Bronze bust of the poet Sidronius Hosschius

Stationsstraat z.nr./ Boterbloemstraat. Bronze bust of the poet Sidronius Hosschius (1596-1653). Syderoen de Ho(o)sche (later Latinized as Sidronius Hosschius) was born in the Groenestraat (cf. Groenestraat no. 39) on 20 January 1596 as the son of Syderoen de Ho(o)sche and Jo(o)ssyne Caeyaert. After studying humanities at the Jesuit College in Ypres and studying philosophy in Douai, he entered the Jesuit order in Mechelen at the age of twenty. Four years later, in 1620, he moved to the college of 's Hertogenbosch where he started teaching. In 1623 he began studying theology at the University of Louvain. After completing his studies, he was appointed prefect of studies in 's Hertogenbosch in 1628. However, because of the struggle between the Northern Provinces and the Southern Netherlands, he had to leave 's Hertogenbosch and return to the Jesuit College in Ghent. In 1634 he began his career as a poet, with which he quickly gained international fame. He mainly writes elegies (long and heavy verses) in which he glorifies nature, God and ancient Rome. In 1647 he was appointed steward of the court by Leopold-Wilhelm, governor of the Southern Netherlands. On 4 September 1653 he died as superior of the Jesuit community in Tongeren. In 1844 a village pump with a bronze bust was inaugurated in front of the church of Merkem in honour of the poet Sidronius Hosschius from Merkem, designed by the sculptor P. De Vigne (Ghent). During the First World War, the pump was destroyed along with the bust and not replaced. However, the basis of this village pump would go down in history as the so-called "Stone of Merkem". In the course of 1917, Flemish soldiers who stood up for the application of the language laws in the army wrote in red paint "here our blood, when our right" as a form of protest. This "Stone of Merkem" was transferred in 1933 to the crypt of the Yser Tower in Kaaskerke (Diksmuide). In August 1986, the municipality took the initiative to erect this new bust on the corner of Stationsstraat / Boterbloemstraat. Bronze bust of Sidronius Hosschius on a heavy brick pedestal with the following inscriptions, in front: "SIDRONIUS HOSSCHIUS, LATIN POET, BORN IN MERKEM - 1596, DIED IN TONGEREN - 1653, FOUNDED THE MUNICIPALITY - 1844, RE-ESTABLISHED THE MUNICIPALITY - 1986, THE HEEMKRING VAN MERKEM", left on marble slab "IN THE CENTURY, WHOSE SPLENDOUR STILL SPARKLES ON US, WHERE THE SPIRIT OF RUBENS CREATED, GLEAMED GRANDLY THY NAME THAT DOES NOT DARKEN: THOU AWAKENED NAZO'S LYRE, WHO SLEPT" TEXT 1844 - DE HEEMKRING 1996 - DE GEMEENTE", on the right of ditto plate: "FAMOUS POET IN WHOSE TONES ONE FINDS ANCIENT ROME AGAIN, 'T KLEIN MERCKEM REJOICES FOR YOUR CROWNS AND PROUDLY SAYS: HE IS MY CHILD". DEBAEKE S., LERMYTTE J., Merkem in the spotlight, the village anno 1900, during the Great War and the reconstruction, Veurne, 1995, p. 48-52.

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