The Power of Pliant Stuff: Fables and Frankness in Seventeenth-Cent Dutch Republicanism

Arthur Weststeijn

Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 72, Number 1, January 2011, pp. 1-27 (Article) Published by University of Pennsylvania Press DOI: 10.1353/jhi.2011.0005

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The Power of Pliant Stuff: Fables and Frankness in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republicanism

Arthur Weststeijn

In the preface to his 1609 collection of classical fables entitled De sapientia veterum (On the Wisdom of the Ancients), Francis Bacon vindicated his choice for such a playful genre. Although the writing of fables might seem just an exercise of pleasure for my own or my readers recreation, Bacon stressed that that was not the case. On the contrary, he argued that beneath no small number of the fables of the ancient poets there lay from the very beginning a mystery and an allegory. Therefore, he continued, through such fables, as sacred relics and light airs breathing out of better times, hidden meanings can be exposed and made understood to unskilled ears and eyes. Indeed, the employment of parables as a method of teaching, whereby inventions that are new and abstruse and remote from vulgar opinions may nd an easier passage to the understanding, shows that the fable serves as a very appropriate expedient for instruction and persuasion, the higher goals of rhetoric beyond simple entertainment and delight.1
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the conference Politics, Press and Public Debate in the 17th Century at the European University Institute, Florence, in December 2007, and at the conference Woord en beeld als wapen. Nieuws en propaganda in de zeventiende eeuw at the University of Amsterdam in August 2008. I would like to thank the participants at both conferences and especially the anonymous reviewers for their valuable criticism, and Mark Jones for his comments on the nal draft. 1 Francis Bacon, De sapientia veterum, in The Works of Francis Bacon, 14 vols., eds. James Spedding et al. (London: Longmans, 185774), 6: 61786. Quotes are from the English translation of the preface in ibid., 69599. The third edition of De sapienta veterum was published in Leiden in 1633.
Copyright by Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 72, Number 1 (January 2011)

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Yet, for all these noble purposes, Bacon could not hide his unease with those aspects of the fable which seemed to escape his pens command. Embarrassed by the levity and looseness with which people indulge their fancy in the matter of allegories, he acknowledged himself to have trod slippery ground. As he asserted: I know very well what pliant stuff fable is made of, how freely it will follow any way you please to draw it, and how easily with a little dexterity and discourse of wit meanings which it was never meant to bear may be plausibly put upon it. For Bacon, this intrinsic ambivalence of the fable gave rise to discomfort, and from the start he sought to remove any potential misunderstandings about his intentions. However, not all seventeenth-century writers of fables shared his concerns. Instead, the very nature of the fable as pliant stuff, as a genre which necessarily conveys meanings in an ambiguous, suggestive, and indirect manner, made it a particularly useful rhetorical device for those who would not or could not articulate their opinions openly. This article shows that a number of seventeenth-century authors deliberately employed the fable for its political expediency as an opaque prism to diffuse unconventional ideas that could undermine authority. Central in this overview are the Dutch merchants and fervent republican theorists Johan and Pieter de la Court, the main representatives of the radicalization of Dutch republicanism in the decades following the Peace of Westphalia. While most mainstream republicans in the Netherlands emphasized the need of a monarchical gure, a Stadholder, in the ideally balanced republican regime, the brothers De la Court claimed that such a monarchical element would necessarily entail tyranny.2 Their writings employed two different types of fables to substantiate this fundamental claim: the rst based on the political allegories of the Italian satirist Traiano Boccalini, the second following the Aesopian tradition as exemplied by the famous
2

So far there is no comprehensive study of seventeenth-century Dutch republicanism at large or of the brothers De la Court in particular, but see Ernst Kossmann, Political Thought in the Dutch Republic: Three Studies (Amsterdam: KNAW, 2000); E.O.G. Haistma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1980); Hans Blom, Morality and Causality in Politics: The Rise of Naturalism in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Political Thought (PhD diss., Utrecht University, 1995); and Wyger Velema, That a Republic is Better than a Monarchy: Anti-monarchism in Early Modern Dutch Political Thought, in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, 2 vols., ed. Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1: 925. See as well the recent work by Jonathan Israel, summarized in his The Intellectual Origins of Modern Democratic Republicanism (16601720), European Journal of Political Theory 3 (2004): 736. The issue of rhetoric is almost entirely absent in these works.

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Dutch poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel. Through an analysis of the rhetorical role of these fables, this article attempts to shed more light on the reasons why fables were used in seventeenth-century republican thought. It will argue that the literary aspects of the fable cannot be separated from its political function, a function that eventually can be characterized as highly paradoxical: not in spite but because of its openness to different readings, the fable involved a disguised rhetorical plea for frankness and liberty of speech.

RHETORIC AND FABLES: THE STANDING OF AN EMBLEMATIC GENRE In classical antiquity, when authors such as Aesop and Phaedrus had created a distinct genre of allegorical tales, the use of such fables had been as much reproved as their particular rhetorical force had been recognized. According to Quintilian, fables should not be a part of the linguistic armory of the truly decent orator, for fables are specially attractive to rude and uneducated minds, which are less suspicious than others in their receptions of ctions and, when pleased, readily agree with the arguments from which their pleasure is derived.3 The other prime authority of Roman rhetoric, Cicero, was slightly more willing to appreciate the employment of fables. As he stated, an orator can use verisimilar or plausible exempla to obtain the trust from the audience, but sometimes even a fable, though incredible, will impress people.4 In spite of being overtly ctitious, fables were thus said to have a distinctive illustrative power. Creating a lively and easily understandable mental picture of the issue at stake, they put a story ante oculos, before the audiences eyes by virtue of their imaginative appeal. In classical rhetoric, such evocative language was considered to be one of the most signicant tools that an orator could employ to make the audience not only hear but actually see things and thus become truly impressed.5
3 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 5.11.19, 4 vols., trans. H.E. Butler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 192022), 2: 283. 4 Cicero, Partitiones oratoriae 2.40, quoted in James Hankins, Rhetoric, History, and Ideology: The Civic Panegyrics of Leonardo Bruni, in Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reections, ed. Hankins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 14378; 168. 5 See Brian Vickers, In Defence of Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 32021; and Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 18288.

