Abstract

In this chapter I focus on gunpowder, both in the sense of materials for warfare, and fireworks for public celebrations. The Dutch word for gunpowder, buskruit, proves the close connection with the topic for this study, kruid, ‘spice’. I show how in his poems Six distances himself from gunpowder by demonstrating a punishment on the ‘Dutch body’, both on his own body and ‘the body’ of the city of Delft. I argue that this is the theme of two poems Six wrote on accidents with his loaded pistols, and a poem he wrote to the explosion of the gunpowder depot in Delft in 1654. But in this Chapter too, we learn to know Six as a pragmatic poet. I show how glorifying poems to the Orange Prince Frederick Henry were furnished with references to gunshots and fireworks.

Keywords: Jan Vos, gunpowder, fireworks, saltpetre, gunpowder explosion in Delft in 1654, Frederick Henry

Jupijn zal op ‘t geluidt van huilen, schreeuwen, gillen,

En donderen, verbaast van zijne zetel zien,

En vraagen of’er, om de werreldt te gebien,

Een nieuwe Jupiter zijn godtheidt komt braveeren:

Dan geeft men deeze stof, daar ‘t oorlog by zal zweeren,

De naam van bussekruid, jaa booskruidt in de strijdt.

Jupiter will, because of the sound of crying, shouting, screaming,

And thundering, look in surprise. from his throne,

And ask whether, in order to rule the world,

A new Jupiter is coming to defy him as a god:

Therefore, this substance, by which war will swear,

Shall be given the name of ‘gunpowder’, even ‘wicked powder’ in battle.