, willing, flouts its law.

31 MS dated 12 February 1652 (Huygens 1895, pp. 23-24). This poem would appear to refer to a Calvinist renewal of commitment to God, more than to an escape from any dangerous illness. 8 Lazarus, John 11.

32 Aen Joff.w Luchtenburgh, met myn vertaelde dicht uyt het Engelsch van Donne Eens was het Engelsch soet om hooren Uijt mannen en uijt vrouwen mond, Nu valt het grouwelyck in d’ooren Bynaer als ’tbaffen vanden hond. 5 Sints dat die schepselen met steerten Versopen zijn in Coninghs bloed, Zijn wij van all haer doen verveert, en Haer’ woorden selver zijn als roet. Soo komtse mij nu wel gelegen 10 De moeyte die ick eertyds nam: ’T kind dat ick doemael hebb gekregen Is nu soo tydigh als doe ’tquam. Leest Engelsch, weew, en sonder schroomen, De gall van ’tEngelsch isser uijt; 15 ’Tzijn door mij overdroomde droomen, Een oud lijf met een niewe huijd. En stoot u niet aen dese Leuren, Als of ghij half bedrogen waert, Het lesen sult ghij niet betreuren, De stof is uw’ schoon’ oogen waerd. 20 De stof, het mergh, het pit, de keerne En alles is van binnen rijck, De schors, de schel, beken ick geerne, En zijn maer buyten mijns gelijck: 25 Maer door mijn’ schraele schellen henen Sult ghij licht vinden mergh en pit, Gelyck men door het vel de beenen En ’tvleesch siet datter onder sitt. Weest maer geduldigh in mijn’ schorssen,

32 To the Lady Luchtenburgh, with My Poems Translated from the English of Donne The English tongue once sounded sweetly From the man’s or woman’s tongue Now it strikes our ears with horror Like the snarling of a hound. 5 Since those animals with tails Drank their fill of royal blood All their deeds fill us with fear, Their words themselves are turned to soot. Now the moment justifies 10 The trouble which I took before; The child which I begot long since Is timely now as when ’twas born. Read English, Madam, without fear The English bitterness has gone, 15 Being but dreams dreamed o’er again The ancient body with new skin. Do not recoil from these my trifles. As if they had half-cheated you, You won’t regret the reading of them, The matter’s worthy your fair eyes. 20 The matter, marrow, pith and kernel, All of these are rich within, The bark and rind, I freely own them, They are mine only outwardly. 25 But if you look through my poor shells Marrow and pith you’ll simply find, As men can see the flesh and bones Which lie below the covering skin. Be patient with my outer shells

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En deckt haer’ feilen met uw’ gunst, Men heeft meer goe spijs sien vermorssen Door kocks en koocksters sonder kunst. Oock mooght ghij ’t mij alleen niet wijten Die selver niet onschuldigh zijt, 35 Al soud’t u twee mael over spijten, U komt een deel in dit verwijt. Ghij meent uw leden te vereeren Met woll’ en zijd’ en Linnen-web, Maer lett eens op die schors van kleeren, En wat ick in mijn’ sinnen heb. 40 Wie gaeter voor, God of de menschen, Die ’tschepsel bouwde naer syn’ sin, Of die het leggen en verwenschen Met hier wat meer en daer wat min? God, sult ghy seggen, en met reden. 45 Maer ister niet half met gegeckt? En werden niet volmaeckte leden Met onvolmaecktheden gedeckt? En meent ghij dat ick u sou achten Gelijckm’ u acht en achten moet, 50 Sagh ick niet dieper met gedachten Dan ijemant met twee ooghen doet? En meent ghij dat wij ’t daer by laeten En stuijten op uw’ schoone huyt, En datw’ ons onder die gewaeten 55 Vernoeghen met de naeckte Bruijt? O neen, schoon’ huijt, en schoon gebeente; Gedachten gaen noch eens soo veer; De Kass magh schoon zijn; maer ’tgesteente, Dat binnen in light is ’t noch meer. 60 Die kostelicke ziel daerbinnen, Altoos eenpaerigh wel gesint, Die peereltjens van blancke sinnen Dat ’s daermen ’tCassien om bemint.

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And deck their faults with your good will, Men have seen more good food wasted By cooks who do not know their art. You must not, then, blame me alone Who are yourself not without fault, 35 Even if doubly you’d regret it, You still incur some little blame. As you think your limbs to grace With woven linen, silk and wool, Attend but to that shell of clothes And what I have within my mind. 40 Who comes the first, God or his creatures, He who built all things to his mind, Or those who grumble at it moaning, Wanting more here, wanting less there? God came first, you say and wisely, 45 But do we not half mock his work? And are the limbs which he perfected Not decked with our imperfect clothes? And think you that I should esteem you With that esteem which is your due, 50 Did I not see in thought far deeper Than any pair of eyes may see? And think you that we should stop there Contented with your fairest skin And that we, through the coverlets 55 Fully possess the naked bride? But no, fair skin and fairer bones Thoughts may go yet further still: The casket may be fair, the jewel That lies within is fairer still. 60 The precious soul that lies within, Ever in harmony disposed, The white pearls of the candid souls Within the casket cherished are.

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En wie dan lett op die juweelen Maeckt weinigh wercks meer van de kas; Want, oft sij t’samen gaen, sy scheelen Soo veel als ’tvier scheelt van syn’ As. Meer hebb ick u thans niet te quellen, Ick meen ghij meest mijn’ meening vatt. Past op de keern, niet op de schellen, Dat ’s all dat ick te seggen had.

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65 And he who would the jewel consider Thinks but little of its casket, Which, though they go together, differ As the fire does from its ash. But I will vex you here no longer: 70 I think you take my meaning clear: Think on the kernel, not the shell, and That is all I had to say. 32 MS dated 10 March 1654 (Huygens 1895, pp. 122-23). 5-6 A reference to the execution of Charles i in 1649. During the Anglo-Dutch wars each side was wont to regard the other as a nation of devils; in a pun on ‘engelsen’ (angels as well as English) the Dutch often referred to the English as angels with tails.

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Gods werck, dat ick begaen, besien, besitten kan, Daer hoef ick geen’ Copij uijt Menschen handen van. Een deeltje vande kunst kan mij te recht verblyden: Dat deeltje, dat de hand op ’t rad leght vande tijden, En stelt mij Grootevaer syn overgroote Vaer Voor ooghen, of het volck van he’en of gist’ren waer, En sal myn’ kinderen kinds kinderen doen erven Mijn aensicht, dat met mij gaet sterven en bederven. Is niet die wetenschap meer meesters clan de tijd? ’T is, het verderffelick in d’ Olij geconfijtt.

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God’s handiwork, which I can visit, own and see: I need no copy of it from a human hand. However, there’s one part of painter’s art can please me: That piece which lays its hand to slow the wheel of time, And places the grandfather of my father’s sire Now in my sight, as if he lived today or yesterday And allows the children of my grandchildren to inherit The countenance that goes with me to death and to decay. Is painter’s skill not more the master than is time? Yes, it preserves in oil these perishable things.

33 MS dated 13 February 1656 (Huygens 1896, p. 19).

34 Op de titelprint Hij meent geen’ Koren-bloem die Tarw saeyt: verr van daer; Hij meent den nooddruft, en hij neemt den oorber waer. De Bloem verschijnt nochtans en mengt sich onder ’tKoren, Als Gasten die in ’t Mael der gasten niet en hooren, En komen ongenoodt, en schicken sich in ’tbest, 5 En sien soo vrolick, of wat meer licht, als de rest. Men leeds’er wel van daen; maer, soo sy ’tMael verblijden Met haer’ bevallickheit, soo komt mense te lijden. De Bloem is noodeloos in ’tKoren, en nochtans, Daer ’s geen weerseggen aen, sij geeft de Tarw een’ glans, 10 En staeter in en pronckt als kinderen van Heeren, Als ’t Paesdagh is, met Blauw’ en Roo Satijne kleeren. Is ’tonkruijt, ’tis van ’tbest, ’tis vriendelick, ’tis fijn, ’T is soet en schadeloos, en niet min als fenijn. Voor sulcken koopmanschap veil ick mijn’ Korenbloemen, 15 Mijn toekruyt, Leser, of mijn onkruijt, hoe ghij ’t noemen Of oock niet noemen wilt. ’T en isser niet gesaeyt In ’tLand daer ’tKoren wies dat van mij is gemaeyt: ’Tis byslagh die den aert van ’tLand of van het Koren Te voorschyn heeft gebracht. De goede willen ’t hooren, 20 De quade moeten wel; in ’twoelighe gedrang Van Hof en Landsgebiet heb ick veel’ jaeren lang Gelijck de Boot aen ’tSchip met kleine trouwe plichten Die ’tpack ten halse ley den hals wat helpen lichten: Ick heb voor Land en Kerck standvastelijck gesweett, 25 Gedaen wat menigh man, niet alleman en weet, Gedaen wat weinighe (de danck staet noch te hopen) Niet alleman en kost: ’kheb tegen harde knoopen Kracht en gedult gestelt en allom bij Gods hant 30 Door dwarsche distelen gebroken sonder schant. Dat heet ik Tarw geteelt, en van het beste Koren Ten beste van ’tgemein, en daerom niet verloren, En daerom soo besteedt als yeder Landsgenoot Den lande schuldigh is in voorspoet of in noot. 35 Wat bygewasch die Tarw mijn’ gront heeft op sien geven, Of ’t yemant weten wouw, hier heb ick het beschreven. Mijn’ Bloemen stel ick met haer’ voeten inden Int,

34 On the Frontispiece of Korenbloemen He who sows corn hopes not for cornflowers too: He works for food and need and profit from the grain. But still the flower appears and mingles with the corn Like uninvited guests, unbidden to the feast Who enter in unasked and place themselves for show, 5 And look as happy, although lighter than the rest. The others wish them gone, but if they, with their grace Bring joy unto the feast, then they become accepted. The cornflower in the field is profitless, but still They lend, without denial, some beauty to the corn. 10 They stand amongst the stalks, like noble children seen On Easter morning, clothed in blue and scarlet silk. A weed, but of the best, most pleasing and most fine And sweet and innocent, no poison in it lies. And for such merchandise I sell my cornflowers now, 15 My kitchen-herbs or weeds, my reader may decide What name to give them. They were never sown In the corn-acres where I sow and reap, They are a gift of nature and the land; the corn, Has nursed them into being. The good will gladly hear, 20 The bad must hear it now: amidst the restless press Of Court’s and Land’s affairs, I have for many years (As the Boat guides the Ship) being faithful in small things, Helped to raise the heads of those who were bowed down: And I for Church and Land have laboured constantly. 25 Have done what many know of, but not everyone; Have done what few men, but not every man could do (And thanks are still to come): I have put strength and patience Against great obstacles, being strengthened by God’s hand, 30 Have broken through tough thorns, incurring no disgrace. These works I call my harvest, these are my best corn Grown for the common good, and they therefore not lost, And they therefore so spent, as every citizen Still stands his country’s debtor, in good years or in bad. 35 What extra crop of flowers my cornfield has produced If any one would know it, here is written down. I place my cornflowers here, and stand their stems in ink,

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Raed, dien ick tegen ’tvroegh verleppen heb versint. Hoes’ uijt den Acker staen, komt mij niet toe te wijsen; 40 ’Khebs’ onder ’tKoren met beleeftheit hooren prijsen, En ijemant heeft bekent, die wat goedgunstigh loogh, Onkruyt kost ergher zijn, en dit stond wel in ’toogh. Lov’ ick de koopmanschap? geenssins; ick laetse laecken, Mits datse niemant laeck’ van naer vergif te smaecken; De rest beken ick, en ghij, Leser, seght het vrij, 45 ’T zijn Koren-bloemen, en soo komense blauw bij.

223

POEMS

40

45

My strategem against untimely withering. How they will seem, remote from fields, I cannot know, The courteous praised them, when they grew amidst the corn, And someone even owned, being kindly in his lies, That weeds could be yet worse and these might please the eye. Praise I my merchandise? No: freely censure them So long as none accuse them of a poisoned taste. For the rest I own and freely, reader, say They are but cornflowers, they appear but blue.

34 MS dated 9 April 1657 (Huygens 1896, pp. 114-15). Korenbloemen (1st edn 1658) collected most of Huygens’ verse. 23 Big ships are often guided to anchorage in busy harbours by smaller, more manoeuverable craft.

35 Op het graf vanden Heer Jacob van Campen

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Hier light hij Marmerloos die soo veel Marmers sleet, En soo wel slijten leerd’, als noch heel Holland weett, En noch heel Neerland siet, en Neerlands ommelanden: Die ’t Gotsche krulligh mall met staetigh Roomsch vermanden, En dreef ouw’ Ketterij voor ouder Waerheit heen; Hoe light hij marmerloos, hoe guntm’ hem niet een’ steen, Ter eer-gedachteniss van soo vel’ ed’le steenen? Ick meen de reden is, en ’tis wat meer als meenen, Hier stond een Graf-gebouw, hadd’ hij het self bestaen: Nu hij ’t verwaerloost heeft, en derft’er niemant aen Van all’ de leerlingen die uijt hem zijn gesproten: Want, seggen sij, waer ’t niet nett in syn’ vorm gegoten, En schoeyde lit voor lit niet even op syn’ leest, Daer nu sijn lichaem rust, ontroerde ’t noch sijn’ Geest; En wat geest sou dien Geest, nu leden-loos, vernoegen, Dien, noch in ’tlogge vleesch, geen’ Geesten op en woegen?

35 On the Grave of Jacob van Campen

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No marble marks his grave, who often worked that stone, And taught its use so well, as all of Holland knows, As all the Netherlands may see, and neighbouring lands, Who twisting Gothic folly conquered with fine Roman, And drove old heresy away with older truth; Why does no marble mark his grave, why is he grudged A stone commemorating many noble stones? I think that I may know, know surer than a guess, The fitting tomb for him would be to his design: And since he made it not, then none of those disciples Whom he himself trained up would dare to make his tomb: They say that if it were not shaped exactly to His mould, and followed not his pattern to the inch, It would disturb his spirit, where his body lies; And what would satisfy that spirit, limbless now, To whom, when in dull flesh, no spirit was a peer?

35 MS dated 1 May 1658 (Huygens 1896, p. 247). Jacob van Campen (1597 -1657) was the foremost exponent of Dutch Classical architecture, designer of the Mauritshuis in The Hague and of the Stadhuis (Town Hall; now the Paleis aan de Dam) in Amsterdam. He advised Huygens on the design of Hofwijk, designed the Italianate gardens of Elswout and laid out the complex and influential gardens at Cleves for Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen. When this poem was published in Korenbloemen, the title was expanded with ‘eer het geciert wierd’ (‘before it was ornamented’).