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This hesitant view on the employment of fables, wavering between distaste and approval, was echoed in late humanist rhetorical and pedagogical theory. In the Protestant world, one of the main protagonists in this eld was the prolic Dutch scholar Gerardus Joannes Vossius, whose treatises on rhetoric were standard material for many Dutch, English, and German schoolboys.6 Like his classical predecessors, Vossius frequently emphasized the persuasive power of gures and imaginative language. Yet he spoke with reluctance about using fables for this purpose, since fables were only appropriate for, as he insisted, vulgar souls and coarse characters.7 Such qualications of course explain Bacons uneasiness about his fable collection, but Bacons reassuring claims about the usefulness of fables also found many adherents. Comenius, greatly impressed by Bacons utopian program for an Advancement of Learning, equally commended the pedagogical use of fables following the commonplace adage that nothing in the mind is not rst in the senses.8 Finally, towards the end of the century, John Locke argued that fables, being stories apt to delight and entertain a child, may yet afford useful reection to a grown man, and accordingly, Locke did not hesitate to include the genre in his political writings.9 The insistence on the combination between the pedagogical and the pictorial found its clearest expression within early modern culture in the subgenre of the emblematic fable, which combined the imaginative appeal of two literary traditions: the Aesopian tradition, and the more elitist, iconographical tradition of emblemata. In the 1684 edition of his treatise LArt des emblemes, the French Jesuit theorist Claude Franc ois Menestrier insisted that fables should be seen as essentially emblems,10 and many
For Vossius on rhetoric, see the extensive biography by C.S.M. Rademaker, Life and Work of Gerardus Joannes Vossius (15771649) (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981), esp. 17781; Wilfried Barner, Barockrhetorik. Untersuchungen zu ihren geschichtlichen Grundlagen (Tu bingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1970), 26574; and Jeroen Jansen, De Institutiones oratoriae van G.J. Vossius (15771649), Lampas. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse classici 34 (2001): 37390. See also Thomas M. Conley, Rhetoric in the European Tradition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 15961. 7 Gerard Vossius, De artis poeticae natura, ac constitutione liber (Amsterdam, 1647) 9.6, 54: Nec pueros modo, sed omnes vulgares animas, rudiaque ingenia, fabulae juvant. 8 See Jayne Elizabeth Lewis, The English Fable: Aesop and Literary Culture, 16511740 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 41. 9 Kirstie M. McClure, Catos Retreat: Fabula, Historia and the Question of Constitutionalism in Mr Lockes Anonymous Essay on Government, in Reading, Society and Politics in Early Modern England, ed. Kevin Sharpe and Steven N. Zwicker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 31750, quote on 329. 10 Claude Franc ois Menestrier, LArt des emblems ou senseigne la morale par les gures de la fable, de lhistoire, & de la nature, ed. Karl Mo senender (Paris, 1684; Mittenwald: Ma mes des Emblemes, ander, 1981), 27: Les Apologues dEsope sont aussi deux-me
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seventeenth-century collections indeed employed emblematic engravings as illustrations to the age-old Aesopian fables, thus doubling the latters illustrative force.11 Accordingly, a subgenre emerged at the crossroads of popular and elite culture, fusing didactic intentions with the humor of colorful parables which, ex nugis seria, could at once delight and instructthe prime objective of deliberative rhetoric. Moreover, the rst decades of the seventeenth century saw the advent of numerous emblem collections with clear political motives, the so-called emblemata politica. One particularly popular example was the Idea de un pr ncipe pol tico christiano representada en cien empresas (1642) written by the Spanish diplomat Diego Saavedra Fajardo. This work offered Tacitist and esoteric guidelines for political and moral behavior, written in a dense prose directed to the governing establishment as an alternative mirror of princes. Another example was the compilation Emblematum ethico-politicorum centuria, published in 1619 in Heidelberg by Julius Wilhelm Zincgref, which for its focus on the common welfare of the republic might be called a mirror of citizens.12 In the wake of these emblemata politica, fable collections as well became increasingly politicized: the Aesopian world, populated by animals, enabled allegorical representations of good government and the colorful parody of political opponents.13

BOCCALINI, VONDEL, AND THE IMAGINARY REALM OF RIDICULE AND REPREHENSION At the start of the century, a very original collection of such highly political fables was published in Venice by the Italian satirist Traiano Boccalini. This
parce que ces Apologues . . . ont toujours leur instruction morale jointe aux discours & aux actions de ces animaux. 11 On the relation between fables and emblems, see in particular Barbara Tiemann, Fabel und Emblem. Gilles Corrozet und die franzo sische Renaissance-Fabel (Munich: Wilhem Fink, 1974), and, more generally, Peter M. Daly, Literature in the Light of the Emblem: Structural Parallels between the Emblem and Literature in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979). 12 See Alain Boureau, Books of Emblems on the Public Stage: Co te jardin and co te cour, in The Culture of Print: Power and the Use of Print in Early Modern Europe, ed. Roger Chartier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 26189. For Fajardo, see esp. Christian Romanoski, Tacitus Emblematicus. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo und seine Empresas Pol ticas (Berlin: Weidler, 2006). 13 For some important English examples, see Lewis, English Fable, esp. 1425, Mark Loveridge, A History of Augustan Fable (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Mark Kishlansky, Turning Frogs Into Princes: Aesops Fables and the Political Cul-

