Liefde en Plig

Liefde en Plig ("Love and Duty") a play in verse by Jan F.E. Celliers (1865-1940).

The original text
Written in 1909, this was the first play in verse in Afrikaans. Set in the Anglo Boer War, it tells of a young man's conflict between his feelings for his beloved and his sense of duty urging him to go fight in the war.

Published as Liefde en plig, subtitled an "Afrikaans toneelspel in vier bedrijwe" ("Afrikaans play in four acts") in Amsterdam by the Maatschappij voor goede en goedkoope lectuur, possibly in 1909.

Liefde en Plig: 'n toneelspel in vier bedrywe vir 15 here en 2 dames en enige figurante, now credited to Jan F.E. Celliers, Martie de Villiers and De Wet Laubscher is also catalogued as a publication by H.A.U.M., listed as part of their series of texts called Suid-Afrikaanse Toneel (it is appeared as no's. 23, 43, 54 respectively and first appeared in  1920). This was most probably an linguistically updated, fully Afrikaans, version based on the original early, Dutch influenced, version of 1909.

The second act of the play was also anthologised in the collection Afrikaanse Letterkunde by D.F. Malherbe (1927).