36 Droomen ydelheit

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Wie weet wat droomen is? ick weet het; en wie niet, Die op sijn selven, neen; die in syn selven siet? Siet innewaerts, en denckt wat dencken is: dat’s droomen. Die sonder dencken is, is aen syn’ dood gekomen. Maer slapen scheelt soo veel van dood zijn, als de dood Van swijmen, en ’t geroll, van ’tliggen van een’ kloot. Wij dencken slapende: maer dampen die doen slapen Doen dat wij ons in ons aen schaduwen vergapen. De Reden doet wat, maer belemmert en verwert; Soo komt dat droomen ernst, en dencken duncken werdt. Gaet en bouwt redenen van hopen of van schroomen Op bij de Sonn of by de Maen gesufte droomen: Wat dunckt u, is ’t niet seer all eenerley gedrocht, Of wat ick hebb gedacht, of wat mij heeft gedocht?

36 The Vanity of Dreams

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Who knows what dreaming is? I know it; who does not Who at himself, or rather in himself will look? Look inwards; think what thought is; that is dreaming. He who is without thought, arrived has at his death. But sleep differs as much from death, as death from swoon And differs as the moving pebble from still earth. We think asleep, but the sleep-attending vapours Cause us the shadow in ourselves to take for substance. Being hindered and confused, our reason serves but little: So dreams turn things of weight, and thoughts opinions. Go and construct yourself a cause for hope or fear On dreams experienced while you doze by sun or moon: What think you? is it not, in truth, the same illusion Both that which I have thought and that which has but seemed?

36 MS dated 15 June 1659 (Huygens 1896, p. 261).

37 Op een gesneden roemer Als ick een Glas besie met steenen-stift beschreven Naer dat ick lang en breedt syn wesen heb versint, Is dit de beste naem dien ick het weet te geven, Doorluchtigh, hart, bruijn, broos papier, met witten Int.

37 On an Engraved Glass If I should see a glass with diamond-point engraving, When I its substance ponder, on its nature think, This is the most precise of names that I can give it: Translucent, hard, black, brittle paper with white ink. 37 MS dated 20 July 1659 (Huygens 1896, p. 264). Point-engraving on glass was a quintessentially Dutch craft. Many examples survive from the seventeenth century. While such glasses were certainly made commercially, glass-engraving was also practised by Holland’s literati. Engraved glasses were often given as presents: Anna Maria van Schurman sent one with a poem to her friend John Smith, which said on the body of the glass, ‘Pallada cum Baccho si bene jungis, eris’, with ‘Hilaris cupis esse sodales?’ on the foot. Another of her glasses, made for Viglius van Zuichem, says ‘Viglius Zuichemius. Alben ik duister, mijn naam geeft luister’ (Though I am dark, my name gives lustre). These are typical of the genre. Huygens’ friends the Roemers sisters were particularly noted for their point-engraving. Engraved glasses’ beauty, fragility, and the labour which they represented, attracted the attention of a number of moralists.

38 Op mijnen geboort-dagh Noch eens September, en noch eens die vierde dagh Die mij verschijnen sagh! Hoe veel Septembers, Heer, en hoe veel’ vierde dagen Wilt ghij mij noch verdragen? Ick bidd om geen verlang: ’tkan redelyck bestaen, 5 Het ghen’ ick heb gegaen: En van mijn’ wiegh tot hier zijn soo veel dusend schreden Die ick heb doorgetreden, (Met vallen, lieve God, en opstaen, soo ghij weett,) Dat die all ’t selve leed 10 En all’ de selve vreughd naer mij hadd door te reisen, Sich drijmael sou bepeisen Wat besten oorber waer, gelaten of gedaen. Mij, Heere, laet vrij gaen; Mijn’ roll is afgespeelt, en all wat kan gebeuren 15 Van lacchen en van treuren Is mij te beurt geweest, en all wat beuren sal Sal ’tselve niet met all, En d’ oude schaduw zijn van dingen die wat schijnen En komende verdwijnen. 20 Wat wacht ick meer op aerd, waerom en scheid’ ick niet? ’K wacht, Heer, dat ghij ’tgebiedt. Maer, magh ick noch een’ gunst by d’andere begeeren, Laet mij soo scheiden leeren, Dat yeder een die ’t siet mijn scheiden en het sijn 25 Wensch’ eenerhand te zijn.

38 On My Birthday Once more September comes, and the fourth day, Day when I first saw day. How many more Septembers, and fourth days, Lord, will you suffer me? I ask no more: the distance that I’ve come 5 Is no unreasonable one: And from my cradle to this point I’ve trod Many thousand paces (With falls, dear God, and risings as you know): He who must travel through 10 Sufferings just as mine and joys the same Would surely think again, Three times, were it best done or left undone. Lord, let me now be gone: My part is played, and all that there can be 15 Of joy or misery, Has come to me in turn, and what shall come Shall nothing add to all. It shall the old shadow be of things that seem, And vanish coming near. 20 What do I hope on earth, why not now leave? I wait, Lord, your reprieve. But, add one favour more to many granted, Let me so learn departure, That every eye that sees the manner of my going 25 Would wish my death his own. 38 MS dated 5 September 1665 (Huygens 1897, pp. 89-90). One of Huygens’ many poems on his own birthday, which he seems to have used selfconsciously as an occasion for taking stock of his life.

39 Oogentroost aende Vrouw van St. Anneland Als ’top een sterven gaet, sietm’ het Gesicht eerst breken: En dat, die zestich jaer en thien meer heeft geleeft, Of sterft, of sterven gaet, en lydt geen tegenspreken. Is ’tvreemd of buijtens tijds dat hem ’tgesicht begeeft? 5 Maer dien het stervende begeeft, verliesen ’t hooren ’t Gevoel en Smaeck en Reuck, en sterven daerop heen: Ghij leeft, en hebt van vijf maer eenen sin verloren; Bedenckt uw voordeel eens; het is noch vier om een. Twee halve ben ick quijt, en leev niet ongeruster Dan doen ick van de Vijf bedient was in ’tgeheel: 10 God hebbe lof van als; komt met mij, lieve Suster, En danckt Hem voor ’tverlies van maer een vijfde deel. Wat klagen blinde Lien, die ’twerden op haer’ dagen? Wat dunckt haer datter meer sienswaerdigh sal geschien Dan watter is geschiet en sij soo dickmael sagen? 15 En zijnse noijt siens sat? wat soecken oude Lien? Die wel vergadert heeft, moet op ’tvergadert teeren; Of sijn vergaderen is moeyte sonder vrucht: En, wil hij dagh op dagh ’tvergaderde vermeeren, Soo kiest hij sorg voor rust, en onrust voor genucht. 20 Teert wel en danckelick op wat gh’ in soo veel dagen Ter wereld hebt gesien; ’ten is geen’ kleine Som. Dat voordeel hebben sij, de blinde die eens sagen; Voor uijt en siense niet, maer heel wel achter om. En neemt, ghij saeght voor uijt, het sou soo weinigh duren 25 Bij ’tgeen verloopen is, al wat ghij hadt te sien, Dat, die u d’oude nam en schonck de niewe uren Soud u oneindelick verlies en schade bien. Nu hebben ghij en ick een’ menighte van jaeren 30 Met uijtsien and’ren veel haer uijtsien overleeft; Wij hebben ’tal besien, en zijn ruijm wel ervaren Wat dese Wereld siens en niet siens waerdigh heeft. Het insien rest alleen, daer door wij ons gewennen Ons selven te doorsien en al wat in ons is,

39 Consolation of the Eyes, to the Lady of St Annaland As all approach their deaths, the eyesight falters first, Those who have lived out more than threescore years and ten, Die or are like to die, and there is no gainsaying. Is it untimely, strange, that eyesight should give way? 5 There are those near to death, in whom their hearing fails Lose touch and taste and smell, then die away. You live and of your senses five have lost but one; Think on your fortune: yet the four remain. And I have half-lost two, and live no less at ease Than once I did when all five senses served together. 10 For that, let God be praised: come, Sister dear, with me And thank him for the loss of one fifth part alone. What do the blind lament who, living, lost their sight? Think they that they have lost yet better sights to come? Better than those past things, which often they have seen? 15 Have they not seen enough? What do the old yet seek? Those who have stored up well, can live on garnered sights, Or else his garnering is labour without fruit: Those who seek day by day the increase of their store Choose toil rather than ease, disquietude for peace. 20 Think gratefully on what you in the world have seen Throughout your many days; it comes to no small sum. They have this blessing still, the blind who once could see: They cannot see ahead, but see alone the past. Suppose that you could see ahead, it would be short, 25 So short compared to what is past that you have had To see: if someone took the old hours and offered new All that he offered you would be infinite loss. But you and I have lived a multitude of years, 30 Have outlived with our seeing the sight of many men; This all we have surveyed, experienced in this world Things worthy to be seen, and not worthy to be seen. Insight alone remains, through which we fit ourselves To search within ourselves and learn what is within,

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Waer doorw’ ootmoedelick voor God alleen bekennen Waerw’ in verlegen zijn om sijn’ vergiffenis. Dit Insien is soo nut en eischt soo langen stade, En is een’ oeffening daer steeds soo veel aen schort, Dat, waeren wij in ’twerck met insien vroegh en spade, 40 Wij quamen alle daegh weer niewe stae te kort. Siet wat een tydverdrijf voor menschen sonder oogen, Siet wat het besicheits den besichsten verweckt, En of ’t wel inder daed een’ saeck is van medoogen, ’t Gesichte quijt te zijn dat hier niet toe en streckt. Neemt mijn’ eenvoudighe vermaningen in ’tgoede; 45 ’tZijn spruijten van een oud door-Broederlick gemoed: Ick weet het, en danck God, het is ten overvloede, En beter seid’ ick u, doet, Suster, soo ghij doet. In Zee, niet verr van onse Strand, In’s Conings Iacht van Engeland.

POEMS

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To learn the wisdom to confess to God alone Where we stand most in need of his forgiving love. Such meditation profits us, requiring so much time, And is an exercise that always falls so short, That if we worked upon it daily, night and noon, 40 We every day would fail, fall short of time anew. See what an occupation this is for the blind, What business it would make for the world’s busiest, And that it is indeed a matter for compassion To lose the sight which does not contribute to this. Sister, accept my simple counsel for your good. 45 It springs of old out of a brother’s lasting love: I thank God that I know advice superfluous, Better I could have said: do, Sister, as you do. At sea, not far from our coast On board the King of England’s yacht. 39 MS dated 10 October 1671 (Huygens 1898, pp. 66-67). Geertruyd Huygens, his sister, widow of Philips Doublet, Lord of St Annaland, became blind as a result of cataract. Huygens’ strange poem of consolation, half Calvinist fatalism, half Baroque conceit, was written during the return voyage from a protracted and unhappy diplomatic mission to England – his last.

40 Over des Heeren Avondmael

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Tot dijner heughenis hebt gh’ ons dit voorgeschreven, Almachtigh Middelaer, doe gh’uijt het stervend leven En van ’t vervloeckte hout, daer ghij voor ons aen hingt En uijt de koude Rots ten hoogen Hemel gingt. Wel moght ghij ’t seggen, Heer, dus sult ghij mijner heugen; Ghij saeght medoogentlick op ’t machteloos vermeugen Van dijne leerlingen: de kloeckste weecken eerst, Als ’top den nood aen quam, en elck vergat om ’t zeerst Hoe hij gewaerschouwt was getroost en onderwesen: Elf blevender nochtans van velen uijtgelesen Die daer eendrachtelijck van aller zielen plicht, Het voorbeeld mosten zijn, en doen ’t in dijn gesicht Ter eewigh’ heughenis: sij deden ’t naer dijn voordoen, En wij naer ’t haer. O God, geeft dat wij ’t door en door doen En hechten meer ons hert aen dij, ons levens Brood Als aen des’ heilige doodverwe van dijn dood, En sulx getuijgen, niet ter loops in volle kercken, Maer in ’t voornemen van voll’ aendacht, Woord en wercken.

40 On the Holy Communion

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For your remembrance you once did this act prescribe, Great Mediator, as you left your dying life And from the cursed tree, whereon you hung for us, And out of the cold rock to Heaven rose on high. Well did you say, o Lord, Do this in memory Of me; with pity did you see the strengthless power Of your Apostles: when the strongest failed the first; As he came into danger, each forgot at once How he had been enlightened, been consoled and taught. Eleven yet remaining out of many called Who must, acting as one, show to each soul its duty, Together they performed this action in your sight For everlasting memory, by your example taught. So we are taught by theirs. Lord let us do it fully And more attach our hearts to you, our Bread of Life, Than to the deathly pallor of your sacred death, And thus bear witness, not casually in full churches, But in resolve of full attention, words and deeds.

40 The manuscript is undated; Worp assigns the poem to the spring of 1673 (Huygens 1898, p. 95; text from Huygens 1968, pp. 80-81). Throughout, Huygens emphasizes the commemorative sense in which Protestants held the Communion, as against the Catholic doctrine that the bread and wine are actually transubstantiated by the words of the officiating priest. 1 Quoting Christ’s words to his apostles at the Last Supper, Luke 22.19.

41 Stilte en sneew op storm en hoogen vloed

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De Lucht is uijt gebuijt: Hem laet ons eewigh loven, Soo toornigh en soo goed, Die dese wondren doet, En levert ons van boven In plaets van woesten storm en sout nats overvloed, Tot niew vertroosting, still, droogh water, witt en soet.

41 Stillness and Snow after Storm and High Water

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The sky is clear of rain: let us praise Him ever, So wrathful and so mild, Who works his wonders out: Distilling from the heavens Instead of wasting storm and salt flood’s overflow Our consolation: still, dry water, sweet and white.

41 MS dated 15 February 1682 (Huygens 1898, p. 280).

42 Myn Geckies grafschrift Dit is mijn Hondjes Graf: Ick segger niet meer af, Als dat ick wenschten (en de Werld waer niet bedurven) Dat mijn klein Geckje leefde en all’ de groote sturven.

42 My Puppy’s Epitaph This is my puppy’s grave: No more than this be said, I’d wish (and were it so, the world were none the worse) My little dog alive, all this world’s great ones dead. 42 MS dated Hofwijk, 25 October 1682 (Huygens 1898, p. 303). The name of the puppy commemorated in this weary epigram is a term of endearment which translates literally as ‘Little Fool’.