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collection, entitled the Ragguagli di Parnasso (161213), a series of announcements from Mount Parnassus, entailed a total of two hundred allegorical tales in which many famous men, above all sixteenth-century Italian writers, historians, and politicians, gure as the characters in a timeless realm of emblematic irony and ridicule that is governed by Apollo. In every one of these allegories, Boccalini effectively satirized the world of letters and politics through vivid descriptions of how its representatives run into all kinds of bizarre encounters. Boccalinis tales are populated by humans and not by animals, yet their ctional and comical character performs the same function of metaphor and parody as in Aesopian fables. As Boccalini explained his intentions in a letter toof all peopleJames I: In order that the open truth, to which I have paid particular attention, will not harm me through provoking the rage of those great princes, interests and opinions of which I have spoken, I have covered the truth with the cloaks of jokes, masked by the shades of metaphors.14 Accordingly, below the surface of satire, Boccalinis allegories revealed committed political convictions: he heralded the aristocratic constitution of Venice as the most perfect republican government, while his work eloquently condemned the selfinterested behavior of monarchs and courtiers, revealed by the ingenious occhiali politici (political glasses) of the writings of Tacitus.15 Boccalini introduced his imaginary realm of ridicule and reprehension in the very rst ragguaglio, which, in the 1657 English translation by the Earl of Monmouth, tells how people ock to a newly opened Publick Ware-house in Parnassus, with large Priviledges for Politicians.16 Among the inventive goods for sale are pencils which are very excellent for those Princes, who upon urgent occasions are forced to paint white for black
ture of Early Modern England, in Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England: Essays Presented to David Underdown, ed. Susan D. Amussen and Mark A. Kishlansky (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 33860. 14 Quoted in Harald Hendrix, Traiano Boccalini fra erudizione e polemica. Ricerche sulla fortuna e bibliograa critica (Florence: Olschki, 1995), 5: . . . afnche laperta verita `, della quale ho fatto particolar professione, non mapporti danno concitandomi contro lo sdegno di quei prencipi grandi, degli interessi e pensieri de quali ho ragionato, lho coperta con le vesti delle facezie, mascherata con le larve delle metafore. 15 Traiano Boccalini, Ragguagli di Parnasso e scritti minori, 3 vols., ed. Luigi Firpo (Bari: Laterza, 1948). On Tacituss glasses, see 2: 24749, ragg. 71. For a general discussion of Boccalinis political thought, see Maurizio Viroli, From Politics to Reason of State: The Acquisition and Transformation of the Language of Politics 12501600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 25766. 16 Traiano Boccalini, I Ragguagli di Parnasso: or Advertisements from Parnassus; in Two Centuries with the Politick Touchstone (London, 1657), 14. The brothers De la Court might have read this translation: see Hendrix, Boccalini, 135.

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unto the people, different sorts of glasses which either illuminate or darken harsh reality, an instrument which can enlarge the jawes of unfortunate Courtiers, who being to make virtue of necessity, are oft times forced to swallow down great Pompions, instead of little Mastick Pils, and even a Paste royal, very good to sharpen the appetite of certain obstinate Stoicks. No one could escape Boccalinis biting mockery, but clearly, his intentions went beyond the purely comical. Another ragguaglio informs about a decision taken at Parnassus that the name of Science and Discipline might be attributed to the exercise of War. As a result of this resolution, all literary men were in despair, until a group of butchers arrived with the statement that hearing that the Court had decided, That the Art of sacking and ring of Cities, of cutting their inhabitants in pieces . . . should be termed a Science and Discipline, they also . . . demanded that their Art might be honored by the same illustrious names. Confronted with this reasonable claim of the butchers, the judges at Parnassus eventually decided to withdraw their earlier decision, for the mysterie of War, though it were sometimes necessary, was notwithstanding so cruel and so inhumane, as it was impossible to honest it with civil terms.17 Like the element of fabula docet in the Aesopian tradition, Boccalini thus highlighted the deeper moral message of his satirical fables. Moreover, where the Aesopian enactment of animals held a mirror up to humanitys face that revealed a world in which corruption could not be shrouded under the veil of hypocrisy,18 Boccalinis allegories served a similar purpose. Through the frequent performance of symbols like pens and spectacles, emblematic representations of the way in which reality can be both shaped and manipulated, Boccalini playfully unmasked the disguised intentions underlying human behavior. A similar play with ction and reality can be found in an important Dutch example of the Aesopian tradition, Joost van den Vondels Vorsteliicke warande der dieren (Royal Reserve of Animals), published in 1617 at the height of the conict between Arminians and Contra-Remonstrants that tore apart Dutch society and politics during the Twelve Years Truce with Spain. At the instigation of the publisher Dirk Pietersz Pers, Vondel had written the verses to a new edition of the sixteenth-century collection of engravings by Marcus Gheeraerts, to which Vondel also appended a new
17 18

Boccalini, Advertisements from Parnassus, 14344. See Kevin Sharpe, Remapping Early Modern England: The Culture of SeventeenthCentury Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 101.

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introduction in verse.19 This Amusing Introduction poetically leads the reader into the emblematic reserve of animals, a fantastic realm beyond human reality similar to Boccalinis Parnassus. Having entered this kingdom of imagination, both reader and writer get lost in a labyrinth of pleasure and delight, but The Labyrinth seems to poke fun at us: behind a tree an image of a bleeding Lucretia appears, the archetypical victim of tyrannical oppression, yet she proves to be an illusion, for It is not womans blood, it is only red wine/That Bacchus is used to serve to Kings. Writer and reader proceed to a watchtower on an oak tree, which reveals, in the distance, a naval battle between a Dutch trading vessel and a Turkish galley. The ght ends undecided, and the attention is turned to the skies and the birds, which aptly represent human politics. The eagle is emperor, anked by his aristocratic following of crane, swan, peacock, and turkey; The Cock wants to be king, for he is crowned, For he proves to be brave in bloody war, And by the gauntlet he is to war lightly seduced Trusting on his courage and his sharp spores. He has many chickens, and quenches his horny love Just as if a King could do whatever he likes. Finally, in the deep woods, a similar animal realm is discovered, where the lion, camel, hares, and monkeys likewise reect human society.20 Accordingly, from the very introduction to the work, Vondels readers are confronted with a highly politicized ctional world full of symbolic references to the victims of tyranny whose blood is served to kings, to contemporary Dutch maritime enterprise, and to the pretensions and vices of
19 Cf. B.H. Molkenboer, De jonge Vondel (Amsterdam: Parnassus, 1950), 388415; H.J. Raup, Vondel und das Problem der Fabeldichtung nach 1600. Anmerkungen zu Vorsteliicke Warande der Dieren, in Jetzt kehr ich an den Rhein, ed. Herman Vekeman and Herbert van Uffelen (Cologne: Frank Runge Verlag, 1987), 24569; and, more generally, Paul J. Smith, Het schouwtoneel der dieren. Embleemfabels in de Nederlanden (1567ca. 1670) (Hilversum: Verloren, 2006). 20 Joost van den Vondel, Vorsteliicke warande der dieren (Amsterdam, 1617), ed. J. Becker (Soest: Davaco, 1974), Vermaeckelijcke Inleydinghe: De Doolhoff schijnt met ons zijn spotternij te drijven/ . . . T en is geen vrouwen bloed, t is enckel rooden wijn:/ Die Bacchus is ghewoon te schencken voor de Vorsten/ . . . Den Haen wil Koningh zijn, omdat hij is ghecroont,/Omdat hij moedigh sich in t bloedich oorlogh toont,/En sich met dhandschoen licht laet tot den kamp bekoren,/Vertrouwende op sijn moet en op sijn scherpe sporen./Hij heeft der boelen veel, sijn geyle min hij bluscht,/Recht oft een Koningh mocht al doen wat hem ghelust.

