post-colonial_translation

Composing the other 85
be turned against him. This is how he describes the operations of the
Portuguese in India (p. 8):
O glorious Indus! how you did [didst thou] curse the hour
In which a people sick for gold first discovered your shores,
And, in the guise of help, brought about your destruction,
Divided your kings, to achieve, by evil cunning,
Victory in their mutual discord.
Van Haren’s Agon, on the other hand, sees through the cycle. He tells
his adopted daughter Fathema: ‘This might of Holland, now so to be
feared by us / I have known before in the hand of the Portuguese’ (p.
235b). He goes on to say that Portugal ‘quickly saw the East diminish
its power / As soon as riches had brought luxury and rest’ (p. 235b),
and laments that his fellow rulers do not see the opportunity this affords
them: ‘But the East, more intent to avenge itself on them / Than to break
through Europe’s discord Europe’s might, / Instead of becoming free,
as before / Just bought a new Lord for more blood’ (p. 236a). He predicts
the fall of the Dutch in a never-ending cycle, but one that will not bring
any advantage to the peoples of Asia themselves: ‘Batavia already sees
its walls weakening, / Because of a bastardized offspring, that will also
fall quickly / When another Nordic brood comes from the West again’
(p. 236b). The allusion is to the British, and both the British and the
Portuguese are the ghostly ‘others’ all through Batavia. The Portuguese
are the example not to follow; the British are the future to be feared.
Interestingly, Agon, the prototype of the wise ruler in the neo-classical
drama of Europe, also understands that the Asians cannot do to the
Europeans what the Europeans do to them. When his younger son
Hassan suggests (p. 243b):
We have the French here, the British, and the Danes,
Who outwardly always seemed to act in your interest,
Although all Christians are as hot to plunder.
People say they are attached to law and superstition;
Maybe if we gave them a place here
To live free according to their law and rituals,
Or offered trade to one people only . . .
Agon answers (p. 243b):