post-colonial_translation

Composing the other 81
on p. 4), nor are references to ancient history (on pp. 4–5 early voyagers
to the East or their patrons are listed: Ninus, Semiramis, Sesostris,
Hieram, Alexander the Great and Ptolemy Philadelphus), or classical
allusions (on p. 126 Van den Broeck, one of the ‘heroes’ of the
Maatschappij, is likened to the Roman general Regulus, who was also
captured and tortured by the enemy, but remained steadfast and refused
to betray his countrymen. Similarly, on p. 239, the ‘Batavier’, or
inhabitant of Batavia, who goes for an afternoon outing in the country,
is metamorphosed into Lysias: ‘Love here plays its part, the tall tamarind
trees / And dark shadows please Lysias, / Where he makes his beauty lie
down on the shore of the lake’).
De Marre makes frequent use of the most obvious epic tool to change
a topic, or a scene, or both: visions and dreams abound in the six books
of his Batavia. First, on p. 17, the ‘Koopvaardij’ [Commerce] appears
to a gathering of Dutch merchants, to prophesy a glorious future and
to announce the imminent birth of the Maatschappij (p. 20), to which
the Koopvaardij ‘completely unexpectedly’ (sic, p. 23) gives birth three
pages later. Needless to say, to continue the allegory, the Koopvaardij
sends out the Maatschappij to the East on p. 28. Similarly, the whole of
Book III is one long vision, in which Jan Pieterszoon Koen, arguably
the most important of the early governors general dispatched to India
by the Maatschappij, tells its history in the East to the author, who is
taking his siesta, exhausted after a morning walk through Batavia.
Within that vision a Malay priest has another vision and prophesies
the coming of Islam (pp. 110–12). To round off the historical dimension,
a fair part of Book VI (pp. 278–305) is devoted to the history of the
Maatschappij’s unlucky counterpart, the ‘West Indische Compagnie
(WIG)’, who never even approached its/her ‘sister’s’ wealth and glory
after an unsuccessful attempt at establishing itself in Brazil. Allegory
also reappears with Fight and Discord, who incite the Indian rulers to
attack the Maatschappij (p. 108). Envy and Discord, on the other hand,
are made responsible for the débâcle of the West Indische Maatschappij
in Brazil.
Other stock epic elements in Batavia are the obligatory praises of
tea (p. 56), coffee (pp. 57–9) and even opium (pp. 71–2): ‘But when, o
salutary juice, through your so miraculous power / Sickness flees; when
you soften the starkest pain’. Not surprisingly, de Marre has also
peppered his epic with the requisite Homeric similes, although most of
them appear to be concentrated in Book III. There is the simile of the
lion (twice: pp. 96 and 120), of the peasant (twice: pp. 114 and 278), of
the sailor (twice: pp. 118 and 134), of the sea itself (p. 124), lightning