Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Medicinal and Sacred Drugs
- Part III Divine Blood for Sale
- Appendix I ‘Rariteiten te koop’
- Appendix II Family and business network of Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of poems by Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Plate Section
2 - The sober druggist
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Medicinal and Sacred Drugs
- Part III Divine Blood for Sale
- Appendix I ‘Rariteiten te koop’
- Appendix II Family and business network of Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of poems by Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Plate Section
Summary
Abstract
In this chapter, I discuss the meanings of ‘druggist’, ‘drug’ and ‘spice’ in the early modern Dutch Republic, with a view, on the one hand, to locating the druggist-poet Joannes Six van Chandelier within a socio-medical landscape and, on the other, to determining what associations the druggist’s ‘dry spices’ had for his contemporaries. In contrast to the view that literary historians have taken of Six’s profession, as an everyday activity from which he derived his realistic view of life, I argue that the drug trade was a cause for concern among readers of his poems who were focused on whether it was morally acceptable. ‘Spices’ and ‘drugs’ were associated with strangeness and opulence, and even the miraculous. In order to avoid these negative associations, then, Six presented himself in many of his poems as a sober and rational druggist-poet.
Keywords: Drugs, spices, medical profession, panacea, hemp, self-presentation
Wat mannen sie ik in dit boek,
Wyl ik syn geestenhof doorsoek!
Hier schynt een heemelsch hof vol licht
Van sonne, maane, en stargesigt,
En alles geeft zo schoonen glans,
Slechts tot meer luisters eenes mans.
Hoe past myn naam in deese saal?
Syn kaars licht niet by zulk gestraal.
Neen, Heiblok, ik blyf hier van daan:
Een koopman mag by koopmans staan.
What men do I see in this book,
As I search through this court of spirits!
A heavenly court full of light is shining here
From faces of the sun, the moon and the stars,
And everything gives off a beautiful sheen,
Which only strengthens the illustriousness of these men.
How does my name belong in this hall?
Its candlelight cannot be seen against all this brilliance.
No, Heiblok, I shall stay away from this court:
A merchant should stay among merchants.
– Joannes Six van ChandelierThe social standing of the druggist
The meanings of ‘merchant’ and ‘druggist’ were ambiguous concepts in the early modern Republic. ‘Op quaade tongen’ (‘On Evil Tongues’) (J229) delves directly into this reality. The text says a lot about the reception of Six’s poems among his contemporaries, and will therefore form the starting point for the theme of this chapter: the social prestige of the druggist-poet Joannes Six van Chandelier.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dangerous DrugsThe Self-Presentation of the Merchant-Poet Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620–1695), pp. 65 - 88Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020