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aspirant monarchs. This preoccupation with the political, and especially with the dangers of imminent tyrannical rule, resurfaces in many of the fables of the collection. Since Aesops day, the characters in the fabulist realm had often performed clear political roles, the lion symbolizing the greedy monarch, the fox the shrewd courtier, and the donkey the silly yet diligent subject.21 Vondel staged his animal actors in a similar way. One typical fable tells of an almighty lion who, pretending to be ill, summons all animals to his court. Everyone shows up, except the fox who foresees the lions list. When all other animals have been devoured by the lion, the foxs perceptive suspicion is praised: Happy is the man, who after careful consideration Escapes the web of Princes tyranny and cruelty Who is not caught in the danger of the traps that are set In which the poor, simple people are too easily captured.22 Other fables entail variations on this same theme of how naivety opens up the gates for tyranny. There is the classical story of the frogs that desire a king and, unhappy with their useful but uninspiring leader, a log, end up terrorized by their new lord, a hungry stork. There is the story of the lumberjack, who asks the trees for one branch to repair his axe, with which he eventually chops down the entire forest. Never surrender your weapons of self-defense, is Vondels explicit message, because they will be used against you. Overall, the political message is probably the most evident in the very rst fable of the collection. This opening story tells of a horse carrying a heavy load, harshly whipped by his driver. The horse complains, but as an answer he only receives still tougher lashes. As Vondel comments in terms that can hardly be misunderstood: Wretched is the country, where by erce conceit/An unbearably cruel Tyrant dominates his subjects.23 In the same year that these verses were published, the Dutch political and religious conict would enter its decisive phase when the Stadholder,
On the political dimensions of Aesopian fables in the early-modern period, especially in England, see Annabel Patterson, Fables of Power: Aesopian Writing and Political History (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991). 22 Vondel, Warande, 2: Geluckich is de man, die uyt een rijp beraet/Van sPrincen tyrannije en wreetheyd t net ontgaet/Die uyt tgevaer zich houd van stricken opgehangen/Daer t arme slechte volck te licht zich in laet vangen. 23 Vondel, Warande, 1: Onzaligh is het land, daer van een woest verwaten/Ondraeghlijck wreed Tyran verheert zijn dondersaten.
21

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Prince Maurice of Orange, openly sided with Contra-Remonstrant orthodoxy. Hence, the question arises to what extent Vondels fables engaged with this contemporary reality outside of the animal realm. Did his denunciation of Princes tyranny and his complaint of those who succumb to a despotic yoke involve a concrete warning to his fellow countrymen? Was his ridicule of the belligerent and adulterous cock who pretends to be a king perhaps meant as a criticism of Maurice, who openly favored a resumption of the war with Spain and who was by his adversaries often depicted as a dangerously imperious and lustful man? Thus far, analysts of Vondel have been reluctant to interpret these verses as signs of any engagement in Dutch politics. The consensus is that the fables of the Warande merely conveyed general opinions about good civil conduct, the relations between the powerful and the weak, and the detriments of deceit and delusion, and that Vondel only entered the arena of political debate in the course of the 1620s.24 However, this interpretation omits the distinct political potential of the literary genre that Vondel employed in 1617. Since antiquity, when the allegedly black slave Aesop created the genre, fables had often been a favorite medium of communication used by or on behalf of those without power to denounce the political establishment: on the one hand, because fables evidently addressed unequal power relations, on the other because they could perform an intrinsic function of self-protection. As Boccalini acknowledged, fables served to convey unwelcome truths under the veil of entertaining jokes and metaphors; they encoded meaning in an indirect, suggestive way, which enabled their writer to renounce any responsibility for how they were being interpreted. Hiding behind the independent judgment of the reader, the fabulist could thus escape the wrath of the ones he or she offended.25 So does it mean anything that Vondel chose for the genre of the fable in 1617 to denunciate aspirant kings and warn for impending tyranny? Arguably, it does: employing the fables rhetorical function, Vondel could expound to the public his rising unease with the contemporary situation, yet without having to occupy a clearly dened and hazardous political standpoint. Indeed, in 1618, the year after the publication of the Warande, Vondel anonymously published another emblematic and satirical poem on
See J. Becker, Einleitung, in Vondel, Warande, ixi; Raup, Vondel, 263, and esp. Twee zeevaart-gedichten, ed. Marijke Spies, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij, 1987), 1: 4063. 25 A point stressed by Patterson, Aesopian Writing, esp. 112, 55.
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the conict between Arminians and Contra-Remonstrants. This poem, entitled Op de Jonghste Hollantsche Transformatie (On Hollands Latest Transformation), entailed an implicitly very critical account of the way in which the religious dispute had been settled, and it was accompanied by a large, elaborate engraving that elucidated Vondels intentions. The engraving (g. 1) shows the two opposing camps, headed by the theologians Gomarus and Arminius, who both put their strongest arguments in the scales of a large balance that dominates the scene. Gomarus has placed on his side of the balance a copy of Calvins Institutio and one of the works of Beza to win the contest, yet Arminius, seconded by his political supporters including Hugo Grotius, initially beats his rival through amassing in the scale all symbols of lawful civic government. Then, however, Maurice of Orange enters the stage and puts his sword on Gomaruss side. The scales tilt again thanks to the Stadholders forceful interference, and the balance designates the Contra-Remonstrants as clear yet unjustied championsa transformation represented by the fable of Apollo and Diana that is depicted at a tapestry in the background. Then everyone worshipped Gomaruss idol, and Arminius was kicked out, Vondel concluded sarcastically.26

CHANGING THE BALANCE: THE BROTHERS DE LA COURT AND THE REPUBLICAN FABLE In 1661, when the Dutch Republic had been ruled for eleven years without a Stadholder, a work entitled Consideratien van Staat, ofte Polityke Weegschaal (Considerations of State, or Political Balance) was published in Amsterdam by a certain V.H. Concealed behind these initials was the wealthy Leiden merchant Pieter de la Court, and the work was the second edition of a treatise written by Pieter and his brother Johan, who had died the year before. The frontispiece to the work (g. 2) showed a highly suggestive scene in which the scales of the title, managed by a divine hand coming from a sunlit cloud, balance the two weights of politics: at the left, the ius belli, adorned with a ribbon mentioning, in rather crude Latin, servitus bellium, and at the right, the ius civille (sic), garlanded with libertas et
26

[Joost van den Vondel], Op de Jonghste Hollantsche Transformatie [1618]: Doen aenbad elck Gommars pop/En Armijn die kreegh de schop. For an analysis of the political contents of the poem, see N. Wijngaards, Vondels Hollantsche Transformatie, De nieuwe taalgids 59 (1966): 30212.

