Abstract

This chapter discusses the use of exotic plants and spices as medicines and foodstuffs, as presented in the poetry of Joannes Six van Chandelier. An apology for indigenous herbs at the expense of exotic drugs written by the physician Johan van Beverwijck plays a large role here. I argue that Six attributes the illness in his spleen to his exposure to exotic drugs and spices. In my analysis of poems Six wrote on his illness and his medical treatment, I show how the wholesaler of luxury goods portrays himself as an ascetic on a strict diet consisting of local herbs, as a self-conscious Batavian who avoids luxury food, and as a patient who undergoes severe bloodletting treatments to clean his body and his mind of ‘fiery’ elements.

Keywords: Johan van Beverwijck, debate on indigenous versus exotic drugs, botanical gardens, ambergris, gold, exotics horns

’t Schijnt het wert dan eerst bequaem,

Als men ‘t geeft een vreemde naem;

’t Schijnt het krijgt dan eerst sijn prijs,

Als men dees en geen maeckt wijs

Dattet van het Moren-lant,

Of den Barbarysche strant,

Dattet van den Indiaen

Herwaerts komt dreven aen:

’t Dunckt de slechte Luyden best,

Wat ons geeft een vremt gewest.

It seems that it first becomes effective

When one gives it a foreign name:

It seems it first gets its price,

When one lets the man in the street know

That it came from the land of Moors,

Or from Barbarian shores,

That it came drifting hither

From the Indians:

That which seems to please the crowd best,

Is what a foreign region gives us.