Appendix I A Selection of Huygens’ Poems in Modern European Languages

Huygens seems to have made a practice of keeping his languages supple by translating and composing poems in all of them. In the winter of 1649/50, for example, in one virtually uninterrupted flow he translated some 100 anecdotes from Floresta Espanola: De Apoteghemas o Sentencias, as Uyt Spaensch OnDicht, followed by two Latin poems to Anna Maria Schurman, a large selection of verses from Archie Armstrong’s Banquet of Jests (printed in 1630), translated into Dutch as Uyt Engelsch OnDicht, and several French poems to Princess Louise of Bohemia and Maria Elisabeth, Princess of Hohenzollern (Huygens 1894, pp. 159-231). French Sur le refrain d’un eccho que je fis en dormant Philandre, sur le point de payer ses regrets, De joye s’addressant à l’ombre des Forests, Secretaires, dit il, des peines de Philandre, Qui l’avez veu en feu, qui le voyez en cendre, 5 Est il rien de si beau qu’ Amaranthe et son nom? Non, dirent les Rochers, et les boiz dirent, Non. To an Echo Tune, Lines Which I Composed in a Dream Philander, as he approached his sufferings’ end, joyfully addressed himself to the shade of the forest. ‘Confidants,’ he said, ‘of the sufferings of Philander, whom you have seen on fire, whom you see as ash, is there anything so beautiful as Amarantha and her name?’ ‘No,’ the cliffs said, and the woods said ‘no’. Huygens’ note on the MS: ‘Composed in a dream, the night of 21 February [1624]’. (Huygens 1893a, p. 63.) Air dans ma Pathologie Tu te trompes, Philis, lors que ta main d’Albastre M’attrappe dans ton sein. En dépit de tes coups, mon amour idolatre

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Arrive à son dessein. 5 Serre et gesne ces doigts, defends toij et te vange, Je ne perds rien au change; Je ne sçaij qui des deux chatouïlle plus mes sens, Ou mon crime, ou tes chastimens. Air from My Pathodia You are mistaken, Phillis, when your Alabaster hand ensnares me in your breast. Despite your blows, my idolatrous love reaches its goal. Squeeze and hinder these fingers, defend and revenge yourself, I will lose nothing from the change; I cannot say which of the two excites my senses the more: my crime or your chastisements. MS dated 28 July 1643 (Huygens 1893b, p. 278). Huygens’ collection of songs, with words in French and Italian, was published in Paris in one volume with his settings of a number of psalms in Latin as Pathodia Sacra et Profana in 1647. Le reveil de Calliste. Aubade. Air dans ma Pathologie J’aij veu le point du jour, il a paru sur l’onde, Sur l’onde de mes pleurs. Mon Astre vient chasser, en esclairant le monde, La nuict de mes douleurs. Leve toij, beau soleil, souffre que je t’adore. 5 Ha! je me suis mespris, il n’est pas jour encore: Mes yeux, nous avons tort; Il ne vient point d’ Aurore, Calliste se rendort. Callisto Awakening, an Aubade to Music from my Pathodia I have seen the break of day appearing on the waves of my tears. My Star comes to light the world and drive away the night of my sufferings. Fair sun, arise, permit me to adore you. No, I mistake, it is not yet day: my eyes, we are deceived; there is no glimmer of dawn, Callisto falls again asleep. MS dated 31 July 1643 (Huygens 1893b, p. 278).

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La viole de gambe en desordre Vostre Instrument, Duchesse, est fort dans mon estime: C’est pitié de le veoir toucher si rarement, Car, si je l’entreprens, et l’enjambe et l’anime, Il respond à mes coups, et vigoureusement. 5 Que si, pour en jouër le grand bransle à la mode Et nous en rejouïr à deux tout nostre soul, J’y trouve une cheville à dire en quelque trou, Ne voulez vous pas bien qu’on vous en accommode? The Neglected Viola da Gamba Duchess, your instrument stands high in my esteem, it is a pity to see that it is touched so rarely, since, if I take it up, straddle it and awake it, it responds with vigour to my strokes. So that, to play upon it the great bransle à la mode and for the two of us to enjoy it until we are satisfied, I find there a peg to speak in some hole, do you not indeed wish that you might be provided with one? MS dated Brussels, 18 May 1656 (Huygens 1896, p. 56). Among the many doubles entendres in this verse: bransle is a dance, but branler is ‘to masturbate’ also. Spanish Val[g]a me Dios Mil merecen al[a]banças Matadores Lutheranos, Que mataron Castillanos En sus proprias Matanças. God Save Me A thousand praises they deserve, Lutheran butchers, who butcher Castillians, in their own butchery. MS dated The Hague, 17 November 1628 (Huygens 1893a, p. 202).

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[Epigram] No conviene quexarse, Caros vezinos mios: Que fu gracia de Dios, Tanta gente salvarse 5 Con perder dos navios. [Epigram] There is no cause for sorrow, my dear neighbours, that through the mercy of God so many people have been saved with the loss of two ships. MS dated 2 January 1653 (Huygens 1895, p. 32). Huygens wrote a series of verses in French, English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Greek and Latin on the losses of Tromp’s fleet in a storm off Scheveningen on 2 January 1653. Italian Alessandro in cavallo corrente Se così sempre cavalcava, Un mundo e più non gli bastava. Alexander on a Galloping Horse If he should ride like this always, more than a world would not content him. MS dated 26 January 1634 (Huygens 1893a, p. 283). [Epigram] Non trovo in spirito, non trovo in carne, Perche di questo fuoco lamentarne: Grave non fù, fù cortese rovina, Che ci lasciò la Chiesa e la Cucina. [Epigram] I find neither in the spirit nor in the flesh reason to lament this fire: it is little damage, little ruin which thus leaves us the church and the kitchen.

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MS dated 31 January 1635 (Huygens 1893a, p. 310). This epigram, of which there are also French and Latin versions, refers to a fire at the Binnenhof in The Hague, on the birthday of Frederik Hendrik, 29 January. Madrigale Già ti chiesi un sospir, ma me ne pento Che su’l vento fatale Amor battendo l’ale, Crescerebbe col fuoco il mal che sento. Hor dell’acqua ti chiedo à tanto ardore. 5 Deh! se ti muove il core Del grave incendio mio troppo tormento, Una lagrima, Filli, e sara spento. Madrigal I ask but one sigh alone of you, but my heart changes its mind, because, on that dangerous wind, love, beating his wings, blows up with fire the suffering which I feel. I might ask water of you, out of such burning. If your heart is moved too much tormented by the great flames of my fire, one tear, Phillis, and they are extinguished. MS dated 27 August 1644 (Huygens 1893b, p. 320). German [Epigram] Ich habe frewd noch lust In’s Vatterlandts verlust: Wir mussens gleichwol tragen, Wann’s Godt gefällt zu schlagen In seine grimmigkeit: 5 Und unser schuldigkeit Ist ihn dafür zu dancken In wort und in gedancken. Ihm sage ich lob en ehr 10 Der aus das dolle meer, In doller wint und wetter, Zwey hundert Seelen schanck für weinig eijchen bretter.

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[Epigram] I have neither joy nor gladness in the fatherland’s loss: we must nevertheless suffer it when it pleases God to scourge us in his anger: and it is our duty to thank him for it in word and thought. Him I praise and honour who, out of the adverse sea, in adverse wind and weather, saved two hundred souls in exchange for the loss of a few oak planks. MS dated 4 January 1653 (Huygens 1895, p. 32). See note to the Spanish version of the same material above.



Appendix II A Selection of Huygens’ Writings in English [On the Portrait of Piet Hein] Hollands Iasonides looketh, conquerour, as heere; For his conquering face, let noman wish to see ’t; The Spaniard, that abideth the sunne-beames from so neere, Redeem’d those fiercer lookes with all his golden fleet.

MS dated January 1629 (Huygens 1893a, p. 206). Piet Hein was a Dutch admiral and naval hero. 1 Iasonides: son of Jason, leader of the Argonauts in Greek myth, who quested in search of the Golden Fleece. [On William Welwood] Well wood I Welwood lived and saw himself undone, Even after he is gone. Well wood he, by mij troth I know not, weepe or laugh, At such an Epitaphe. MS dated 1 February 1653 (Huygens 1895, p. 38). Welwood was Professor of Mathematics and Civil Law at St Andrews (fl. 1577-1622). Author of a number of works, including two on the law of the sea, Sea-Law of Scotland (1590) and An Abridgement of all Sea-Lawes (1613) claiming British rights over all adjacent waters – claims which the Dutch did not at any time or in any way accept. This epigram presumably refers to this casus belli of the Sovereignty of the Seas rather than to his other claim to fame, his discovery of the principle of the siphon. To the Most Honourable Ladij Stanhope. With My Holy Dayes Brave Henrie Wottons Neece, perfect modell of Grace, Full place of honour and full honour of your place; Cast a mercifull eije upon the weake expressions Of a repenting heart for so manij transgressions 5 That, if I stammer at the mischiefs of mij youth, I’ have reason to suppose the number stops my mouth. How ever, these are sparkes of better flames, I trust, And of a fairer Fire, when Diuell, World and Lust

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Shall laij as conquerd foes at mij victorious feet. Then shall you see this wood much drier then you see’t, And readier to burne: then shall I doe the thing, The holye thing, that now I doe but speake and sing. Till then I’ll thinke mij life a little out of crime, If you beleeve me but an honest man in Rime.

MS dated 27 January 1645 (Huygens 1894, p. 27). Sir Henry Wotton had been English ambassador to the Hague while Constantijn was growing up, and a near neighbour when they lived in the Voorhout. The friendliest of relations had existed between the two households. Catherine, nee Wotton, widow of Henry, Lord Stanhope (d. 1634), had been the governess of Mary, the Princess Royal (daughter of Charles i). After Stanhope’s death she refused an offer of marriage from Van Dyck, but married John Polyander à Kerckhoven, one of the Dutch ambassadors sent over to negotiate the Princess Royal’s marriage to William ii in 1641. She was confidential advisor to the Princess, and put herself at considerable risk by returning to England during the interregnum, where she was arrested before her return to Holland. [Epigram] Who ever heard a thing so strange? A Maid, a Ladij and a Man In two hours at the new Exchange Bought an Ear-iron and a Fan. MS dated 5/15 June 1671 (Huygens 1898, p. 21). Written during Huygens’ last visit to London, the epigram revisits the theme of his ‘’t Kostelick Mal’ (Costly Folly) of 1622, a satire, also written in London, which had been inspired by ‘A Sermon of Apparell’ by John Williams (London, 1619; see Leerintveld 1991). Possibly the subjects of Huygens’ epigram have been to the India house. 4 ‘Ear-iron’, meaning, presumably, ‘earring’ is Huygens’ coinage out of Dutch ‘oorijzer’: ‘oorijzers’ are ornaments worn on the side of the headdress, initially silver, later gold, forming a part of that elaborate Dutch regional dress for women which derives in part from objects and stuffs imported from the Indies. To Lady M. Killigrew Peace and prosperitie be upon you and yours for ever, since Reason hath gotten her ancient possession of your heart, and Peace found again the

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way between your Ladyship and me. So that at last, without miracle, a Spaniard and a Hollander doe partake equally in the blessing of England, but that the one has beene prevented by the other by a few weeks. God is my witnesse, I did never forfeit your friendship, but yet, since you could find in your heart to punish me with the privation of it, and in your noble discretion againe to restore it kindly, I will take it from your Ladyship not as one gift twice given, but as a double present, once given and once againe, and never deserved. Honest Gautier,1 but now departed, to whome I made my just complaints of your late rigours against my innocence, undertook fervently the defense of my cause, by what he had had occasion to learne of my inclination toward strangers. I am glad, you would save him the paines, and now, even as yourself, I do entreat you, this night being past, as all things of the world doe, let us never think or speake againe of the saddest darknesse of it. Let us be children of light, and exercice such workes as bekome them, Peace and Love above all. In this resolution on my side I do kiss your noble hands, holding them to be blessed, as the feet are of those that do announce peace,2 and so, wishing to you and yours againe Gods everlasting peace, I rest …. 12 Feb. 1631 (Huygens 1911, no 577, p. 310.) This is addressed to Mary Killigrew, nee Woodhouse. She was first married to Sir Robert Killigrew (d. 1633), then to Sir Thomas Stafford. The letter comes at the end of a long correspondence, in the course of which Huygens cleared himself of malicious charges that he had neglected and refused to help a son of the Killigrew family, who had served in the Dutch army, had fallen into debt and dissipation and had died at Rotterdam in 1630. To Lady Stafford Some dayes since I receaved your ladyships more welcome answere, without any date, upon my letter of the 17/27 of August. These lines are to assure your ladyship, that those of her noble hand could never bee better bestowed then upon me, who am infinitly rejoyced to see your ladyship is in so good a health, that she hath the courage to thinke of a jomey beyond sea. In good faith, Madam, as the world goeth in your island, I doe imagine, you could as happily and quietly end your dayes in these parts amongst some of 1 A well known lutenist from whom Constantijn had had lessons in England in 1622. 2 Isaiah 52.7 ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace’.

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your obedient children as there, where publique and private troubles have agitated you till now. As for howses fit for such a family, I make account your ladyship may be served here at her ease for 60, 70 or 80 pound a yeare, more or lesse, as she shall thinke fit herselfe. If it please your ladyship to let me know, of what and how many and how large roomes you would desire to bee accommodated, I will make your ladyship acquainted of what is to bee had here at the Haghe, which, you may beleeve, Madam, to bee one of the sweetest and handsomest dwellings of the world. But, as I have understood here, your ladyships intention should be to live in one family with your sonne3 and daughter in law. If so bee, another course is to be taken, for they seeme to have a mind to live at Maestricht, which is more then a hundred mile from hence, in an excellent aire indeed, but as far from the Queen of Bohemia as the Haghe from thence, and no such conversation there, nor such pictures, nor such performes, nor such musicke as we are able to afford you here. To be short, Madam, if your ladyship doe us the honour to passe the seas, we will endeavour to make you passe your time in such a manner, that the old good dayes of Lothbury howse will somtimes come backe into your memory. In this I entreate your ladyship to let me keepe a corner, upon that ground, that I am allwayes, as allwayes I have been.... 4/14 Oct. 1655 I thinke the bearer of this will be my young cousin Snouckart, whose grandfather, the ambassador Joachimi, and uncle, M. de Mayerne, have had the honour to bee acquainted with your ladyship. He is a youth of a notable estate and I alone left his tutor. (Huygens 1916, no 5432, pp. 244-45.) To Lady Swann There was no peace to be made between your ladyship and me but by the intervention of so kind a letter as you were pleased to send me at a time, when indeed I did beleeve you to be at Hambourg4 a good while agoe, your cousin Sixty having assured me of it, and much confirmed me in that opinion by telling me how your ladyship had found in her heart to be a whole 3 Sir Thomas Killigrew, courtier and dramatist, d. 1683, who married Charlotte van Hesse at The Hague in 1655. 4 Utricia Swann and her husband had lived in Hamburg since 1664. She was the daughter of Sir John Ogle and Elizabeth de Vries, born at Utrecht, though she was brought up partly in England. Huygens taught her music. She married Captain William Swann, a diplomat, in 1645, and he became English resident in Hamburg 1664-66. She was the dedicatee of Huygens’ Pathodia sacra et profana (1647), and is mentioned as a singer in Hofwijk.

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night at the Haghe without giving any notice of it to those who did presume to be in an ancient possession of some little corner of that heart. In good earnest, Madame, I was something greeved at the news, and am scarce wel returned from, I know not, my displeasure or my anger. Howsoever, seeing you are pleased to pay us in words, patience must be taken; of one thing I may assure your ladyship, that if ever I came so neare Hambourg as Utrecht is from the Haghe, I could not leave Mylady Swann unvisited. What then if she were prevailed, as I am now, of a new paire of virginals of the length of four Hollands elles and a quarter. I could tell you wonders, Madam, of its most excellent sound and other perfections, which a time was when they could have charmed you, but seeing you quite out of all sence and delight of musike, but what consisteth in division – division not of fingers upon strings, but of gold and silver of which I have little notice – I see it were in vaine to entertaine you with such trifles, and therefore have sought some other divertissement at least to pas your time withall in travelling home. For that purpose I intreat your ladyship to receave these poor presents. One of the bookes will inform you of what became of me since I had the honour to see you last in England, and how not unwelcome a guest I was at Orange, after that afflicted people had been delivered by my endeavours.5 You will find there expressions concerning my unworthie person beyond all reason and truth, but, Madame, your charitie must impute it to the madness of an extream joy the whole country was in for the happy recovery out of the heavy oppression they had groaned under, considering, it was the peoples harts that spoke and not their braines. The second almanach is the yongest and, as you shall find somewhere in the text, the last of my productions of that nature, upon our illustrious new way digged and paved through the sanddownes from hence to Schevering.6 Your ladyship would not vouchsafe to come and see the original, and so at least the shadow of it must come to see you. I hope you will find some idle howre to peruse it in hast, when there shall be no division more to be played. And so, sweet Madam, wishing you all happines, both here and in heaven, where we are more like to meet then anywhere else, I rest as ever I was and for ever.... 6 Jun. 1668. (Huygens 1917, no 6665, p. 231.)