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iusticia. While a king and his courtiers watch at one side and two wise jurists at the other, the ius civille clearly tilts the scales, and from the enlightened sky descends the Ciceronian maxim cedant arma togae.27 Below, a scene in which a royal family idly wastes its time in corporal pleasures while armies clash at the background is juxtaposed with an image of ourishing maritime commerce with a diligent farmer who cultivates his land at the forefront, the archetype of republican virtue. The book thus directed the reader from the start with an obvious depiction of divinely inspired good versus bad government, epitomizing the contents of the work. Moreover, the frontispiece contained a distinct intertextual and interpictorial reference to Vondel which might not have escaped the eye of the attentive reader. Vondels poem and its imagery, printed several times throughout the century, had in time become known simply as Op de Waegschaal (On the Balance), and even in 1682 it was said to be still in everyones hands.28 Accordingly, the frontispiece of the Politike Weeg-schaal might very well have entailed an implicit reference to Vondels popular depiction of the Arminian controversy, with the scales of the Politike Weegschaal being exactly asymmetrical to the ones of Vondels poem, and the jurists at the right and the king at the left reecting the images of Grotius and Maurice. The message, on the whole, was obvious: by now, at the height of the Stadholderless era heralded as an epoch of True Liberty, the balance in the Dutch Republic had changed. The Politike Weeg-schaal comprised a critical analysis of the three classical forms of government, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Overall, it abounded in passionate attacks on the monarchical element in the Dutch republican constitution, the Stadholder, while pleading for a consistent opening up of the ruling class towards a broad aristocratic regime close to a popular government. Written in the vernacular and crammed with jokes and metaphors, it was a highly rhetorical work that through its use of a popular discourse manifestly intended to intervene in the public debate. Arguably the most striking characteristic of the rhetoric of the De la Court brothers was their frequent use of fables, which included Aesopian parables and a number of borrowings from Boccalini. Throughout the century, Boccalinis work enjoyed much appeal in Europe and especially in the Dutch Republic, both in terms of publications (after Italy, most seventeenth-century editions of the Ragguagli were pub27 28

Cicero, De ofciis 1.22.77. Molkenboer, Vondel, 501.

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lished in the Netherlands), and in terms of direct literary and republican inspiration.29 From the 1660s onwards, especially, there was a clear tendency to read and interpret the Ragguagli in a Dutch political context, and the De la Court brothers did likewise: in calling Boccalinis allegories explicitly Political Fables,30 their use of Boccalini transcended a mere correspondence in political stance and pessimism about human nature, and served above all a distinctly rhetorical purpose.31 This rhetorical function is exemplied by the use made of one of Boccalinis fables to conclude a vigorous reproof of monarchical rule. After having disclaimed all possible advantages of a monarchy, Pieter de la Court wrote: Finally, if someone asks, why men can see so many outstanding virtues in Monarchs, when these are not there?; he can nd his answer in the 59th ragguaglio of Trajano Boccalini. This ragguaglio tells the story of a pretentious nephew of the Prince of Sparta who, when unexpectedly not appointed as his successor, turned out to be as stupid as any other human being. After a free translation of a part of the tale, De la Court approvingly rephrased Boccalinis conclusion that only the fortune of being in absolute authority and highness makes us often believe that those men are wise Salomons, while when they are common Citizens, they would be judged to be truly brainless Boors.32 For contemporary readers, it must have been clear that De la Court did not just make a general remark here but that he had a particular pretentious young man in mind: the Prince of Orange. Thus, De la Courts use of Boccalini did not only serve to illustrate and clarify the argument in a witty and attractive manner, it also made any attentive reader aware of the obvious connotations between the unsuccessful Spartan Prince and the Dutch Stadholder, a comparison which therefore did not need to be made dangerously explicit. Moreover, Boccalinis fable showed the necessity of unveiling monarchical dissimulation and the force of humor to convey such a truth.
See the tables in Hendrix, Boccalini 3334, and for Boccalinis reception ibid., esp. 10937. For a typically political reading of Boccalini, see e.g. the collection of poems entitled Den herstelden Apollos Harp, versien met verscheyde nieuwe snaren [1663]. 30 [Johan and Pieter de la Court], Consideratien van Staat, ofte Politike Weeg-schaal, quoted from the fourth ed. (Amsterdam, 1662) 3.1.6, 565: . . . heeft Trajano Boccalini wel aardig konnen bespotten in zijne Politike Fabulen. 31 Cf. Haitsma Mulier, Myth of Venice, 13334. 32 Politike Weeg-schaal 1.1.35, 17071: Eindelik indien iemant vraagt, waarom de menschen zoo veele uitsteekende deugden konnen zien in Monarchen; indien de zelven daar niet zijn; die kan zijn antwoort vinden in t 59 Ragg. van Trajano Boccalini . . . dat het geluk alleen, van in een absolute authoriteit en hoogheyt te zijn, ons zeer dikwils doet gelooven, wijze Salomons te zijn, zoodanige menschen, welke gemeene Borgers weezende, zouden bevonden werden, waarelik te zijn harssenlooze Flegels.
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The same can be said of the De la Courts frequent employment of Aesopian fables, which equally combined the satirical expedients of ridicule and reprehension, the political feature of indirectness and ambiguity, and the moral endeavor to unmask hypocrisy. This threefold rhetorical device culminated in the publication of the Sinryke Fabulen (Meaningful Fables), a collection of one hundred different fables illustrated with emblematic engravings, published in 1685 shortly after Pieter de la Courts death and translated into English in 1703. In the preface to this swansong, De la Court offered the reader an extensive discussion of his motives for writing such fables.33 He started with an analysis of how abstract ideae (De la Court translated this term to the Dutch Denkbeelden, which has the signicant connotation of images) are imprinted on the human mind, and then he continued to claim, like Bacon, that the expedient of the emblematic fable is particularly appropriate to convey ideas and reveal hidden knowledge. Invoking Horace, De la Court stated that through fables one can, while jesting and laughing, speak the Truth, and move the People through their pleasantness, in such a way that the bodily Figures of the Fables . . . can be very easily imprinted in our Memory or Remembrance and be recalled for a very long time.34 Moreover, De la Court stressed that the fable, because of its openness to a variety of different readings, actively engages the reader independently to construct their own interpretation. As he wrote: It is said with Truth of all human matters, that they have two Handles, one right and one left; and one can say of all Old Fables with more reasons, that they have countless levers: So no one should suspect that here a Fable is made by us and should be explained referring to him only: but since the Lessons or Explanations of it are endless, so can any one make for himself the best application and explanation.35
Cf. Bettina Noak, De Sinryke Fabulen (1685) van Pieter de la Court: verhulling en onthulling in een verlicht genre, De Zeventiende Eeuw 18 (2002): 6578. 34 [Pieter de la Court], Sinryke Fabulen (Amsterdam, 1685), Voorreeden, sig. **3: . . . al schertsende ende al laggende, de Waarheid seggen, ende de Menschen door haare aangenaamheid beweegen, soodanig, dat der Fabulen lighaamelike Figuren, waar van sy spreeken, seer ligtelik in onse Memorie ofte Geheugenisse geprent, ende seer lange onthouden konnen werden. The work was translated as Fables, Moral and Political with Large Explications (London, 1703). 35 Sinryke Fabulen, sig. **3: . . . alsoo men van alle menschelijke saaken met der Waarheid segt, dat sy twee Hand-vatten, eene regte eene linkse hebben; ende men van alle Oude Fabulen met meerdere reedenen kan seggen, dat sy ontallike veele aangreepen hebben: Sulks nieman behoorde te vermoeden, dat alhier door ons eenige Fabul op hem alleen gemaakt zy, ende uitgelegt behoorde te werden: nemaar alsoo de Leeringen ofte Uitleggingen van dien oneindig zijn, soo kan een yder voor sig selven de beste toepassing ende uitlegging maaken.
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This passage reveals that the use of fables to encode ones convictions involved a signicant political move through which the authority of the text was ultimately bestowed by the author upon the readers. Accordingly, fables enabled a writer to avoid the restrictions imposed by censorship and the wrath of those in powera particular important expedient for unconventional authors such as, in an earlier period, Vondel, and in 1685, De la Court. Writing under and against the Stadholdership of William III, De la Court explained that the Peoples who have lived of old mostly under Tyrants and Bullies in the East . . . have become compelled . . . to teach Men in general of Truth and to recommend Virtues and to deter them from their failings, through adorned Histories, Apologues, Comparisons, Parables, and Fables; to by this means instruct and delight Men at the same time without being subject to the aversion of the People, and to the bitterness or hate of the great Lords.36 To please and instruct his readers yet escape from popular and princely aversion and hate, De la Court thus conveyed his political ideas under the guise of his fables. As in Vondel, the connotations of many of these fables are clear, and De la Courts employment of numerous Aesopian allegories that are also included in Vondels collection shows how his political stance entailed a strong radicalization of the republican engagement of an earlier period. Where Vondel warned for tyranny and deceit, De la Court went much further and explicitly equated tyranny with monarchy, stating that any monarchical element will necessarily lead to the demise of republican liberty and to the enslavement of the people. Accordingly, the fable of the frogs who desire a king, conveyed by Vondel in neutral terms reprehending those who irrationally attempt to change their state, became in De la Court a much more openly republican allegory which mobilized all the elements of the emblematic genre to expound its message. First, above the emblem itself (g. 3) there is a Dutch motto, saying Happy is he, who does not desire to be anyones Slave or anyones Tyrant, followed by the Latin epigram ut servitus contra naturam, ita natura in tyrannidem proclivis. The
36

