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.