5 See the Introduction, pp. 22-23. Huygens was received by the people of Orange as a liberator delivering them from French rule. 6 This is his poem about the road linking the Hague with Scheveningen, De Zee-Straet van ’sGraven-Hage op Scheveningen ( 1667).

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To Dr Wren [Sir Christopher] This bearer is a Jew by birth and profession, and I bound to him for some instructions I had from him, long agoe, in the Hebrew literature. This maketh me grant him the addresses he desireth of me, his intention being to shew in England a curious model of the temple of Salomon, he hath been about to contrive these many years, where he doth presume to have demonstrated and corrected an infinite number of errors and paralogismes of our most learned schollars, who have meddled with the exposition of that holy fabrick, and most specially of the Jesuit Villalpandus,7 who, as you know, Sir, has handled the matter ingenti cum fastu et apparatu, ut solent isti. I make no question but many of your divines and other virtuosi will take some pleasure to heare the Israelite discourse upon his architecture and the conformity of it with the genuine truth of the holy text, but, Sir, before all, I have thought I was to bring him acquainted with yourself, who are able to judge of the matter upon better and surer grounds than any man living. I give him also letters to the Portingal ambassador, to mylord Arlington and M.r Oldenburg, that some notice may be taken of him, both at the court, and amongst those of the Royal Society. If you will be so good as to direct him unto mylord archbishop of Canterbury his Grace, even in my name, I am sure the noble prelat will take it pro more suo friendly, and remember with me the Psalme, Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi, in domum domini ibimus. I pray, Sir, lett his Grace find here my humble and most devoted respect, and for your part I beleeve I doe still remember your excellent merits, and in consideration of them am and always will shew to be.... Haghe, the 7 of Oct. 1674. I find no copie about me of a french discourse I wrote8 in England concerning the cleaning of London streets; if it were possible you could procure me one, I would receave it as a special favour. (Huygens 1917, no 6954, pp. 356-57.) Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) needs little introduction to English readers. We may note here that he was a prominent member of the scientific circle which was incorporated as the Royal Society in 1660, and that the range of interests suggested by this letter 7 Juan Bautista de Vilalpando (1552-1608), S.J., b. Cordova, d. Rome, author of In Ezechielem explanationes et apparatus urbis ac templi Hierosolytani, 3 vols, Rome 1596-1606. 8 Worp amends to ‘read’, but letters 6776 and 6778 relate how Huygens had discussed his ideas on the matter with King Charles ii in 1670 and put them in writing at his request. When the King had judged it ‘a very good paper’, Huygens had passed a copy on to Wren.

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are very much those which concerned the learned men of this time. In 1674 Wren, after the rejection of his first design for St Paul’s Cathedral, was experimenting with various designs, leading to the accepted plan of 1675.



Appendix III Huygens and English Literature

One index of Huygens’ continued concern with the literary life of England throughout the mid seventeenth century is the posthumous sale catalogue (made in 1688) of volumes from his library, discarded by his sons and heirs. It contains about three thousand volumes and eighty-six books of music. A surprising number of these were English literature. His English books included a first-folio Shakespeare, Donne’s Satyrs and Poems (and his Sermons), Chaucer’s Works, the collections of Cartwright, Randolph, Crashaw, Cowley, Carew and Waller, what the Dutch printer calls ‘Rumph Songs’ (an anonymous book of pro-Stuart popular poetry more generally known as Rump, or the Rump Ballads), John Owen’s (Latin) Epigrams, Samuel Butler’s Hudibras, Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Ben Jonson’s masque The Gypsies Metamorphos’d (in manuscript), his Epigrams, a manuscript entitled English Poems of Divers Autors, and what must be nearly the entire published output of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (fourteen volumes, folio). Although Huygens made several visits to England in the course of his life, the spread of English texts which he owned would suggest that he must have kept up his English connections, and that he continued to buy English books as they came out (it is noteworthy that his library also included a Catalogue of the Most Vendible Books in England, printed in London in 1658). Otherwise, his library reflects a wide range of interests. He owned a number of books about the House of Stuart: a reflection of a personal loyalty which stemmed from the kindness shown him by King James. Although this loyalty was strained by unhappy diplomatic dealings with the Stuarts in his middle years, his very last poems include English doggerel verses made for the amusement of Mary, wife of the King-Stadhouder William iii. In connection with Hofwijk, it is also worth noting that he owned copies of Vitruvius’s De Architectura and that garden-obsessed dream-vision of the Venetian Renaissance, Poliphilo’s Hypnerotomachia. The library catalogue gives a picture of the reading of a savant and poet whose interests extended across the linguistic frontiers of early modern Europe. But Huygens also maintained personal and literary contacts with many of the authors. The most important of Huygens’ contacts with English writers will be examined individually.

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John Donne (1573-1621) The translations Huygens made of nineteen of John Donne’s poems have received a fair amount of critical attention, though more so in The Netherlands than in Britain. Huygens’ relationship with Donne remains unfortunately unclear from surviving letters or other direct evidence from which firm dates can be established. Their first encounter is likely to have been in The Hague, where Donne, on his way back from Germany with Doncaster’s Embassy, preached a sermon to the States General on 19 December 1619. They probably met again in 1621 or 1622, in London, at the house of Sir Robert Killigrew (1579-1633) and his wife Mary Woodhouse, a niece of Francis Bacon. Sir Robert Killigrew was chiefly famous for his concoctions of drugs and cordials, but the household was cultivated and literary, and the centre of a circle which included Donne, Ben Jonson, Thomas Overbury, the musicians Lanier and Gaultier, the scientist Cornelius Drebbel, the widow of Sir Walter Raleigh, the More family and the Bacon family (Bachrach 1976, p. 114). This dazzling list of who’s who in early seventeenth-century London did not fail to leave its mark on the younger generation of Killigrews: all three sons were published dramatists (as indeed was a grandson, while a granddaughter became a published poetess). In this distinguished and cultivated company Huygens took great delight, as his letters home testify. But it was Donne, in particular, who had recently become Dean of St Paul’s (in 1621), who impressed him deeply. Only two contemporary sources document specific occasions when Huygens and Donne met. One is a reference in a letter from Donne to Henry Goodyere of 1622 (Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, London, 1651) to the ‘Secretary of the States Here’ showing him a document regarding the siege of Breda (Sellin 1982, p. 203). The other is the draft journal that Huygens, the Secretary of the States’ embassy, prepared for the Ambassador’s official report to the States General. In his entry for 11 June 1624, the eve of the embassy’s return to The Netherlands, Huygens mentions a visit by ‘the now Earl of Dorset with the Dean of St. Paul’s’ (Bachrach 1976, p. 115). But Huygens’ comment on Donne in his De vita propria sermonum inter liberos ii, ll. 170-76 (Huygens 1898, p. 208) indicates not only the highest respect, but the degree of contact between them: Te, maxime Donni, Omnibus antefero, divine vir, optime Rhetor, Prime Poetarum: O, quoties sermonibus illis Aureolis, quos vel privatos inter amicos

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Vel de suggestu, Praeco facunde, serebas, Intereram, quo me visus sum nectare pasci! (Thou, greatest Donne I place before all others, man divine, best Orator, first of Poets. O how often have I listened to your golden words, uttered either among friends or from the pulpit, O great Herald, which have nourished me like nectar) Huygens’ library list shows that he owned Donne’s Sermons (published in 1622, libri theologici in 4°, no. 76), and also an octavo edition of J. Donne Poems (libri miscellanei in 8°, no. 146), and his Satyrs and Poems (libri miscellanei in 12°, 395 and 429) listed without dates, so it is not clear whether he owned the 1635, 1639 or a later edition of Poems by J.D. (but from the evidence of the catalogue he does not appear to have owned 1633, which was a quarto). Not listed in the catalogue is the copy of Biathanatos inscribed to Huygens by Donne’s son: Beeinge lately told by a Gentleman of our Nation that the Author of the Booke had sometimes bin numbered amongst Yr other Servants, when you were in England... (Bachrach 1976). Huygens made two attempts on Donne’s verse. The first was in 1630, and consisted of four translations: ‘The Sunne Rising’, ‘The Anagram’ (Elegy ‘Marry, and love thy Flavia’), half of [‘Recusancy’] (Elegy ‘Oh, let mee not serve so’) and ‘A Valediction: forbidding Mourning’. Predating the publication of Poems 1633, these must have been made from manuscript copies, of which we know he owned ‘a printer’s dozen’ in 1630 (Huygens 1911, p. 289). The second, which brings the total number of poems translated to nineteen, was in 1633, and comprises ‘The Flea’, ‘Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward’, ‘Womans Constancy’, ‘Breake of Day’, ‘Witchcraft by a Picture’, ‘The Apparition’, ‘Song’ (‘Goe, and catche a falling starre’), ‘Twicknam Garden’, ‘The Exstasie’, ‘Loves Deitie’, ’The Blossome’, ‘A Valediction: of Weeping’, ‘The Dreame’, ‘The Legacie’, and ‘The Triple Foole’. For the second group Huygens may have had the 1633 edition of Poems by J.D. as a source text (it was registered in the Stationer’s Register on 13 September 1632; Donne 1965, p. xxxiii). However, in some cases Huygens’ readings do not appear to match those of 1633, and he must have used the MSS which he owned. It may be that Huygens obtained his manuscripts of Donne’s poetry from Donne himself, but it is perhaps more likely that one of his many English friends, such as Sir Robert Killigrew, knowing of his interest in

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poetry and his admiration for Donne in particular, had sent him some of the poetry which circulated from hand to hand in manuscript among London’s literati (on the manuscript circulation of Donne’s poetry, see further MacColl 1972). The reference to a folio manuscript entitled ‘English Poems of divers Autors’ included in Huygens’ library list (libri miscellanei in folio, no 115) is tantalizing in this respect. The manuscript surfaces once more, in the library catalogue of Johan de Witt (Dordrecht, 1701: Manuscripti in folio, no 80), with the description ‘ex Biblioth. Constantini Hugenii’, never to be heard of again. Donne’s poems are notoriously difficult, even for English speakers. To translate them into Dutch is therefore an important intellectual exercise. It speaks volumes for Huygens’ passive command of the English language, but it does more than that: Donne was a recognized master of the ‘new poetics’ of his day: allusive, hermetic, self-consciously intellectual, and making heavy demands on the reader. In order to translate such poetry, Huygens would quite literally have to enlarge the Dutch language: not in the simple sense of inventing new words, but in the more complex sense of extending what it was possible to say in Dutch verse. The challenge this presented was one which Huygens was all the more keen to take up because it fitted with his larger design to show the potential of the Dutch language in literary as well as scientific discourse. The intensely personal, yet intellectual quality of such poems as The Day’s Work, and the use of conceit and metaphor in many of Huygens’ poems may be aspects of his own work in which he is emboldened by the example of Donne. Yet it would be easy to overstate this. One of the ways that Donne is difficult for English readers (apart from his actual use of language) is that he is one of the most Baroque of English poets: his cleverness, complex invention, intellectuality and love of paradox are more easily parallelled outside England than within it, particularly among poets writing in Latin. It may not be going too far to state that Huygens was attracted to Donne because he recognized that Donne’s poetic sensibilities, like his own, were formed not merely by the poetic traditions of England and The Netherlands, but by those of Italy and France. The first thing to strike the reader is that many of the poems Huygens chose to translate are amongst those now most frequently anthologized. This suggests some kind of concordance between what the later twentieth century sees in Donne, and what Huygens saw. He chose some of Donne’s most intensely amatory poems: ‘The Sunne Rising’ [Busie old foole, unruly Sunne], which celebrates a fulfilled and successful love; the equally famous, and equally confident, ‘A Valediction: forbidding Mourning’, and ‘The Exstasie’. He has also chosen to treat several, also frequently anthologized,

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poems in which Donne speaks in general terms of woman’s inconstancy (a stock theme of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century verse), such as ‘Song’ [Goe, and catche a falling starre], which may have spoken to the Huygens who wrote Doris (in 1618; see no. 1), and was sufficiently hurt by the rejection witnessed in that poem to maintain a misogynist pose for some years. He has also, perhaps, spoken indirectly of what was closest to his own heart in translating poems which are set in gardens (‘Twicknam Garden’, ‘The Exstasie’). Perhaps one of the most interesting things to strike the reader with respect to the first four translations is Huygens’ omissions, presumably of elements which jarred on his own sensibilities, and it may be the omissions which, paradoxically, may tell us most about the gaps between Donne’s poetic persona and that of Huygens. ‘The Sunne Rising’ is translated in its entirety, practically word for word. But it is a poem which Huygens could have written himself (in terms of its mood and content): it fits well with such poems as the first half of The Day’s Work (no. 14): compare, for example, lines 61-64: This our world (to speak precisely Commonwealth and marriage-bed Better, commonwealth of lovers, Turtledoves in common nest) with Donne: She’is all States, and all Princes, I, Nothing else is... Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee To warme the world, that’s done in warming us (ll. 21-22, 27-28). The same is true of the last of the four, ‘A Valediction: forbidding Mourning’, which expresses an absolute trust in the bond between the lovers, and may well have held personal meaning for Huygens, who was compelled to travel often on the confidential business of the Princes of Orange. ‘The Anagram’ is another matter: it is a satiric poem addressed to another man, describing his repulsive mistress, and assuring him that ‘though her cheeks be yellow’, her haire is red... she ‘hath yet an Anagram of a good face’. It is a poem which shows Donne at his cleverest, most frivolous, and least sympathetic: an unidentifiable lady of the court is presented as a monstrous abortion of

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nature for the sake of a somewhat hardworked joke. Huygens makes three omissions in this poem. The first is lines 17-18: If we might put the letters but one way, In the leane dearth of words, what could wee say? This conceit is to some extent overtaken by its development, which Huygens does translate, that tunes equally good can be made out of the same notes in a different order: we may here see Huygens deliberately tightening up the movement of the poem. The next omission is similar (ll. 23-28): She’s faire as any, if all be like her, And if none bee, then she is singular. All love is wonder; if we justly doe Account her wonderfull, why not lovely too? Love built on beauty, soone as beauty, dies, Chuse this face, chang’d by no deformities. These six lines represent a parenthesis between the two principal statements: the first, which develops the idea that a woman with small eyes and a big mouth (etc.) has ‘an Anagram of a good face’, while the second develops the theme of the positive advantages of having an ugly wife. Their omission therefore speeds the transition between the two. The third and last cut is significant in a different way: Donne piles hyperbole on hyperbole to emphasize the sexual repulsiveness of ‘Flavia’, ending (ll. 53-54) with Whom Dildoes, Bedstaves, and her Velvet Glasse Would be as loath to touch as Joseph was: which is to say that even inanimate aids to masturbation would shrink from contact with her – funny, perhaps, but nasty. Huygens does not seem to have had the streak of cruelty which Donne so obviously shows here and elsewhere in his satiric verse; he also shows not a trace of sexual sadism. His omission here was deliberate suppression: he notes in his translation, ‘omitto obsc[oenum] distichon’ (Huygens 1893a, p. 216): ‘I have omitted an obscene couplet’. This, incidentally, is also interesting with respect to the text of Donne’s poem: the couplet is omitted from all editions from 1633 to 1654, but this note of Huygens’ shows that it was definitely included in the early manuscript version he possessed.