Ibid., sig. **2: . . . de Volkeren die van ouds meest onder Tyrannen ende Dwingelanden in het Oosten geleefd, ende dien volgende gevreesd hebben, met de waarheid ende nuttigheid der menschelike Saaken te beschrijven ende te leeren, deselve Tyrannen te vertoornen; genoodsaakt, ende de vrye Grieken ook daar na vrywillig ten raade zijn geworden, de Menschen in het gemeen van der Waarheid te onderrigten, ten Deugden te raaden, ende van haare gebreeken af te schrikken door versierde Historien, Apologen, Vergelijkenissen, Parabolen ende Fabulen; om door dat middel de Menschen te gelijk te leeren ende te vermaaken, sonder opgemelde afkeerigheid der Menschen, ende de verbitteringe, ofte haat der groote Heeren onderworpen te zijn.

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fable then describes the initial state of the frogs as one of full freedom where every frog served in turns as Head or the First of the Assembly. Yet because of their ignorance and longing for splendor, the frogs aspired to be honored by a military leader, the stork who, as De la Court claried in the terms of fabula docet, proved to be a Head of the Republic who cannot only ght its Enemies, but also tyrannize its Lawful Regents and Inhabitants. Frogs was a popular derisive designation of Dutchmen, and De la Court asserted that like we have seen in our times, free republics perish when they bestow the military power in the hands of one man, who as a stork will eat up the countrys riches and liberties.37 This obviousthough never explicitidentication of the fables tyrannical gure as Stadholder William III, who obtained power when he was appointed to captain-general in 1672, is repeated in many other fables. For example, the lumberjack who received from the Free Republic of the trees a branch to repair his axe is described by De la Court as a General who obtains the power to convoke the soldiers at all times, and eventually makes himself Tyrant over that Free State and all its Inhabitants his Slaves.38 Similarly, De la Court characterized the fables knight that is asked for assistance by a horse and then maintains his yoke, as a General who is employed for one campaign or for one Battle, while being ridden by such a knight equals to living in slavery.39 With this powerful rhetoric, conveyed in the characteristic idiom of the republican language of liberty,40 De la Court evocatively suggested that under the regime of William III, the Dutch Republic had lost its true freedom and was again enslaved by the
Ibid., 8994: De Kikvorssen seekeren tijd in voller vryheid geleefd hebbende, soodaanig, dat yder van haar op sijne beurt Hoofd ofte de Eerste der Vergaaderinge wierd . . . den Ojevaar . . . een Hoofd der Republike, dat niet alleen de Vyanden van dien beoorloogen, maar ook de Wettige Regenten ende de Ingeseetenen van dien, tyranniseeren kan . . . Gelijk wy ook in onse tijden gesien hebben. Cf. the diametrically opposite versions of this fable by contemporary English royalists such as John Ogilby and Sir Roger LEstrange, discussed in Kishlansky, Turning Frogs Into Princes, 35255. 38 Sinryke Fabulen, 99102: . . . het Bos, eene Vrye Republik . . . de magt die soo een Overste krijgt om de Krijgs-Knegten ten allen tijden by een te roepen . . . om sig Tyrannen oover dien Vryen Staat, ende alle de Ingeseetenen van dien tot haare Slaaven te maaken. 39 Ibid., 4346: . . . de Man ende die Ruiter, een in magt-uitsteekend mensch, die tot Veld-Oversten voor eene reise ofte voor eene Veldtogt aangenoomen werd. Met een Ruiter op sig te hebben . . . in slaavernie te leeven. 40 See Quentin Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Cf. the critique by Johann P. Sommerville, English and Roman Liberty in the Monarchical Republic of Early Stuart England, in The Monarchical Republic of Early-Modern England: Essays in Response to Patrick Collinson, ed. John F. McDiarmid (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 20116; and Skinners subsequent argument in Hobbes and Republican Liberty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
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tyrannical gure of the Stadholder. Once more, the Dutch political balance had changed.

