Classic Poem

Such apt names befall great men
That one doubts whether they are given by chance or reason.
For fortune, although blind, yet presages the future,
And under a prophetic name covers the truth.
And you, to whom alone the republic wished to be entrusted,
May bear to the Dutch either a treaty or a new war.
Not without cause did the captious meeting fall to you,
For your office was written in your double name:
In the last, the messenger of war, but in the first, of peace.
With these keys you control the iron locks of Janus.
Nor is it necessary to commit secret meanings to paper
And to hide allowed deceptions with shifting guile.
Even if you are silent, yet your name is an embassy,
And, just as in secret writing, it bears official words.
Dutchmen, do you wish Oliver or Saint John?
Antiochus stood not in a shorter circle.