O Lord, let me obtain this from Thee · To live with patience, and to die with pleasure

The couplet “O Lord, let me obtain this from Thee” and “To live with patience, and to die with pleasure!” is presented by Hilda van Gleck’s father as a concise expression of Jakob Cats’s wisdom. Its pairing of patient living with a peaceful approach to death gives the prayer its distinctive balance: endurance is asked for across the whole span of life, not merely in a passing hardship.

The Couplet in Context

Hilda’s father recites the lines during a Saint Nicholas celebration, while speaking admiringly of Cats to the children. He calls Cats a great poet whose work offers “great wisdom in little bundles,” and introduces the couplet as an example of that compact wisdom. The request is explicitly directed to God, making patience and a pleasurable death matters sought through prayer rather than achievements claimed for oneself.

Patience as Active Virtue

The speech immediately guards against reading patience as passivity. Hilda’s father asks whether it meant “folding his hands,” then answers by listing Cats’s many occupations: lawyer, statesman, ambassador, farmer, philosopher, historian, poet, and keeper of the Great Seal of Holland. In this context, the couplet’s patience belongs alongside a life of varied public and practical work; it does not imply withdrawal from the world.

The scene also gives the saying an informal, domestic setting. As Hilda’s father tries to continue his lecture, the children’s noisy play grows until he leaves the room, and their merriment takes over. The prayer is thus framed by both solemn reflection and lively celebration, while its memorable compression exemplifies the everyday moral wisdom he values in Cats.