WANDERING WOODS AGAIN 59
formed by Poliziano; and this is clear from what Vossius liked in the
poem: the intricate Greek periphrases for the names of some friends,
and especially the catalogue of classical authors; also the digression
about Grotius’ wife which had moved Vossius to tears. Others joined
the chorus of praise. Of them the French Ambassador Du Maurier
singled out the didactic and poetical elements of the poem for praise,
together with its broad application.^46 All these ingredients suggest the
idea of one, ambitious composition in the Politianic vein, rather than a
poem within a book of improvised or occasional poetry.
Let us return to Grotius’ early poems. Grotius later claimed always
to have liked Statius, and in his youth he demonstrated, like Poliziano,
that the Statius of the Silvae is apt for imitation.^47 The 1601 epicedion
for Geertrui van Oldenbarnevelt, the daughter of Grotius’ patron, for
instance, is almost a pastiche of Statius.^48 For his epithalamia, the
situation is somewhat different. Grotius wrote five or six of them: one
in 1600, two in 1603, one in 1606, one in 1608, and a whole series of
wedding poems on his friend Pottei in 1604 which is an imitation of
Claudian’s Fescennina de nuptiis Honorii. There is a certain evolution
in this series: almost all take Statius’ Epithalamium Stellae as their
ago gratias. Equidem multum in ea me delectavit. Cuiusmodi si primum calorem
atque impetum secutus facis, quod Sylvae nomen ostendit, quid fuisset si lenta Maro-
nis cura placuisset? ... Statium sane longe post te relinquere mihi videris” (my italics
HJvD). Note the allusion in the last sentence to Thebais 12.816–7 nec tu diuinam
Aeneida tempta, / sed longe sequere et uestigia semper adora, also employed, for
instance, by Wower in a liminal poem for Vulcanius’ edition of Agathias: “Iamnunc
Aonia crinem circumdate serta./ Salve, te veneror, vestigia semper adorans”.
46 Grotius Correspondence no 673, 04.VIII.1621 (p. 115) “... la belle et rare pièce
.. une très belle et proffitable leçon, qui comprend tout ce que l’homme peut et doit
apprendre, pour estre proffitable non seulement à celuy auquel ell’est adressée, mais
aussy à toutes les ames bien nées et enclines aux lettres”.
47 Grotius Correspondence no 2815, 28.X.1636 (p. 468), to Gronovius “horas
Statianis foliis impendis, valde id me iuvat, qui scriptorem illum etiam in illo versuum
genere cum mira maiestate floridum colui semper”, also no 3377, 10.XII.1637 (p.
779 ), to Gronovius “Papinium ... magni feci semper”, no 4175, 18.VI.1639 (407), to
Claude Sarrau “Inspexi Silvarum Statianarum amati semper mihi operis loca”.
48 Some examples: Aspice si perfers nigrae sollemnia pompae / tristesque exse-
quias et matronale feretrum / ... desolatosque penates (Grotius 20–4) // ipse etenim
tecum nigrae sollemnia pompae / spectatumque Vrbi scelus et puerile feretrum / ...
desolatique penates (Silv. 2.1.19–20, 67). Also: Livida non aliam quaerunt dum fata
nocendi / invenere viam, quamquam quid non licet illis? / Quis tamen e variis tam
tristia vulnera casus / eligit (Grotius 51–4) // Inuenere uiam liuentia Fata (Silv.
5.1.145), Quis deus aut quisnam tam tristia uulnera casus / eligit. (Silv. 2.6.58–9, 68–
70).