PARRHESIA : FABLES AND THE RHETORIC OF FREE SPEECH Confronted with the vicissitudes of political reality, seventeenth-century political theorists thus used the fable as a means suggestively to encode their unwelcome opinions in an entertaining way. Apart from such instruction and delight, the fable served, as said, another goal, namely the placing of a mirror in front of two-faced behavior. This expedient is tellingly illustrated in one of the Sinryke Fabulen that rebukes monarchical and clerical hypocrisy. The emblem of this fable (g. 4), shows, under a biblical warning for pharisaic dissimulation, a fox in an atelier of a sculptor, intrigued by the lifelike statue of a woman. The fox, who represents shrewdness, has taken off his mask, the timeless symbol of duplicity. As the fable explains, the fox eventually realizes that the woman is only stone, and therefore he embodies wise and experienced people who penetrate appearances and expose underhand Hypocrites. These elements of the foxs mask and the sculpture serve a similar metaphorical purpose as Boccalinis spectacles that both create and manipulate reality, and in this same fable De la Court explicitly stressed his agreement with Boccalini. Importantly, he also reproached Machiavelli, that famous Instructor of Kings and Monarchs, for his notorious encouragement of foxlike behaviora monarchical characteristic that is redundant in a true republic.41 This argument against hypocrisy and in favor of honesty and candor is the central theme of another fable which entails a variation on the classical allegory of two travelers, one an honest man, the other a hypocrite, who together visit the Kingdom of Apes. De la Courts version added a revealing national element to the tale: a Dutchman plays the honest man while the hypocrite is personied by a Frenchman. Having discovered the Kingdom of Apes, the two are there invited to a lavish dinner and to an exquisite
41

Sinryke Fabulen, 47679: . . . den Vosse, wijse ende ervaarene menschen, die den schijn ontdekken, ende de geveinsde Hypocriten ten toone stellen . . . [referring to Machiavelli] die bekende Leermeester der Koningen ende Vorsten. On the reception of Machiavelli in the Dutch Republic, cf. E.O.G. Haistma Mulier, A Controversial Republican: Dutch Views on Machiavelli in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, in Machiavelli and Republicanism, ed. Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 24763.

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ball, they are shown the luxurious Royal bedrooms, and they join the court in a huge hunting party. After some days, the Frenchman is asked by the King of the Apes for his opinion about this government, to which the attering Frenchman answers that he feels himself to be in an earthly paradise. The King of the Apes, satised and impressed by the Frenchmans eloquence, appoints him his new counselor, and then turns to the Dutchman with the same question. Yet this blunt and most un-apelike man answers that he has seen nothing here that in any way tends to good government, but only pomp and circumstance, stufng and boozing, whoring, hunting, dancing, and gambling. Having said this, the Dutchman is instantly executed, and all the Apes said Amen.42 With this allegory, De la Court aimed at a number of obvious targets. First, he sought to deride monarchy in general, claiming that monarchs and courtiers, exemplied by the Frenchman, are merely apes. More in particular, the fable entailed a biting ridicule of the supporters of the monarchical principle in the Dutch Republic, and thus an explicit warning not to establish in ones own Free Fatherland a Kingdom of Apes. Yet the most important is a third element: the praise of the Dutchman, who, though having to fear for his life, did not waver and called a spade a spade.43 This blunt and sincere speech of the free republican Dutchman who speaks the truth is thus juxtaposed to the slavish attery of the Frenchman who only apes the opinions of others. In drawing this fundamental opposition, De la Court expounded his adherence to the practice of parrhesia, the frank telling of the truth even in the face of death. Parrhesia, a prime element of the mechanisms of democracy and the denition of citizenship in ancient Athens, was a distinct gure of speech in classical and humanist rhetorical theory which entailed the act of bluntly telling the truth while at the same time vindicating such candor.44 Yet it was not always perceived to be a positive practice. Revealingly, the very rst fable of Bacons De sapientia veterum, entitled Cassandra, sive parrhesia, comprised a critical account of such unreasonable and unprotable liberty
Politike Weeg-schaal 1.1.13, 7779: . . . in een aardsch paradijs . . . deeze botte, en van der Apen-natuur zeer veel verscheelende mensch . . . rond uit zeide: hier gansch niet te hebben gezien, dat eenigzins naar een goede regeering zweem: Maar wel pragt en praal, vreeten en zuipen, hoereeren, jaagen, danssen en speelen . . . en alle de Apen seiden Amen. 43 Sinryke Fabulen, 712: . . . deesen Neederlander, die een hark een hark noemde . . . die als een Vry ende regtschaapen Mensch wil spreeken, sig seer sorgvuldiglik wagten moet . . . van in sijnen eigen Vryen Vaaderlande een Koningrijke der Aapen te stiften. 44 See David Colclough, Freedom of Speech in Early Stuart England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), esp. 1260.
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in giving advice and admonition. The fable tells of the fate of Cassandra, who, having openly rejected Apollos love, encountered his revenge in the punishment that though she should always foretell true, yet nobody should believe her. For Bacon, her doom offered a clear warning for those who will not submit to learn of Apollo, the god of harmony, how to observe time and measure in affairs, ats and sharps (so to speak) in discourse, the differences between the learned and the vulgar ear, and the times when to speak and when to be silent. Anxious about the pliant stuff fable is made of, Bacon thus also revealed his concerns about the maintenance of decorum, respect, and moderation in speech.45 In De la Court, the emphasis is strikingly different, as becomes clear in his rendering of another fable: the classical myth of the hunter Actaeon who discovered the nudity of Diana. According to classical mythology, Actaeon was punished by the goddess for his impertinence and transformed into a stag, whereupon his own dogs devoured him. In seventeenth-century Dutch culture, as exemplied by the widely diffused moralistic writings of Jacob Cats, the image of Actaeon had the connotation of an immoderate and unrestrained man, a beast full of horny lust who was justly punished for not containing his passions and curiosity.46 However, De la Court gave a daringly new interpretation to this Ovidian fable: in his version, Actaeon in fact represented De la Courts own intellectual endeavor. As Actaeon, De la Court claimed, he had revealed the plainness of the bathing Diana and her nymphs who are normally splendidly dressed, for the goddess and the nymphs actually stand for Kings or Queens and their retinue, as well as . . . the Dissimulative Clerics, or the Governors of Ecclesiastical Matters, and their nudity represents Ignorance and Stupidity, Vice and Failings.47 Playing the part of Actaeon, De la Court thus stressed that exposing these weaknesses to the public is at all times a duty, even when confronted with divine wrath or political oppression. Accordingly, where Bacon emphasized the limits to free speech drawn by decorum, De la Court instead claimed the obligation to speak very openly the round truth,48 also, if not
Bacon, Works, 6: 7012, and see Colclough, Freedom of Speech, 6162, 7374. Jacob Cats, Houwelyck (1625), quoted in Eric Jan Sluijter, De Heydensche Fabulen in de Noordnederlandse schilderkunst, circa 15901670 (PhD diss., University of Leiden, 1986), 172: Een beest vol geyle sugt. 47 Sinryke Fabulen, 17580: Diana ende haare Nymphen, zijn by de Ouden alle seer aansienelijke Menschen, ende insonderheid Koningen ofte Koninginnen, ende haar gevolg: als ook daar meede verstaan konnen werden de Beveinsde Geestelijken, ofte de Bestierders der Kerkelijke Saaken . . . Naaktheid ende Onsuiverheid, is Onweetendheid ende Dwaasheid, Ondeugd ende Gebreeken. 48 Politike Weeg-schaal, Inleyding, 3: . . . de ronde waarheid zeer opentlik te spreeken.
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especially, when decorum and respect for the authorities require the opposite. The veil of fables offered him the rhetorical armory to convey this message and express his political criticism, as well as to present himself as the embodiment of exactly this ideal of frankness.49 Liberty of speech, for Bacon a sign of hazardous licentiousness, became for De la Court a virtue that distinguishes the citizens in a true republic from the slavish and apelike subjects of a monarchy.