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In his second set of translations, he selects no poems which give any voice to the sexually transgressive or sadistic side of Donne’s personality. His treatment of [‘Recusancy’] (Elegie ‘Oh, let mee not serve so’) virtually makes a different poem out of it, for a number of complex reasons which must be briefly presented, but which essentially spring from one of the points where literary translation breaks down: the untranslatable differences of cultural tradition. Donne’s concetto in this poem is to treat the failed relationship between himself and his mistress as an analogue to the relationship between the Christian and the Church. The Church of England, of which Donne was a minister as Dean of St Pauls, was of course a Protestant Church, and had been since the days of Henry viii. But in some significant ways, the Anglican tradition saw itself in the seventeenth century as an English Catholic church: independent of Rome, but with a continuous sacramental tradition going back to St Peter, and continuing to venerate the Eucharist and to acknowledge the special authority of the priesthood in broadly similar ways. Those of the English who clung to the Roman Church after the English Reformation (and who suffered considerable persecution from the authorities, both civil and religious) were known as Recusants. Donne himself was among their number in his early life, as was his brother, and his maternal family history was one of Catholic marginalization and, in the case of one collateral ancestor, St Thomas More, martyrdom. The idea of Recusancy, and of excommunication, therefore had vivid emotional and practical resonance for him: as an English Catholic, he was subject to heavy social and legal penalties. As the Anglican he became, he was, in the view of the Roman Church, subject to the ultimate penalties in the next, excommunication, and so by definition, damnation. The end of this poem gains its force from a very acute sense of being caught between Scylla and Charybdis, which only an Anglican ex-Catholic could experience and articulate in quite this way. All this is not likely to have meant quite so much to Huygens, the unwavering Calvinist, and child of a republic which had enshrined religious toleration as a fundamental practice from its inception. This is not to say that Huygens lived in Calvinist isolation: it is even possible that Huygens’ father was in his youth a Catholic (he studied at the Catholic University of Douai), and Protestantism was by no means assured of its safety while the war against Spain had not been won. Yet it is the argument and conclusion of Donne’s poem which are missing: lines 1-10 and 35-46. But there is another aspect of the first ten lines which Huygens may have had good reason for avoiding. The first ten lines of Donne’s poem are a conventionally satirical summary of a number of Renaissance commonplaces about the insecurity and moral bankruptcy

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of the courtier. Donne was a poet under the Stuarts, and thus in some ways unable to escape the fulsome, abjected tone in which English poetry had come to treat English monarchs. This convention, of course, bred its inevitable reaction in an automatic contempt for courts and courtiers amongst those who were outside the circle of favour. Whatever might be true of the corruption of absolute power in the Stuart court was not true of the court of the Stadhouder, where Huygens was, of course, that anomalous beast, a courtier in a republic. But this is not merely to say that Huygens, again, did not share the emotional presuppositions of Donne, or an English reader, at this point. He may also have been unwilling to suggest to a Dutch readership that this sort of behaviour necessarily resulted from having a court: the ways in which he balanced his own perceptions of his country would alone preclude such an interpretation. It is clear that this poem presented difficulties to Huygens on a number of different levels: it is therefore a testimony to the attractive power which Donne had for him that he should have tackled it at all. Once he had lopped off its opening and conclusion (the conclusion which equates apostasy from Rome with the satiated end of love), he was left with the development as a poem in itself; quite a peculiar one, with a sort of sexual ambiguity which is not characteristic of Huygens’ writing. It opens with a statement: you seemed to love me before I came to love you (ll. 11-14; Huygens’ ll. 1- 7). This is expanded with three similes: flowers fall into whirlpools, which seem to cherish them, then suck them down; candles attract flies, then burn them; the devil pays little further attention to the securely damned (ll. 15-20/7-12). There is some consistency here; the whirlpool, the lit candle (and presumably the devil) exert a steady attractive force which derives from their basic nature. The (male) victim – flower, fly or soul – is the one who appears to have an element of choice, though he uses it perversely in actively seeking his own destruction. The epic extended metaphor which occupies the remaining two-thirds of Huygens’ poem (ll. 21-34/13-28) points in a different direction. A stream flows, apparently smoothly, in its channel. Meanwhile, it is seductively working, with ‘gnawing kisses’ (‘brauwen kuss’) against the bank. If it is successful in seducing the bank from its duty of retention, it will break out violently into a new course. It is this which lies at the heart of the poem, and presumably accounts for Huygens’ interest in it: whirlpools, and fly- or moth-attracting candles are perhaps just a little over-familiar in the contemporary verse of all nations, but metaphors of streams, banks, and dike-breaking speak directly to a Dutch sensibility. Yet, foregrounded as it is by the absence of the actual argument of the poem, it speaks of an unexpected sexual passivity: the man is the channel,

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passively laid out while the active water runs through, or over it/him. The water, meanwhile, is constantly seeking an alternative, and batters one out through a combination of seduction and sheer physical force. The poet’s voice is in effect that of a ruined maid, complaining that her seducer has shaped her to his requirements, then cast her aside for another victim while ‘in flattering eddies promising retorne’ (ll. 32). In effect, Huygens’ partial translation of this poem has the effect of casting an unexpected light on a problematic aspect of Donne’s own persona as a poet. In concluding this necessarily brief survey, one further point deserves notice, itself a measure of the depth of Huygens’ involvement with Donne’s poems: although Huygens attempted no translations of Donne’s Holy Sonnets, the remarkable sequence of sonnets, the Heilighe Daghen (of which a selection appears here as nos. 18-23), which Huygens composed around the new year of 1645 are, in a sense, a reflection of Donne. Huygens’ sonnets, while they have an independent status as original works and reveal a less troubled relationship with his God, also represent an intense act of recreation and assimilation of Donne’s sonnets: they are Dutch poems which explore and extend those possibilities for poetry which came to Huygens’ notice through his long interreaction with Donne’s works. Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) It is not known for certain that Marvell and Huygens ever met. The evidence for contact between the two poets is all internal: a run of resemblances and echoes in their works, too sustained to be attributable to coincidence or to the influence of a third work. In particular, there are echoes of lines from Huygens’ Batava Tempe in Marvell’s The Garden and Upon Appleton House, and, more importantly, there is an elusive, but undeniable, sense of dialogue and connection between Hofwijk and Upon Appleton House. Only a preliminary investigation of this connection is offered here: before briefly looking at the texts of the poems themselves, it is necessary to recapitulate briefly the possibilities for contact between the two poets. Linguistically there appears to be no difficulty: Huygens’ English was demonstrably excellent and, further, Marvell appears to have known Dutch. There is evidence for this in a letter which John Milton wrote on 21 February 1653, recommending Marvell as assistant Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth: ‘he hath spent foure yeares abroad in Holland, ffrance, Italy, & Spaine, to very good purpose... & ye: gaineing of those 4 languages’ (Milton 1966, p. 859). Marvell would appear to have had further Dutch connections: in the summer of 1658 he was employed in the reception of the

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Dutch Ambassador. He was also in Holland in 1663, apparently on private business. Despite the gaps in Marvell’s biography, it seems reasonably certain that he visited the Netherlands in the mid 1640s, that is after Huygens had completed the initial layout of Hofwijk in 1642. The evidence is by no means complete: the precise details of Marvell’s travels in northern Europe would appear to be irrecoverable. It is, however, known that Marvell left Cambridge around 1641 and was back in England by, at the very latest, 1649: the ‘foure yeares’ referred to by Milton are perhaps most probably 1641-45, or 1642-46. This suggests that he did not fight in the English Civil War (which broke out in 1642), a suggestion which may be strengthened by a much later comment of his in The Rehearsal Transpros’d, of 1672: Whether it were a War of Religion, or of Liberty, is not worth the labour to enquire. Which-soever was at the top, the other was at the bottom; but upon considering all, I think the Cause was too good to have been fought for [our italics]. Men ought to have trusted God; they ought and might have trusted the King with the whole matter. This of course was written well into the Restoration, when many besides Marvell were concerned to redefine the Civil War as a fit of national insanity, and to underplay their own part in it. But it is important that Marvell in the 1640s is not easily claimed either as Parliamentarian or Royalist; until his return to England in the late 1640s his position is ambiguous, tending in all probability to support of the King. Huygens’ own connections and sympathies were unequivocally Royalist. Having been knighted by James i, he felt a personal loyalty to the Stuarts; he was deeply moved by the tragedy of Charles i; the Stuarts were intermarried with the House of Orange which he served so loyally when Charles i’s eldest daughter, Princess Mary, married William ii in 1641. After the death of Charles i, Huygens implies (in poem 32, ll. 1-6) that he sees even the English language itself as shamed and contaminated by the regicides: The English tongue once sounded sweetly From the man’s or woman’s tongue Now it strikes our ears with horror Like the snarling of a hound. Since those snarling animals Drank their fill of royal blood.

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If Marvell had fought in Cromwell’s army, it is unlikely that Huygens would have received him at all, far less (it may be conjectured) have given him a tour of Hofwijk. But Marvell’s own position in the forties, as revealed by his poetry, was not simple. Even such poems, written after his return to England, as the ‘Horatian Ode on Cromwell’s return from Ireland’ are far less straightforwardly Republican than they might at first appear. It is far from impossible that Marvell was moving in exiled Royalist circles during his mysterious wanderjahren: his publications up to 1649 include several poems to noted Royalists: an elegy ‘Upon the Death of Lord Hastings’, a poem to the quintessential Cavalier poet of the popular imagination, ‘His Noble Friend, Mr Richard Lovelace’, and perhaps ‘An Elegy upon the death of My Lord Francis Villiers’. There can be little doubt that on his return to England, Marvell’s position began to move towards the support for the English Revolution and for Presbyterian religion in which he remained fixed for the rest of his life. What is important here is that at the time when contact between Marvell and Huygens would have most probably taken place, their attitudes were far from incompatible. Traces in two of Marvell’s best-known poems would appear to demonstrate an acquaintance with both Batava Tempe and Hofwijk. There are difficulties of chronology, but they are not insuperable. The echo of Huygens’ lines on the shade of the lime-trees in the Voorhout of The Hague Is my seat in a green coolness Or sit I in a greenness cool? (Sit ick in een groene coelte,/Off een coele groenicheyt?] would seem strong in the celebrated ll. 47-48 of Marvell’s The Garden: Annihilating all that’s made To a green Thought in a green Shade. This resemblance is extended by the adjacent lines in both poems: Huygens, in ll. 435-40 of Batava Tempe, images the summer rain as a fountain in the lime-branches; in ll. 49-51 of The Garden Marvell writes of the fountain at the root of the trees and the gliding of the soul into their branches. (Another run of resemblance occurs at ll. 15-16 of The Garden: ‘Society is all but rude,/ To this delicious Solitude’ with its echo-phrase in Hofwijk, l. 145 ‘Een tamme wilderniss van woeste Schicklickheden’, literally ‘A tame wilderness of wild convenience’, but a third work as common influence is more likely in this case.) There is little difficulty in the transmission of text: Huygens

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completed Batava Tempe in the November of 1621, and it was published in 1622 at Middelburg. The sense of dialogue between Marvell’s Upon Appleton House and Huygens’ Hofwijk, however pervasive, poses a more serious problem of chronology. There is no doubt that Marvell was in the Netherlands in the mid 1640s and that Huygens was showing his newly planted estate to visitors at this time. However, if the conventional dating is accepted, and if the bulk of the composition of Upon Appleton House is correctly attributed to the years 1651-53 when Marvell was tutor in the Fairfax household at Appleton in Yorkshire, then there seem to be considerable problems in arguing a connection between two poems which were being composed virtually simultaneously: Hugens wrote the opening of Hofwijk in 1650 and did not complete it until the winter of 1651. It was first published, and presentation copies widely distributed, in 1653. Despite this, we would argue that there is some degree of connection between the two poems: in their tripartite structure of progression through house, garden, wood; in their nature as ambulatory poems, moralized walks round the estate; in their crucial use of Vitruvian ideas of the proportional congruence of the human body with the house (in the case of Marvell) or house and garden (in the case of Huygens). There are also a number of at least coincidences of diction and imagery. This is not as strange as it might at first sound. Firstly, Hofwijk is a physical working-out of an intellectual concept, not Hofwijk an intellectual explanation imposed on anything pre-existing. Secondly, the principle of the Art of Memory (which we know Huygens was familiar with) is one in which specific ideas are associated with, and consequently evoked by, specific places. Thus, it would hardly be surprising to find that Huygens, as he designed his garden with the collaboration of the painter and aesthetic theorist Jacob van Campen, had a specific association for every locus within it from a very early stage. This association of particular tropes and ideas with particular locations in the grounds of the house would not function as a random system of poetic metaphor (the way that we would tend to read On Appleton House) but as a sustained system, an external representation, or extension, of Huygens’ own mind. Thirdly, if the modern reader finds this highly intellectualized approach hard to accept or understand, it may be remembered that anyone who repeats guided tours of any kind rapidly develops an ‘act’: anecdotes, jokes and facts which are automatically produced as the next point of interest comes into view: after a very few tours, any guide begins to use something very like the same verbal formulas each time. Constantijn Huygens was certainly showing Hofwijk in this way by the mid 1640s: if, as we argue below, it is likely that Huygens himself showed

