Jakob Cats

Jakob Cats Poems

When Cupid open'd shop, the trade he chose
Was just the very one you might suppose.
Love keep a shop?—his trade, oh! quickly name!
...

Jakob Cats Biography

Jacob Cats (10 November 1577, Brouwershaven (Zeeland) - 12 September 1660, the Hague) was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books. Having lost his mother at an early age, and being adopted with his three brothers by an uncle, Cats was sent to school at Zierikzee. He then studied law at Leiden and at Orléans, and, returning to Holland, he settled at the Hague, where he began to practise as an advocate. His pleading in defence of a person accused of witchcraft brought him many clients and some reputation. He had a serious love affair about this time, which was broken off on the very eve of marriage by his catching a tertian fever which defied all attempts at cure for some two years. For medical advice and change of air Cats went to England, where he consulted the highest authorities in vain. He returned to Zeeland to die, but was cured mysteriously with the powder of a travelling doctor (later sources claim he was a quack). He married in 1602 a lady of some property, Elizabeth van Valkenburg, and thenceforward lived at Grijpskerke in Zeeland, where he devoted himself to farming and poetry. Diplomatic career In 1621, on the expiration of the twelve year truce with Spain, the breaking of the dykes drove him from his farm. He was made pensionary (stipendiary magistrate) of Middelburg; and two years afterwards of Dordrecht. In 1627 Cats came to England on a mission to Charles I, who made him a knight. In 1636 he was made Grand Pensionary of Holland, and in 1648 keeper of the great seal; in 1651 he resigned his offices, but in 1657 he was sent a second time to England on what proved to be an unsuccessful mission to Oliver Cromwell. In the seclusion of his villa of Sorgvliet (Fly-from-Care), near the Hague, he lived from this time till his death, occupied in the composition of his autobiography (Eighty-two Years of My Life, first printed at Leiden in 1734) and of his poems. He became famous in his own lifetime from his moralistic Emblem books, most notably Sinne en Minnebeelden, for which Adrian van der Venne cut the plates. He died on 12 September 1660, and was buried by torchlight, and with great ceremony, in the Klooster-Kerk at the Hague. He is still spoken of as Father Cats by his countrymen. Cats was contemporary with Hooft and Vondel and other distinguished Dutch writers in the golden age of Dutch literature, but his Orangist and Calvinistic opinions separated him from the liberal school of Amsterdam poets. He was, however, intimate with Constantijn Huygens, whose political opinions were more nearly in agreement with his own. Hardly known outside of Holland, among his own people for nearly two centuries he enjoyed an enormous popularity. His diffuseness and the antiquated character of his matter and diction, have, however, come to be regarded as difficulties in the way of study, and he is more renowned than read. A statue to him was erected at Brouwershaven in 1829.)

The Best Poem Of Jakob Cats

Smoke Is The Food Of Lovers

When Cupid open'd shop, the trade he chose
Was just the very one you might suppose.
Love keep a shop?—his trade, oh! quickly name!
A dealer in tobacco—fie, for shame!
No less than true, and set aside all joke,
From oldest time he ever dealt in smoke;
Than smoke, no other thing he sold, or made;
Smoke all the substance of his stock in trade;
His capital all smoke, smoke all his store,
'Twas nothing else; but lovers ask no more—
And thousands enter daily at his door!
Hence it was ever, and it e'er will be
The trade most suited to his faculty:
Fed by the vapors of their heart's desire,
No other food his votaries require;
For that they seek—the favor of the fair—
Is unsubstantial as the smoke and air.

Jakob Cats Comments

Jakob Cats Popularity

Jakob Cats Popularity

Close
Error Success