CONCLUSION Overall, from Bacon to De la Court, the fable comprised a rhetorical gure that dramatized the opposition between liberty and restraint, between truth and dissimulation, and between openness and ambiguity. At the start of the seventeenth century, Bacon, reecting the verdict of classical rhetoric that fables were only apt for a vulgar public, had expressed his preoccupation with the genres capacity to undermine authorial intentions, to enable the reader to make up his own interpretation and to indulge in uncontrolled speech. However, in Boccalini, Vondel, and most manifestly in the work of the brothers De la Court, these elements of the fable were not seen as detrimental but instead as conducive to the authors aims of political critique. Because of its openness to different readings, the fable offered a fac ade behind which the author could escape from the censorship and loathing of his or her inconvenient truths. Yet, at the same time, the meaning and the message of the fable could always be understood as they were meant. As Hegel would say later, the essential skill of the fabulist is that since he is not allowed to articulate his message openly, he can only make it intelligible furtively, like in a riddle which is at the same time always being solved.50 Thus, as a consequence of, rather than despite, its intrinsic opaqueness, the fable entailed a distinct rhetorical move that resulted in an indirect convulsion of traditional authority.51 In an age in which the power of monarchs was represented through clear and direct signs of hierarchy and dependence, this convulsion involved a distinctive political endeavor to construct
Cf. Jennifer London, How To Do Things With Fables: Ibn Al-Muqaffas Frank Speech in Stories from Kal la Wa Dimna, History of Political Thought 29 (2008): 189212. 50 G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetik, 2 vols., ed. Friedrich Bassenge (Frankfurt: Europa ische Verlagsanstalt, [1955]), 1: 376: . . . weil er seine Lehren nicht offen sagen darf, sondern sie nur versteckt, in einem Ra tsel gleichsam, zu verstehen geben kann, das zugleich immer gelo st ist. 51 See Lewis, The English Fable, 3, 20.
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a system of signs and meanings that are constituted horizontally and autonomously. In bestowing the authority of how the text was interpreted not on the author but on the audience, the fable thus played a signicant role in the opening up of the political debate: from a genre that was, as by Vossius, dismissed as being coarse and vulgar, it became a literary means for the deliberate mobilization of this popular public. As numerous fables in De la Courts Sinryke Fabulen reveal, the work was evidently directed to the discursive practices of the civic population of the Dutch towns, as in the emblem of a group of citizens who discuss their citys defense or the one of the conversation between a charcoal burner and a textile entrepreneur (gs. 56). Accordingly, at the end of the seventeenth century, the political fable addressed and represented the emergent reality of a popular public debate. European University Institute.

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FIGURE 1: Joost van den Vondel, Op de Waeg-schaal, 1618. Amsterdam

University Library, OTM: Pr. G16a

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FIGURE 2: Frontispiece to Johan and Pieter de la Court, Polityke

Weegschaal, 1661. Amsterdam University Library, OTM: OG 63-822

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FIGURE 3: The frogs and a log, from Pieter de la Court, Sinryke Fabulen,

1685. Amsterdam University Library, OTM: OK 63-2796

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FIGURE 4: The fox and the mask, from Pieter de la Court, Sinryke Fabulen,

1685. Amsterdam University Library, OTM: OK 63-2796

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FIGURE 5: The guilds and a city, from Pieter de la Court, Sinryke Fabulen, 1685. Amsterdam University Library, OTM: OK 63-2796

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FIGURE 6: The charcoal burner and the textile entrepreneur, from Pieter de la Court, Sinryke Fabulen, 1685. Amsterdam University Library, OTM: OK 63-2796