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Marvell round the estate, then many of the tropes and runs of idea which were written down by Huygens in 1650-51 would most likely have already assumed their fixed form as his set speech some years earlier. Patrician society in The Hague was a small world. There is nothing intrinsically unlikely in an English poet who spoke some Dutch obtaining an introduction to an Anglophone (and Anglophile) Dutch poet with an extensive international acquaintance, and many English friends, including distinguished poets of the previous generation and Royalist exiles of the 1640s. It is also possible that Marvell may have sought Huygens out precisely in order to see an innovative and important garden. Marvell’s interest in gardens has been clarified by the garden historian John Dixon Hunt, who points out that Marvell specifically mentions having visited two famous gardens near Madrid, at the Hapsburg palaces of Aranjuez and Buen Retiro (Hunt 1978, p. 32). We have no such direct information about his sojourn in Holland, but it is overwhelmingly likely that he would have visited what were some of the most visually and intellectually interesting gardens in the Europe of the 1640s. It is not impossible that Marvell would have sought out the more important Dutch garden designers; which would have brought him into direct contact with Jacob van Campen, designer of Hofwijk, and also of important gardens at Elswout (c. 1645) and Cleves (1650s). So far, then, our suggestion is that the two poets met in the 1640s and that Marvell’s memories of Huygens’ set speeches on the tour of Hofwijk remained in his memory sufficiently strongly to contribute to the design and form of Upon Appleton House. It is possible, of course, that some runs of images from Huygens’ conversation may have remained in his mind also: it is also possible that Marvell may have added through the 1650s and 60s to the poem which he began in Yorkshire in 1651-53, and that he may well have seen the published Hofwijk at any time after 1653. In order to make sense of this aspect of the connection between Huygens and Marvell, it is necessary to set out here some explanation of Huygens’ house and garden at Hofwijk. The garden was laid out as an elongated rectangle (125 x 410 m) which was intended to represent the symmetry and proportion of the Vitruvian human figure (most famously represented by Leonardo Da Vinci’s well-known drawing of a man simultaneously occupying a square and a circle). The garden was composed of trees, grass and water, rather than flowers, and was intersected and surrounded by canals. The villa, surrounded by a moat, represented the head. An orchard, flanked by avenues of trees, represented the chest and arms; a wooded area represented the legs. Simultaneously, the design of the garden symbolized the path of redemption, starting at the ‘feet’, in the woods, which symbolized

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the terrestrial world, working up through the perfected Earthly Paradise of the orchard area, to the contemplation of God in the villa itself. This highly intellectualized structuring of the physical environment is made explicit in the poem Hofwijk. The similarity to the structure which Marvell imposes on the pre-existing estate and house at Nun Appleton is immediately apparent. Marvell’s poem moves in contrary motion: from the house (on which it expends much questioning exposition of the Vitruvian principles which governed the layout of Hofwijk), to the garden and thence to the woods and the river. Both poems, inevitably, move through the cycle of the day from morning to night. In sharp contrast to many earlier ‘estate-poems’, Hofwijk and Upon Appleton House are united by viewpoint and perspective: both poems compose themselves partly as discursive, conversational walks around the estate, partly as ‘prospects’ of the estate seen from above. Thus, Marvell’s perspective moves from the ambulatory to, for example, the view of the meadows as if surveyed from high ground: similarly, Hofwijk is depicted both in a conversational tour and also (literally in the plate which accompanies all early editions of the poem) in bird’s-eye overview. This structural similarity would seem to be fundamental to both poems: there is, however, a more elusive, but undeniable, run of closer verbal parallels. These must be treated briefly, at this stage, and always while keeping in mind that the circumstances of the two poets are almost opposed: united though they may be in their use of Vitruvian and Edenic imagery, the circumstances under which they are writing could hardly provide a sharper contrast. Marvell is compelled to make continuous accommodations with history: he is writing about a pre-existing estate with strong associations in family and national history at a time when the governance of that nation is in flux and transition. Huygens, on the other hand, in a characteristically Dutch way, is writing on an estate laid out from scratch in accordance with a sophisticated intellectual programme, and is doing so within a society which has almost miraculously attained peace and stability out of (literal) flux and uncertainty. Despite these essential differences, it is remarkable how much matter and imagery are common to the two poets. In accord with the disjunctions outlined above, it is not surprising that the uses which the two poets make of the material in common to both poems is very different: what is remarkable is the core of congruence. Some examples come readily to mind: Marvell’s celebrated lines on the military parallels for the gardens at Nun Appleton are extended over six stanzas (36-41): there is imagery of garden walls as fortifications, of the bee as sentinel, of the flowers as soldiers. In Hofwijk (ll. 891-914) the white poplars which Huygens planted

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as a shelter-belt for his garden are also the subject of an extended military metaphor, developed in very similar ways to Marvell’s, expanding upon the place within the fortifications of the herbs and flowers, the ‘citizen’ apples and pears, protected by the ‘warrior’ poplars. Elsewhere there are equally sustained passages of parallel material: in Upon Appleton House (stanzas 67-69) the meadows are imaged as a green sea, into which humans can dive for flowers like pearl-divers. A similar run of imagery attends the description of the wood in Hofwijk (ll. 341- 79) where the image of the pearl-diver is used to expound metaphorically Huygens’ perception of the wood as a place for contemplation, for ‘diving, probing’ thoughts, but a few lines later, the imagery runs directly parallel with Marvell (l. 370), and the trees become a ‘green lake’, and Huygens and his interlocutor become the pearl-divers treading its bed. There are many other superficial resemblances between the poems: trees as architecture, the nightingale in the wood, the interpolation into the Edenic garden of the mowers in Yorkshire and the bargemen in South Holland, the imagery of the Eden and the orchard, the sense of quotidian reality stretching to accommodate the transcendent, which attends the evening walk of Maria Fairfax in Marvell’s poem and attends also Huygens’ evening contemplation of the skies from the forecourt of the house in Hofwijk. While it still remains, of course, possible that some now-obscured (perhaps Neo-Latin) original to which both Hofwijk and Upon Appleton House are indebted may yet emerge, for the moment investigation must rest with these parallel runs of imagery in the two poems, and on their undeniable similarities of structure and perspective. Ben Jonson (1572-1637) The evidence for connections between Jonson and Huygens has been explored in detail by Bachrach (1951). The first direct evidence for Huygens’ interest is that the first poem he ever translated from English (or indeed, from any modern language) was a short poem of Jonson’s, ‘On Giles and Jone’, about unhappy marriage (November 1619): Huygens’ version (perhaps connected with his own disappointment by ‘Doris’, for which see no. 1) is cruder, more explicit and harsher in tone. The next datable evidence is in Huygens’ commonplace-book for 1621 (KB MS xlviii, f. 312v), in which he quotes an exchange from Volpone (iv.1) between Sir Politique Would-be and Peregrine, which demonstrates that he knew the plays well. During his second visit to England, in 1621, Huygens mentions in a letter home that he had seen the masque News from the New World, presented by the

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Prince of Wales on Shrove Sunday of that year: he is also known to have seen The Augurs and Time Vindicated. Perhaps the most important piece of evidence for their acquaintance is that Huygens owned a manuscript of one of Jonson’s masques, The Gypsies Metamorphos’d (libri miscellanei in 4°, no. 153) which was performed in 1621, when Jonson was in high favour with James I, and just before Huygens’ visit to England, where he was moving very much in court circles. The most direct evidence for personal contact between the two poets is that four weeks after completing his encomiastic effusion on the University of Oxford, Academiae Oxoniensi perpetuum florere (which is to say, as soon as he was certain that its reception was favourable), he sent a copy to Jonson with a covering letter, given here. It is written in the most tortuous of Humanist Latin; which doubtless reflects the fact that Huygens was a young man of twenty-six, while Jonson was a famous poet of fifty. Bachrach has made the interesting suggestion that the copy of The Gypsies Metamorphos’d which Huygens owned might perhaps have been a gift in return for the Oxford poem. Ambeo amicitiam tuam, celeberrime Janssoni, et necessitudinem; ea res fecit cur non nescire te ineptias meas9 tua interesse putaverim, neque enim quantillus sim, latere unquam amicos aequum credidi, quorum ut parcâ de nobis opinione non offendimur, sic ampla praeter meritum non afficimur. Ubi fastidire quantum hic mei est coeperis et noris, quam sit mihi curta supellex, autori, rogo, remittendam cures, qui te valere jubet et se amare. Domi meae, 18° 8b (Octobris), 1622 (I seek to gain your friendship, most famous Jonson, and a bond with you; this is why I have thought that your being very familiar with my trifles is in your own interest, and as regards my smallness, I trust that anything just is never unknown to my friends by whose low opinion about us we are not offended, just as we are not affected by a high one, except when it is deserved. As soon as you have begun to loathe as much as is here from me [the poem] and realize how defective my small treasure is, please return it to its author, who bids you good health and wishes that you like him.) (Huygens 1911, no 190, pp. 130-31)

9

Constantijn Huygens’ Academiae Oxoniensi perpetuum florere, in Huygens 1892, p. 362.

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Huygens’ writing shows some possible influence from Jonson. His poem ’t Costelick Mal, written in March 1622 and owing much to a sermon by John Williams (Leerintveld 1991), is in the form of a long letter to Jacob Cats, and is cast in a somewhat Jonsonian mode of castigation of the vices of the time. The later Zedeprinten (originally published as ‘Characteres, Dat zijn Printen’), written after his third visit to England, is a study of types probably indebted to Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour. Huygens’ interest in Jonson, though not in any sense on a level with his interest in Donne, clearly continued beyond the early 1620s. He translated Jonson’s Epigram xxxiii on their common friend Sir John Roe in 1628 (Huygens 1893a, p. 190), and he subsequently bought the 1640 quarto edition of Jonson’s Epigrams (libri miscellanei in 4°, no. 187). The Duchess of Newcastle Huygens’ relations with Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1624-74), partake of the nature of a passing acquaintanceship between elite virtuosi, more than of any more lasting literary association. William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and his wife were in Continental exile throughout the Interregnum years in England, and were living in, for them, comparatively modest circumstances at Antwerp, when they encountered Huygens in 1657. The few letters which were exchanged during their first correspondence were on quasi-scientific subjects. The first letter quoted below is of some interest not only for the atmosphere of international politesse which it evokes, but also for Huygens’ expression, in the postscript, of his uncertainty about his use of English. I had the honour to heare so good solutions given by your Excellencie upon divers questions mooved in a whole afternoone, she was pleased to bestowe upon my unworthie conversation, that I am turning to schoole with all speed, humbly beseeching your Ex.cie may bee so bountifull towards my ignorance, as to instruct me about the natural reason of these wonderfull glasses, which, as I told you, Madam, will fly into powder, if one breakes but the least top of their tailes, whereas without that way they are hardly to be broken by any waight or strength.10 The King of France is as yet unresolved in the question, notwithstanding he hath beene curious to moove it to an assemblie of the best philosophers of Paris, the microcosme of 10 Prince Rupert’s drops or Dutch tears.

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his kingdome. Your Ex.cie hath no cause to apprehend the cracking blow of these little innoxious gunnes. If you did, Madam, a servant may hold them close in his fists, and yourselfe can break the little end of their taile without the least danger. But, as I was bold to tell your Ex.cie, I should bee loth to beleeve, any female feare should reigne amongst so much over-masculine wisdom as the world doth admire in her. I pray God to blesse your Ex.cie with a dayly increase of it, and your worthie selfe to graunt that amongst those admirers I may strive to deserve by way of my humble service the honour to be accounted... 12 Mart. 1657. I have made bold to joyne unto these a couple of poore epigrammes [since lost] I did meditate in my jorney hither, where your Ex.cies noble tales were my best entertainement. I hope, Madame, you will perceive the intention of them thoroug the mist of a language I do but harp and ghesse at. (Huygens 1916, no 5534, p. 284) The correspondence continued in a scientif ic exchange: the Duchess replied at length on 20 March (no 5535, pp. 284-86) still on the subject of the wonderful glasses. Huygens replied on 27 March (5537, pp. 286-87), and the Duchess again responds on 30 March (5538, p. 287), with no solution to the problem presented by the ingenious glasses being arrived at by either correspondent. After the Restoration, when the Duke and Duchess had returned to England, she clearly presented Huygens with her complete oeuvre to date, and he replied in prose and in English with an appropriate letter of thanks: This is my second journey from the court of France into this within the space of but one yeare; I may better call it my second misfortune, seeing my occupations here will not give we [sic: me?] leasure to goe and tender my humble respects unto your Ex.ce, which mortification lyeth so much heavyer upon me, Madam, because from beyond sea I am informed of your most undeserved goodness toward me, and that our good frends at Antwerp11 have enriched my library in my absence by ordre of your Ex.ce with a new plentifull store of your marvellous productions. I hope, Madam, you will not stand upon a rigorous accompt with a man whom necessitie maketh uncivill. Being now almost dispatched by his Ma.ty I am instantly tossed over again to the King of France, about whom having spent the 11 The family of Gaspar Duarte, a Sephardi, also connected with Hooft’s circle of friends.

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time of above two year already and being almost grown a stranger to my own country, I dare assure your Ex.e that besides this reason the fine things I am to find at home by your favour will spurr my diligence in such a manner that, as we say in a Dutch proverb, the court of France shall see me make short miles with her, and your Ex.e, I hope, receave in brief my more particular acknowledgment for the noble benefit she hath been pleased to bestow upon me.... London, 2/12 of Aug. 1664. Wilt gij den markies van Newcastle van mij groeten? (will you greet the Marquis of Newcastle from me?) (Huygens 1917, no 6322, pp. 88-89) Thereafter, Huygens was fleetingly involved in the Duchess’s presentation of four of her works to the Library of the University of Leiden (she had already presented them to Oxford and Cambridge). Leiden accepted the donation, which came with a specially printed index to the poems (Leiden University Library, 1407 C 20). The last glimpse which we have of Huygens’ relations with her are in an abstract of a note from Huygens to Leiden, in which he urges the University to express their thanks in an appropriate manner.



Appendix IV Additional Poems on Painting

1 Antwoord

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Zijnder kladders komen loopen Die mij sulcken Schilderij Van u sochten te verkoopen, VanderBurgh, ick zeide’r bij, ’Tis van Mierevelds pinceel niet, Noch van Ravesteins palett, Maer een Copiïst die scheel siet Heeft hem, slinx, soo af gesett. ’K ken de tronie van sijn Ziel wel: Staetse nu en dan wat loss; Geen goed rijder, hij en viel wel En betaelde ’t met een blos. Maer die vlamme van sijn wesen Nam noyt meester voorden mann, ’Tmoet de grond van ’tschepsel wesen Daermen staet op maken kan. Soo verdedigh ick de schaduw Daerm’ uw’ deughden in verwerrt; Sorght voort selver wat; het gaet u Aen de Ziel, als mij aen ’thert. Wat de Deughd is, en haer’ looning Waer’ u nu te laet geleert, All van uyt de Leidsche Wooning Quaemt ghij met die less vereert. Maer uyt dese Schilderijkens Komt u een vermaen te baet: ’Ksegg daer is niet veel gelijckens Tuschen uw en haer gelaet; Soo ghij u en mij oyt minden, Doet soo veel voor beide nu, Laet ons geen gelijcken vinden Tuschen haer gelaet en t’uw.

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1 Answer

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When painters lately came to me, Offering some work for sale, They passed as representing you, Van der Burgh, I said to them, This is not van Miereveld’s brushwork, Nor van Ravesteijn’s palette, But some copyist has, squinting, Tried to make this counterfeit. His soul’s countenance I know well Though she stands a little dazed, A poor rider here would fail her And pay for it with a blush. But the essence of his being Ne’er confounds master with man, Knowing the essential creature, The true being which we can trust. Thus do I defend the shadow With which your virtues are confused; Nurture it, because it touches Your soul, as it does my heart. Virtue’s nature and its prizes, Now too late would have been known, You already learned that lesson, When you left your Leiden home. But these things, your feigned paintings, Admonition offer you: Happily her face bears little Likeness to your inner soul. If you love yourself and love me, Do this much for me and you: Let us find no trace of likeness Here between the false and true.

