Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Textual Note
- Introduction
- 1 Doris, or the Shepherd’s Complaint
- 2 To Anna R.[oemers]
- 3 [From] Batava Tempe: That Is the Lime-avenue of The Hague
- 4 The Exiled Shepherd: To the Lord Daniel Heinsius, Knight etc.
- 5 The Character of an Ambassador
- 6 Ship’s Talk, on the Death of Prince Maurits
- 7 To the Lady Tesselschade Crombalch with My Translations from the English Poems of Dr Donne
- 8 To Barlaeus
- 9 On the Death of Tesselschade’s Eldest Daughter, and on Her Husband Thereafter Bleeding to Death
- 10 The White Moon
- 11 The Mist Descending
- 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
- 13 To Stella, My Dearest Wife, Now Dead
- 14 [From] The Day’s Work: The Order of the House
- 15 In Her Snow-cold Arms
- 16 Prayer for the Holy Communion
- 17 The Lake
- 18 The Holy Communion
- 19 New Year
- 20 Good Friday
- 21 Pentecost
- 22 Christmas
- 23 Easter
- 24 To Tesselschade
- 25 On the Roses of the Most Eminent Painter, Daniel Seegers
- 26 To Tesselschade, Departing
- 27 To Albert Dürer on His Engraved Picture
- 28 On the Holy Communion
- 29 Again on the Holy Communion
- 30 [From] Hofwijk
- 31 Awakening
- 32 To the Lady Luchtenburgh, with My Poems Translated from the English of Donne
- 33 Again on Painting
- 34 On the Frontispiece of Korenbloemen
- 35 On the Grave of Jacob van Campen
- 36 The Vanity of Dreams
- 37 On an Engraved Glass
- 38 On My Birthday
- 39 Consolation of the Eyes, to the Lady of St Annaland
- 40 On the Holy Communion
- 41 Stillness and Snow after Storm and High Water
- 42 My Puppy’s Epitaph
- Appendix I A Selection of Huygens’ Poems in Modern European Languages
- Appendix II A Selection of Huygens’ Writings in English
- Appendix III Huygens and English Literature
- Appendix IV Additional Poems on Painting
- Bibliography
- Index of Titles and First Lines
- Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age
Appendix I - A Selection of Huygens’ Poems in Modern European Languages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Textual Note
- Introduction
- 1 Doris, or the Shepherd’s Complaint
- 2 To Anna R.[oemers]
- 3 [From] Batava Tempe: That Is the Lime-avenue of The Hague
- 4 The Exiled Shepherd: To the Lord Daniel Heinsius, Knight etc.
- 5 The Character of an Ambassador
- 6 Ship’s Talk, on the Death of Prince Maurits
- 7 To the Lady Tesselschade Crombalch with My Translations from the English Poems of Dr Donne
- 8 To Barlaeus
- 9 On the Death of Tesselschade’s Eldest Daughter, and on Her Husband Thereafter Bleeding to Death
- 10 The White Moon
- 11 The Mist Descending
- 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
- 13 To Stella, My Dearest Wife, Now Dead
- 14 [From] The Day’s Work: The Order of the House
- 15 In Her Snow-cold Arms
- 16 Prayer for the Holy Communion
- 17 The Lake
- 18 The Holy Communion
- 19 New Year
- 20 Good Friday
- 21 Pentecost
- 22 Christmas
- 23 Easter
- 24 To Tesselschade
- 25 On the Roses of the Most Eminent Painter, Daniel Seegers
- 26 To Tesselschade, Departing
- 27 To Albert Dürer on His Engraved Picture
- 28 On the Holy Communion
- 29 Again on the Holy Communion
- 30 [From] Hofwijk
- 31 Awakening
- 32 To the Lady Luchtenburgh, with My Poems Translated from the English of Donne
- 33 Again on Painting
- 34 On the Frontispiece of Korenbloemen
- 35 On the Grave of Jacob van Campen
- 36 The Vanity of Dreams
- 37 On an Engraved Glass
- 38 On My Birthday
- 39 Consolation of the Eyes, to the Lady of St Annaland
- 40 On the Holy Communion
- 41 Stillness and Snow after Storm and High Water
- 42 My Puppy’s Epitaph
- Appendix I A Selection of Huygens’ Poems in Modern European Languages
- Appendix II A Selection of Huygens’ Writings in English
- Appendix III Huygens and English Literature
- Appendix IV Additional Poems on Painting
- Bibliography
- Index of Titles and First Lines
- Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age
Summary
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,
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
Arrive à son dessein.
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.
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- Selection of the Poems of Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687)Revised, Second Edition, pp. 243 - 248Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2015