The Symbolical and Political Investment of the Rhine: a Dutch Perspective
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
chapter 2 The Symbolical and Political Investment of the Rhine: A Dutch Perspective Joep Leerssen The Rhine and the Netherlands The Rhine disappears in Holland. Immediately after crossing the Dutch border, near Nijmegen, it begins to branch out into what is known as the Dutch Delta. Its main branch changes its name to Waal, while a side branch flowing past Arnhem is called the Nederrijn (“Lower Rhine”). – The Waal mingles its waters with those of the Maas or Meuse and, after changing its name to Merwede between Dordrecht and Rotterdam, flows into the sea through many mouths and under various names. – The Nederrijn for its part changes its name to Lek near Utrecht and reaches the Rotterdam harbour by a different bed. Along the way, various small side rivers branch off, such as the Vecht (flowing from Utrecht to Amsterdam), and no less than two rivers called the IJssel (one in the east, the other in the west of the country). A number of these minor branches recall the name of the Rhine, such as the Kromme Rijn, the Vaartse Rijn, the Leidse Rijn and the Oude Rijn. The Rhine dissolves in the Netherlands, it is everywhere and nowhere. For that reason, perhaps, the Rhine never became an identity focus for Hol- land as it did for Germany.1 To be sure, the nation’s greatest poet, Joost van den Vondel, wrote a baroque-metaphysical ode to the Rhine (1620), apostrophizing it in terms like these: You tireless millwheel-driver City-builder, ship-carrier 1 I merely mention in passing the long meditative poem “Aan den Rhijn in de lente van het jaar 1820” by Elias Borger, which had some popularity in the nineteenth century as a recitation piece but only uses the riverbank setting for what is in fact an elegy on the death of his wife and child. Cf. p. 23 below. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/9789004344068_003 <UN> The Symbolical and Political Investment of the Rhine 15 Realm’s frontier and guardian in peril, Wine-spender, ferryman, bank-gnawer Paper-miller, give me paper For me to write your glories onto: Your waters spark my fire.2 Vondel then celebrates the river, which he surveys from Basel (where Erasmus lies buried) by way of Cologne (where he himself was born) to Holland, prais- ing it as the fount of Holland’s historical glories and present-day affluence, and praying for an end to the violence of the Thirty Years’ War. But ah! I cry my eyes out and shall myself turn into a stream because of this Hydra that proliferates from religious strife and dynastic hatred a hellish Hydra full of venom poisoning the Rhine’s sweet and wholesome banks and tearing all of the German Empire and thriving in unpardoned murders. May a long-awaited Deliverer sweep the Empire clean of the Empire’s damned plague. Even in 1620, Vondel is thematizing the river as something that both unites and divides, a line of communication and a battle frontier; following the enu- meration of side rivers contributing to the Rhine’s mighty sweep, from Main and Moselle to Lippe and Ruhr, the ramifying “Hydra” image evokes the river’s branchings and divisions before it reaches the sea.3 When Vondel wrote this poem, Holland was a contested borderland on the outer edge of Germany: Charles v had begun to loosen the ties between the “Burgundian Circle” and the Holy Roman Empire by stressing its status as a Habsburg dynastic lordship, and, on his abdication, by entrusting its suz erainty 2 O onvermoeide molenaer, / O stedebouwer, schepedraeger, / O rijxgrens, schermheer in ge- vaer, / Wijnschencker, veerman, oeverknaeger, / Papieremaecker, schaf papier, / Daer ick uw glori op magh schryven, / Vw water dat ontvonckt mijn vier. (Vondel: “Aen den Rynstroom”, 1620; full text online at the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren, www.dbnl.org). 3 Maer, och! ick schrey mijn oogen uit, / En sal noch in een’ vliet verkeeren, / Om datter sulck een Hydra spruit / Wt kerckgeschil en haet van Heeren; / Een helsche Hydra vol vergift, / Die ’s Rijns gesonde en soete boorden / Vergiftight, en gants Duitschland schift, / En groe- it in onversoenbre moorden. / Een lang gewenst Verlosser vaegh / Het Rijck van ’s Rijcks vervloeckte plaegh. <UN>.