1 MS dated The Hague, 14 February 1628 (Huygens 1893a, p. 192). Huygens is offering consolation to his friend Jacob van der Burgh (1599-1659), who feared that he had been slandered. 9 The poem pivots on the double meaning of ‘tronie’ (later on referred to as ‘she’): both countenance and portrait or ‘character head’ in the painting of the time.

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Aenden Leser [Inleiding sneldichten ‘Uyt Engelsch OnDicht] Nu is uw’ maegh verzeet, nu walght ghij van myn’ spijsen; Ick moet u, Leser-lief, den eet-lust op doen rijsen Met een scherp achterna, dat tot den neus verheught, En op de tonghe bijtt: ’Tis een’ geleende vreughd Daer ick u op onthael; maer leengoed is oock goed goed, En, die ’twel eighent, doet als de natuer in ’t bloed doet; Wij eten, en sij maeckt ons eten vleesch en Been: Soo hangen wij van Kruijt en Beesten-vleesch aen een. Maer hier is menschen-vleesch, dat’s beter als van beesten: ’Kverspreeck mij, dit’s een leen van edel’ menschen geesten. Van menschen die wel eer der Engelen getal Vervulden op der aerd, sints, met een’ vuijlen vall Ten Hemel uijtgestort, ijet menschelycks van buijten, Yet Engelsachtigh zijn, maer, als ’t mijn’ penn’ dorst uijten, Van binnen ijet dat rijmt op Uyten: waerop noch? Op Suivels ander vell: op moord en op bedrogh, Op all dat grouwel hiet. Die menschen (noch eens dool ick) Dier menschen vaderen, voor desen wijs en vrolick, Zyn dichters van de Stoff, die met mijn doove dicht Verbetert of verslecht, verdonckert of verlicht, Op ’tHollandsche Tooneel verschijnen. Laet het heeten, Dat sy verdonckert zijn: noch is mij danck te weten Dat ick mijn’ schaduwen haer’ luyster hebb geleent. Soo maeckt de SchilderConst tot spieren en gebeent Haer’ platte verwerij. en, als ’t all witt alleen waer, ’Twaer onuytscheidelick of ’t hier spier en daer been waer; ’Tswart geeft het witt syn lyf, de doncker maeckt het klaer. En wat waer Maneschijn, wanneer ’tgeen nacht en waer? Of, dunckt u ’tHollandsch swart het Engelsch witt te decken, Noch komt u ’tswart te baet. ’Khebb lamper-doeck sien trecken Voor ooghen die ’tgeweld van somer-sonne-schijn Niet uijt en konden staen. Laet mij dan, ’tLampers zijn, Noch blyf ick aen den danck, die ’ck voor de moeyt’ van ’t dichten Ten minsten hebb verdient: verdonck’ren is verlichten, Daer ’toogh bij werdt verlicht, en met gemack door siet. Misgunt men mij die eer, noch een onnoosel yet Onschuldight mijn bestaen: Ten minsten sult ghij seggen, Is dese spijs soo goed, soo quaed om te verleggen,

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Soo qualick opgerecht, hoe lecker inde keel, Hoe sapigh souse zijn in ’tsauceloos geheel! Als ’t all geseght will zijn ’tsou Engelsch Ondicht wesen, Hadd ick het niet gedicht: En wie derft Engelsch lesen? Wie schrickt niet voor dien druck, wat schrijvens’ in ’t gemoed Vermoorde Coninghen, als letteren van Bloed? To the Reader [Introduction to epigrams ‘From English Prose’] Reader, you’re sated, weary of my fare, I need to rouse your appetite again, With something sharp to follow, smelling fine, And piquant on the tongue. It’s borrowed fare I offer you, but borrowed work words well. Who borrows well does just what nature does: We eat, she turns our food to flesh and bone, We hang together so with greens and meat. But here is men’s meat, better far than beasts’— I borrow this from minds of noble men, Of men who once were justly seen as angels, Angels on earth, but with their fatal fall Cast down, are maybe human to the view, Still angel-English, but if I dare to say it, Inside a thing which calls for darker rhyme: Evil and devil, murder and deceit, All vile things now. These men who now are beasts Had ancestors—those wise and happy men Wrote first the poetry which, with my dull verse— Bettered or worsened, rendered dark or light— Appears on the Dutch stage. Well, let us say, They have been darkened, I am glad to know That I have brought their lustre to my shadows. Thus, shadowing, the art of painting feigns Muscle and bones on its flat board. But if All were bright white, the body feigned would vanish, The black gives white its body, dark shows light. How can we see the moonlight but at night? Perhaps the Dutch black covers English white, Well shadow’s good. A shadowy veil being drawn Shelters the eyes that cannot bear high summer.

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I’ll be the veil – I claim those thanks I’m due For rendering in rhyme. My shades cast light That light of understanding which can clear The eyesight so it sees the picture truly. If you begrudge me that, there’s one thing more In my excuse: at least you have to say ‘This food is good served thus’, albeit served In poor and borrowed fare, how rich might it be, How savoury, in its untranslated state. To which I answer it would be but prose Had I not rhymed it, who reads English now? We shun their print, we know what’s in their hearts: King-murdering bastards only write in blood.

2 MS dated 18 January 1650 (Huygens 1894, p. 206). This is one of several poems reflecting the ambiguity, after the execution of Charles i, of Huygens’ feelings towards the English and towards his own earlier (and current) translations from that tongue. 3

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Op De Print van Ant. Leewenhoek Daer leeft een aerdigh Man, een vaerdigh man, en gauw, Die wisse wondren teelt, en heeft natur’ in ’tnauw, Doorkruijpt all haer geheim, en opent all’ haer’ sloten: Syn’ Glase Sleuteltjens en isser geen ontsloten, Noch kan ontschieten. Dit’s die dappre man niet, maer Siet scherp toe, die hem soeckt, ’tgelyckt hem op een haer. On the Print of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek There lives a worthy man, a man of subtle skill, Who works true wonders, who can capture nature, Creeps through her secrets, forces all her locks: Not one of them resists his keys of glass. None can escape them. This is not that man – But this print is his likeness to a hair.

3 MS dated 29 January 1686 (Huygens 1898, p. 348). 4 The secrets of nature unlocked by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s ‘keys of glass’ would be published by the Royal Society from 1693.

Bibliography A.J. van der Aa, 1852, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, Haarlem A.G.H. Bachrach, 1951, ‘Sir Constantyn Huygens and Ben Jonson’, Neophilologus 35, pp. 120-29 ―, 1962, Sir Constantine Huygens and Britain, 1596-1619, Leiden & London ―, 1976, ‘Constantijn Huygens’ Acquaintance with Donne: A Note on Evidence and Conjecture’, in J.P. Gumbert & M.J.M. de Haan (ed.), Essays Presented to G.I. Lieftinck, vol. iii, Neerlandica Manuscripta, Amsterdam, pp. 111-117 ―, 1987, ‘Engeland en Huygens in zijn levensavond’, in Veelzijdigheid als levensvorm: Facetten van Constantijn Huygens’ leven en werk: Een bundel studies ter gelegenheid van zijn driehonderdste sterfdag, eds A. Th. van Deursen, E.K. Grootes and P.E.L. Verkuyl, Deventer pp. 65-78 ―, ed., 1973, Constantijn Huygens: Zijn plaats in geleerd Europa, Amsterdam Catalogus variorum et insignium in omni facultate et lingua librorum bibliothecae nobilissimi amplissimique viri Constantini Hugenii, Abraham Troyel, Den Haag, 1688; repr. facs. Den Haag, 1903 Frans Blom, 1999, Domus: Het huis van Constantijn Huygens in Den Haag, Zutphen Inge Broekman, 2005, De rol van schilderkunst in het leven van Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), Hilversum ―, 2010, Constantijn Huygens, de kunst en het hof, Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam (http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/328951) Rosalie Colie, 1956, “Some thankfulness to Constantine”: a study of English influence upon the early works of Constantijn Huygens, The Hague B.C. Damsteegt, 1987, ‘Huygens over Strafford en Vondel: Een stilistische controverse in 1644’, in Veelzijdigheid als levensvorm: Facetten van Constantijn Huygens’ leven en werk: Een bundel studies ter gelegenheid van zijn driehonderdste sterfdag, eds A.Th. van Deursen, E.K. Grootes and P.E.L. Verkuyl, Deventer, pp. 237-50 John Donne, 1965, The Elegies and Songs and Sonnets, ed. Helen Gardner, Oxford ―, 1978, The Divine Poems, ed. Helen Gardner, Oxford A. van Elslander and W. Schrikx, 1952, ‘De Engelstalige werken in den catalogus van C. Huygens’, Tijdschrift voor levende talen, 18, pp. 35-43 and 179-201 Pieter Geyl, 1961, The Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century: 1609-1648, London A.R.E. de Heer, 1988, ‘Het tekenonderwijs van Constantijn Huygens en zijn kinderen’, in Leven en leren op Hofwijck, ed. Victor Freijser, Delft, pp. 43-63 Julius S. Held, 1991, ‘Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle: A Hitherto Unknown Portrait’, The Art Bulletin, 73 (4), December 1991, p. 653-68 H.A. Hofman, 1983, Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687): Een christelijk-humanistisch bourgeoisgentilhomme in dienst van het Oranjehuis, Utrecht J.H. Huizinga, 1968, Dutch Civilisation in the Seventeenth Century and Other Essays, London John Dixon Hunt, 1978, Andrew Marvell: His Life and Writings, London Constantijn Huygens, 1882, Correspondance et oeuvre musicales de Constantin Huygens, ed. W.J.A. Jonckbloet and J.P.N. Land, Musique et musiciens au xviiie siècle, Leiden ―, 1884, Dagboek van Constantijn Huygens: Voor de eerste maal naar het afschrift van diens kleinzoon uitgegeven, ed. J.H.W. Unger, Amsterdam ―, 1892 (vol. I), 1893a (vol. ii), 1893b (vol. iii), 1894 (vol. iv), 1895 (vol. v), 1896 (vol. vi), 1897 (vol. vii), 1898 (vol. viii), 1899 (vol. ix), De Gedichten van Constantijn Huygens: Naar zijn handschrift uitgegeven, ed. J.A. Worp, Groningen

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―, 1911 (vol. r), 1913 (vol. ii), 1914 (vol. iii), 1915 (vol. iv), 1916 (vol. v), 1917 (vol. vi), De Briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, ed. J.A. Worp, Den Haag ―, 1957, Pathodia sacra et profana, ed. Frits Noske, Amsterdam & Basel; 2nd edn 1976 ―, 1964, Constantine Huygens, Use and Non-Use of the Organ in the Churches of the United Netherlands, ed. Ericka Smit-Vanrotte, Musical Theorists in Translation iv, New York ―, 1968, Avondmaalsgedichten en Heilige Dagen, ed. F.L. Zwaan, Zwolle ―, 1973, Dagh-werck, ed. F.L. Zwaan, Assen ―, 1974, Heilighe Daghen [1645], ed. L. Strengholt, Amsterdam ―, 1976, Tien gedichten, ed. F.L. Zwaan, Assen & Amsterdam ―, 1977, Hofwyck, ed. F.L. Zwaan, Jerusalem ―, 1979, Voet-maet, Rijm en Reden, ed. F.L. Zwaan, 4th edn, Den Haag ―, 1987, Mijn Jeugd, ed. and tra. C.L. Heesakkers, Amsterdam (translation of the Latin Autobiography, published in Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, Den Haag, 1897, xviii) ―, 2008, Hofwijck: Historisch-kritische uitgave met commentaar, ed. Ton van Strien, two vols, Amsterdam Jonathan Israel, 1995, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477-1806, Oxford Geoffrey Jellicoe et al., 1986, The Oxford Companion to Gardens, Oxford & New York Christopher Joby, 2014, The Multilingualism of Constantijn Huygens, Amsterdam Thea van Kempen-Stijgers and Peter Rietbergen, 1973, ‘Constantijn Huygens en Engeland’, in Constantijn Huygens: Zijn plaats in geleerd Europa, ed. Hans Bots, Amsterdam, pp. 77-141 Adrianus Leerintveld, 1997, Leven in mijn dicht. Historisch-kritische uitgave van Constantijn Huygens’ Nederlandse gedichten (1614-1625) (dissertation Universiteit Utrecht) ―, 1991, ‘Een preek en een satire: Huygens en Williams’, in Accidentia: Taal- en letterkundige oefeningen voor Jan Knol, eds Jan Noordegraaf and Roel Zemel, Amsterdam, pp. 199-206 A. MacColl, 1972, ’The Circulation of Donne’s Poems in Manuscript’, in John Donne: Essays in Celebration, ed. A.J. Smith, London, pp. 28-46 John Milton, 1966, Complete Prose Works, vol. iv, New Haven & London Frits Noske, 1992, ‘Two Unpaired Hands Holding a Music Sheet: A Recently Discovered Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and Susanna van Baerle’, Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 42 (2), p. 131-40 Geoffrey Parker, 1977, The Dutch Revolt, London Leon Roth, ed., 1926, Correspondence of Descartes and Constantijn Huygens, 1635-1647: Ed. from Manuscripts now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Formerly in the Possession of the Late Harry Wilmot Buxton, F.R.A.S., Oxford Simon Schama, 1987, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, London M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen, 1991, Dutch Literature in the Age of Rembrandt, Amsterdam & Philadelphia Paul R. Sellin, 1982, ‘John Donne and the Huygens Family, 1619-1621: Some Implications for Dutch Literature’, Dutch Quarterly Review, xii, pp. 192-204 Jacob Smit, 1980, Het leven van Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687): De grootmeester van woord- en snarenspel, Den Haag Nanne Frederik Streekstra, 1994, Afbeeldingsrelaties: Een taal- en letterkundig essay over Huygens’ Donne-vertalingen, Diss. Groningen L. Strengholt, 1986, ‘Een onbekende druk van Huygens’ oudste vertalingen naar Donne’, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse taal en letterkunde 102, 187-206 ―, 1987, Constanter: Het leven van Constantijn Huygens, Amsterdam

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―, 1989, ‘Constantijn Huygens’ Translation of John Donne’s “A Valediction, Forbidding Mourning”’, In Other Words: Transcultural Studies in Philology, Translation, and Lexicology Presented to Hans Heinrich Meier on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, Dordrecht & Providence A. van Strien, 1993, ‘17 Augustus 1630: Huygens stuurt Hooft twee vertalingen uit de gedichten van John Donne: Constantijn Huygens, de virtuoos’, in Nederlandse literatuur: Een geschiedenis, ed. M.A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen et al., Leiden, pp. 218-24 Veelzijdigheid als levensvorm: Facetten van Constantijn Huygens’ leven en werk, 1987, eds A.Th van Deursen, E.K. Grootes, P.E.L. Verkuyl, Deventer J.A. Worp, 1918, ‘Het leven van Constantijn Huygens’, in Die Haghe Jaarboek 1917/18, ed. H.E van Gelder, Den Haag, pp. 1-131 Frances A. Yates, 1966, The Art of Memory, London



