Gestrande walvis bij Beverwijk, 1601, Inventarisnummer NL-HlmNHA 53003806

Translation

To the illustrious and generous Ernest, Count of Nassau, etc.,
most valiant hero and most fierce defender of Belgian liberty,
these elements of physics, this monster seen from the water, this monster
from this plate, [I], Saenredam, dedicate and present.

In the year 1601, on the 19th of December, this great cetacean beast
came from the Ocean, through the strait of Spain, toward the North,
and struck the Holland coast at Beverwijk:
its length equaled 60 feet, width 14, height 12, girth of body 34,
width of tail 14, opening of the mouth 12 feet: according to the
proportion of its members, [presented] in this little museum for the curious to behold, and [brought] to
final perfection.

Joannes Saenredam invented
and engraved [it] in the year 1602.

The African wind, with a gathering gale, drove this dangerous whale,
terrifying with its gaping maw every species of swimmer,
sweeping the shallows with its tail, and cutting through the waves,
turning its oblique course toward the Batavian shores;

There, it entered the shallows, and became surrounded by a bank of sand:
to which, as soon as it reached the fatal ground and the shallow shifting sands,
it strove to return to the treacherous straits, its refuge, with effort,
seeking the deeps, and tracing the thin sands with the toil of its tail,

Lashing out, in vain, so that the breeze might cast it back into the ocean.
And leaning upon its right side, its very entrails gaping,
it ruptures; the whole sky bellows with a horrific sound;
Flying on feathered wings, Fame rushes through the Batavian cities,

The peoples gather in varied throngs upon the shore:
They marvel at the bulk of the beast, and its obscene phallus,
and its formless form, and the chasm leading into its viscera,
and its jaws dripping with hunger and stagnant blood.

Scarcely had the pale Phoebe fled in her astonished heat
O you who shake the fragments of the monster-bearing tide,
fragile [islands], encircling all the fields with your salt,
Great Father, whatever is signified by this monster,

Whether it is some fate for the Fatherland and the Batavian people,
Or threats, we ask for your mercy in this matter;
For if the prophecies of the seers have any power at all;
They are proofs of your wrath, and of future slaughters.

As many as the tufts of grass on the shore, does this monster
signify so many slaughters and killings to follow?
No less a dire omen for miserable mortals is this,
We saw Phoebe’s face obscured by a rust-colored gloom,

And the day of fate in darkness, and the labors of the Moon:
And the struggling [stars], the tottering climates of the world:
Lest devouring time ever take these portents
from memory, Saenredam has consigned them to be preserved in eternal records.

In Amsterdam, Joannes Janssonius published [this] in the year 1618.

Linked Data

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