Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/561

Rh much better than you do in what his greatness consists." He quells the murmurs of the stadholder with some sharp words about the necessity of cheerful obedience, and bids him see to it that his feet walk in the steps of God's revealed wisdom. Belzebub, being left alone with Lucifer, hastens to point out to him that the obvious effect of this new edict will be to clip the wings of the stadholder's authority, which, indeed, the latter needs no argument to perceive. Lucifer vows to take his honor into his own hands; he will raise his seat into the very centre of heaven, past all the circles with their starry glory. The heaven of heavens shall furnish him with a palace, the rainbow shall be his throne. On a chariot of clouds, borne up on air and light, he will crush and override all opposition, even from the Lord of earth himself. Or, if he falls, the transparent arch of heaven shall burst like a bubble, and all the universe crash in chaos. He summons Apollyon to council. In the dialogue that ensues some dramatic skill is shown, though Vondel's force lies rather in description, in gorgeous expression, and in lyric rhetoric, than in the true field of the drama. Lucifer is flushed and arrogant; Belzebub, an etherial Iago, hounds him on to rebellion Apollyon is prudential and diffident, a graceful courtier, who hints a weak point and hesitates difficulties. The argument of the latter is that Michael, God's field-marshal, holds the key of the armory; the watch is entrusted to him, and not a star can move without his thorough consciousness. He finely exemplifies the serene strength of the Deity by saying that although the castle of Heaven should set its diamond gates wide open, it would fear not craft, nor ambush, nor attack. Lucifer, however, decides that the attempt must be made; but first of all Apollyon is sent to direct Belial to sound the minds of the angels; the "persuasive accents" of Belial, as in "Paradise Lost," being set great store by for their power of eloquent dissimulation, since

It may be said, in passing, that the figure of Belzebub, though to less marked a degree, resembles the grand figure so named in Milton's poem. Lucifer and Belzebub ascend and disappear: Behial enters with Apollyon, who is now eloquent in the course he lately shunned, and Belial needs no persuasion. They pass to whisper the project of rebellion far and wide among the orders. While they are busied in this work, the stage is crowded with the chorus of loyal angels, who contemplate, as from the primum mobile, the hierarchies circling in the crystalline heaven, illuminated by the uncreated light, as Dante in the "Paradiso" gazed on the snow-white rose of the blessed. They witness with alarm the change that comes over the snowy, starry purity of the orders.

What is the cause, they cry? Since, but now, all the balconies and battlements of heaven were thronged by myriads of happy faces, singing the praise of man! The anti-chorus takes up its parable in reply: -

This ode, which is here rendered with scrupulous attachment to the original, is an interesting example of the alternation of exquisite with tawdry and prosaic imagery, and noble with fiat and poor expression, which is characteristic of most of Vondel's writings. These choruses at the close of each act are not peculiar to the