Index of Titles and First Lines

A. Dutch, Latin, French, German, Italian and Spanish First lines are in italic, titles in roman. Ad Barlaeum 114 Ad Stellam, uxorem charissimam defunctam 124 Aen Anna R.[oemers] 60 Aende blancke Britter stranden 90 Aenden Leser [Inleiding sneldichten ‘Uyt Engelsch OnDicht] 279 Aen Joff.w Luchtenburgh, met myn vertaelde dicht uyt het Engelsch van Donne 212 Aen Joff.w Tesselschade Crombalch met mijne vertalingen uyt het Engelsche dichten van Dr. Donne 110 Aen Tesselschade 164 Aen Tesselschade, vertreckende 168 Alessandro in cavallo corrente 246 All is de herbergh voll, all light Gods Soon in ’thoij 160 Als ick een Glas besie met steenen-stift beschreven 228 Als ’top een sterven gaet, sietm’ het Gesicht eerst breken 232 Antwoord 277 Ardua Naturae Matri cum Patre Seghero 166 Batava Tempe. Dat is ’t Voor-hout van ’s Gravenhage 62 Conclusus niveis in amatae languidis ulnis 146 Confundunt elementa vices, natura noverca 281 Daer leeft een aerdigh Man, een vaerdigh man, en gauw 281 Daghwerck. Huys-raed 126 D’eerste steen vanden doel in ’s Gravenhaghe geleght by Prins Willem van Orange, ’s daeghs voor biddagh 2.en Decemb. 1636 122 De groener vrucht als rijp, de rijper vrucht als wrang 116 De groote webb is af; en ’tHof genoegh beschreven 176 De Lucht is uijt gebuijt: Hem laet ons eewigh loven 238 Den Engel is voorbij: de grouwelicke Nacht 162 De uijtlandighe herder. Aenden Heere Daniel Heins, Ridder etc. 90 De vijver 150 De wel geboren hand, die God sal leeren stryden 122 Dit is mijn Hondjes Graf 240 Doris oft herder-clachte 46 Droomen ydelheit 226

Een gesant 102 Eens was het Engelsch soet om horen 212 [Epigram] Ich habe frewd noch lust 247 [Epigram] No conviene quexarse 246 [Epigram] Non trovo in spirito, non trovo in came 246 Gebed over des Heeren Avondmael 148 Ghij maeckte Water Wijn: dat’s klaer als wijn of water 148 Già ti chiesi un sospir, ma me ne pento 247 Gods werck, dat ick begaen, besien, besitten kan 218 Goede Vrijdagh 156 Het kleed most wit en klaer, jae spier en sneewwit zijn 174 Hier light hij Marmerloos die soo veel Marmers sleet 224 Hij is een eerlick Spie; een buytens-baet-besorgher 102 Hij meent geen’ Koren-bloem die Tarw saeyt; verr van daer 220 Hoe goed is God! hier ben ick noch 206 Hofwijck 176 Ick will, Heer, dat ghij wilt, en hebb het lang gedaen 172 In Alb. Dureri picturam chalcographicam 170 In praestantissimi pictoris Dan. Segheri Rosas 166 Is ’tweer dijn hooghe Feest, en ick weer van de gasten 152 J’aij veu le point du jour, il a paru sur l’onde 244 Kersmis 160 La viole de gambe en desordre 245 Le reveil de Calliste. Aubade. Air dans ma Pathologie 244 Luna alba 118 Madrigale 247 Mijn’ Tong en was noijt veil, mijn’ Penne noijt verkocht 164 Mil merecen al[a]banças 245 Mouring, die de vrije schepen 104 Myn Geckies grafschrift 240 Myn ongeluck doet my myn ongelyck verstaen 60

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Nebula descendens 120 Niewe Jaer 154 No conviene quexarse 246 Noch eens September, en noch eens die vierde dagh 230 Noch op des Heeren Avondmael 174 Noch schilderij 218 Non trovo in spirito, non trovo in carne 246 Nu is uw’ maegh verzeet, nu walght ghij van myn’ spijsen 279

Qui nostram, pueri, Tiliae spectatis ab umbra 150

Ontwaeck 206 Oogentroost aende Vrouw van St. Anneland 232 Op de dood van Tesselschades oudste dochter, ende van haer man strax daeraen doodt gebloedt 116 Op de Print van Ant. Leewenhoek 281 Op de Titelprint 220 Op een gesneden roemer 228 Op het graf vanden Heer Jacob van Campen 224 Op mijnen geboort-dagh 230 Over des Heeren Avondmael 236

Te, maxime Donni 258 Thesaurum, Spectator, habes, quem dicere fas est 170 ’Tis uijt. de leste Sonn gingh gisteren in Zee 154 Tot dijner heughenis hebt gh’ons dit voorgeschreven 236 ’TSonnen radt beghint te stooten 62 ’t Tweede Jaer is om geloopen 46 ’T vertaelde scheelt soo veel van ’t onvertaelde dicht 110

Paeschen 162 Pallida luna pluit, rubicunda flat; alba quid? omnes 118 Pas hebt ghij hier geweest, en dreight weer te vertrecken 168 Pinxteren 158 Provocat audaci superos certamine Titan 120

Scheeps-praet, ten overlyden van Prins Mauritz 104 Se così sempre cavalcava 246 ’s Heeren Avondmael 152 Soo overdadigh is des Heeren milde hand 158 Sterre, die mij inde sterren 126 Stilte en sneew op storm en hoogen vloed 238

Val[g]a me Dios 245 Vix possint nostros multae, Barlaee, liturae 114 Voor ’s Heeren Avondmael 172 Vostre Instrument, Duchesse, est fort dans mon estime 245 Wat lett de Middagh-sonn? hoe lust haer niet te blincken 156 Wie weet wat droomen is? ick weet het; en wie niet 226 Zijnder kladders komen loopen 277

B. English First lines are in italic, titles in roman. Again on Painting 218 Again on the Holy Communion 175 Alexander on a Galloping Horse 246 Answer 278 As all approach their deaths, the eyesight falters first 233 As my misfortune makes my trespass clear 61 Awakening 207 Batava Tempe: That Is the Lime-avenue of The Hague 63 Brave Henrie Wottons Neece, perfect modell of Grace 249 Callisto Awakening, an Aubade to Music from my Pathodia 244 Christmas 161 Clean must the garment be, white as white meat or snow 175

Consolation of the Eyes, to the Lady of St Annaland 233 Doris, or the Shepherd’s Complaint 47 Easter 162 [Epigram] Ich habe frewd noch lust 247-48 [Epigram] No conviene quexarse 246 [Epigram] Non trovo in spirito, non trovo in came 246 [Epigram] Who ever heard a thing so strange? 250 For your remembrance you once did this act prescribe 237 God Save Me 145 God’s handiwork, which I can visit, own and see 219 Good Friday 157

289

Index of Titles and First Lines

He is a noble spy; who takes pains without fee 103 He who sows corn hopes not for cornflowers too 221 Hofwijk 177 Hollands lasonides looketh, conquerour, as heere 249 How good is God! Here I am still 207 How lavish is the gentle hand of God 159 If I should see a glass with diamond-point engraving 229 If the moon is grey, rain comes 119 In Her Snow-cold Arms 147 In her snow-cold arms, half-asleep, half-awake he was lying 147 Is this again your feast, and I a guest 153 It’s past. The sun passed seawards with the year 155 Madrigal 247 Many changes, Barlaeus, can scarcely alter 115 Maurits who for forty years has 105 My boys, regarding our shadows from under the shade of the lime tree 151 My Puppy’s Epitaph 241 My tongue was never hired, nor my pen e’er sold 165 My will, Lord, is your will, and this has long been so 173 New Year 155 No marble marks his grave, who often worked that stone 225 On an Engraved Glass 229 Once more September comes, and the fourth day 231 On My Birthday 231 On the chalk-white strand of Britain 91 On the Death of Tesselschade’s Eldest Daughter, and on Her Husband Thereafter Bleeding to Death 177 On the Frontispiece of Korenbloemen 221 On the Grave of Jacob van Campen 225 On the Holy Communion 173, 237 [On the Portrait of Piet Hein] 249 On the Print of Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek 281 On the Roses of the Most Eminent Painter, Daniel Seegers 167 [On William Welwood] 249 Pentecost 159 Prayer for the Holy Communion 149

Reader, you’re sated, weary of my fare 280 Ship’s Talk, on the Death of Prince Maurits 105 Stella, starless, I examine 127 Stillness and Snow after Storm and High Water 239 The angel has passed by: the fearful night 163 The Character of an Ambassador 103 The Chariot of the Sun begins 63 The Day’s Work: The Order of the House 127 The English tongue once sounded sweetly 213 The Exiled Shepherd: To the Lord Daniel Heinsius, Knight etc. 91 The first great web is woven, the court described enough 177 The First Stone of the Marksmen’s School in The Hague, Laid by Prince William of Orange, on the Day of Public Prayer, 2 December 1636 123 The fruit more green than ripe, more ripe than sour 117 The Lake 151 The Holy Communion 153 The Mist Descending 121 The Neglected Viola da Gamba 245 There lives a worthy man, a man of subtle skill 281 The second year is past and over 47 The sky is clear of rain: let us praise Him ever 239 The Titan sun calls forth the gods to battle 121 The Vanity of Dreams 227 The well-born Hand, whose prowess God will foster 123 The white moon 119 This is my puppy’s grave 241 Though the inn is full, though God’s Son lies in hay 161 To Albert Dürer on His Engraved Picture 171 To Anna R.[oemers] 61 To Barlaeus 115 To Dr Wren [Sir Christopher; letter] 254 To Lady Stafford [letter] 251 To Lady Swann [letter] 252 To Stella, My Dearest Wife, Now Dead 125 To Tesselschade 165 To Tesselschade, Departing 169 To the Lady Luchtenburgh with My Poems Translated from the English of Donne 213 To the Lady Tesselschade Crombalch with My Translations from the English Poems of Dr Donne 111 To the Most Honourable Ladij Stanhope. With My Holy Dayes 249 To the Reader [Introduction to epigrams ‘From English Prose’] 280 Translation falls as short of untranslated verse 111

290 

A SELEC TION OF THE POEMS OF SIR CONSTANTIJN HUYGENS

Well wood I Welwood lived and saw himself undone 249 What clouds the midday sun? Too weak to shine 157 When Mother Nature contested with Father Seegers 167 When painters lately came to me 278 Who ever heard a thing so strange? 250

Who knows what dreaming is? I know it; who does not 227 With elements disordered, fostering nature 125 You hardly have arrived, but now you say you’ll leave 169 You have a treasure, gazer, and a golden one 171 You made the water wine: a miracle 149



Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age

Christopher D.M. Atkins The Signature Style of Frans Hals. Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity, 2012 isbn 978 90 8964 335 3 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 459 5 Jan W.J. Burgers The Lute in the Dutch Golden Age. Musical Culture in the Netherlands ca. 1580-1670, 2013 isbn 978 90 8964 552 4 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 939 2 Peter de Cauwer Tranen van bloed. Het beleg van ’s-Hertogenbosch en de oorlog in de Nederlanden, 1629, 2008 isbn 978 90 8964 016 1 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4850 229 5 Femke Deen Publiek debat en propaganda in Amsterdam tijdens de Nederlandse Opstand. Amsterdam ‘Moorddam’ 1566-1578, 2014 isbn 978 90 8964 705 4 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4852 417 4 Margriet van Eikema Hommes Art and Allegiance in the Dutch Golden Age, 2012 isbn 978 90 8964 326 1 Liesbeth Geevers Gevallen vazallen. De integratie van Oranje, Egmont en Horn in de SpaansHabsburgse monarchie (1559-1567), 2008 isbn 978 90 8964 069 7 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4852 076 3 Roeland Harms Pamfletten en publieke opinie. Massamedia in de zeventiende eeuw, 2011 isbn 978 90 8964 368 1 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 514 1

Jonathan Israel, Stuart Schwartz, Inleiding Michiel van Groesen The Expansion of Tolerance. Religion in Dutch Brazil (1624-1654), 2007 isbn 978 90 5356 902 3 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4850 155 7 Christopher Joby The Multilingualism of Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), 2014 isbn 978 90 8964 703 0 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4852 409 9 Thomas DaCosta Kaufman and Michael North (eds.) Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, 2014 isbn 978 90 8964 569 2 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 986 6 Robert Parthesius Dutch Ships in Tropical Waters. The Development of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) Shipping Network in Asia 1595-1660, 2010 isbn 978 90 5356 517 9 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4850 123 6 Jürgen Pieters Historische letterkunde vandaag en morgen, 2011 isbn 978 90 8964 296 7 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 392 5 Benjamin B. Roberts Sex and Drugs before Rock ’n’ Roll. Youth Culture and Masculinity during Holland’s Golden Age, 2012 isbn 978 90 8964 402 2 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 570 7 Jochai Rosen Soldiers at Leisure. The Guardroom Scene in Dutch Genre Painting of the Golden Age, 2010 isbn 978 90 8964 204 2 Eric Jan Sluijter Rembrandt and the Female Nude, 2006 isbn 978 90 5356 837 8 Violet Soen Vredehandel. Adellijke en Habsburgse verzoeningspogingen tijdens de Nederlandse Opstand (1564-1581), 2012 isbn 978 90 8964 377 3 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 524 0

Monica Stensland Habsburg Communication in the Dutch Revolt, 2012 isbn 978 90 8964 413 8 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 377 2 Erik Swart Krijgsvolk. Militaire professionalisering en het ontstaan van het Staatse leger, 1568-1590, 2006 isbn 978 90 5356 876 7 Anna Tummers The Eye of the Connoisseur. Authenticating Paintings by Rembrandt and His Contemporaries, 2011 isbn 978 90 8964 321 6 Anna Tummers, Koenraad Jonckheere (eds.) Art Market and Connoisseurship. A Closer Look at Paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and Their Contemporaries, 2008 isbn 978 90 8964 032 1 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4852 067 1 Natascha Veldhorst Zingend door het leven. Het Nederlandse liedboek in de Gouden Eeuw, 2009 isbn 978 90 8964 146 5 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 078 8 Griet Vermeesch Oorlog, steden en staatsvorming. De grenssteden Gorinchem en Doesburg tijdens de geboorte-eeuw van de Republiek (1570-1680), 2006 isbn 978 90 5356 882 8 Thijs Weststeijn Margaret Cavendish in de Nederlanden. Filosofie en schilderkunst in de Gouden Eeuw, 2008 isbn 978 90 8964 029 1 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4850 236 3 Thijs Weststeijn The Visible World. Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Art Theory and the Legitimation of Painting in the Dutch Golden Age, 2008 isbn 978 90 8964 027 7 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4850 789 4

Thijs Weststeijn (ed.) The Universal Art of Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678). Painter, Writer, and Courtier, 2013 isbn 978 90 8964 523 4 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4851 859 3 Coen Wilders Patronage in de Provincie. Het Utrechtse netwerk van stadhouder Willem III, 2015 isbn 978 90 8964 738 2 ǀ e-isbn 978 90 4852 495 2 Junko Aono Confronting the Golden Age. Immitation and Innovation in Dutch Genre Painting 1680-1750, 2015 isbn 978 90 8964 568 5