Life Is a Dream - Pedro Calderón de la Barca (good books for high schoolers txt) 📗

The translation is comprised in the same number of lines
as the original, and all the preceding remarks on "Life is a Dream",
whether in reference to the period of the first publication of the
drama in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting
this version may be applied to it. As in the Case of "Life is a
Dream", "The Wonderful Magician" has previously been translated
entire by an English writer, ("Justina", by J.H. 1848); but as
Archbishop Trench truly observes, "the writer did not possess that
command of the resources of the English language, which none more
than Calderon requires."

The Legend on which Calderon founded "El Magico Prodigioso" will be
found in Surius, "De probatis Sanctorum historiis", t. V. (Col. Agr.
1574), p. 351: "Vita et Martyrium SS. Cypriani et Justinae, autore
Simeone Metaphraste", and in Chapter cxlii, of the "Legenda Aurea" of
Jacobus de Voragine "De Sancta Justina virgine".

The martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their
festival is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of September.

Mr. Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature, 1863, volume ii. p.
369, says that the Wonder-working Magician is founded on "the same
legend on which Milman has founded his 'Martyr of Antioch.'" This is
a mistake of the learned writer. "The Martyr of Antioch" is founded
not on the history of St. Justina but of Saint Margaret, as Milman
himself expressly states. Chapter xciii., "De Sancta Margareta", in
the "Legenda Aurea" of Jacobus de Voragine contains her story.

The third translation in this volume is that of "The Purgatory of St.
Patrick". This, though perhaps not so famous as the two preceding
dramas, is intended to be given by Don P. De la Escosura, in a
selection of Calderon's finest "comedias", now being edited by him
for the Spanish Academy, as the representative piece of its class -
namely, the mystical drama founded on the lives of Saints. Mr.
Ticknor prefers it to the more celebrated "Devotion of the Cross,"
and says that it "is commonly ranked among the best religious plays
of the Spanish theatre in the seventeenth century."

In all that relates to the famous cave known through the middle ages
as the "Purgatory of Saint Patrick", as well as the Story of Luis
Enius - the Owain Miles of Ancient English poetry - Calderon was
entirely indebted to the little volume published at Madrid, in 1627,
by Juan Perez de Montalvan, entitled "Vida y Purgatorio de San
Patricio". This singular work met with immense success. It went
through innumerable editions, and continues to be reprinted in Spain
as a chap-book, down to the present day. I have the fifth impression
"improved and enlarged by the author himself," Madrid, 1628, the year
after its first appearance: also a later edition, Madrid, 1664. As
early as 1637 a French translation appeared at Brussels by "F. A. S.
Chartreux, a Bruxelles." In 1642 a second French translation was
published at Troyes, by "R. P. Francois Bouillon, de l'Ordre de S.
Francois, et Bachelier de Theologie." Mr. Thomas Wright in his
"Essay on St. Patrick's Purgatory," London, 1844, makes the singular
mistake of supposing that Bouillon's "Histoire de la Vie et
Purgatoire de S. Patrice" was founded on the drama of Calderon, it
being simply a translation of Montalvan's "Vida y Purgatorio," from
which, like itself, Calderon's play was derived. Among other
translations of Montalvan's work may be mentioned one in Dutch
(Brussels, 1668) and one in Portuguese (Lisbon, 1738). It was also
translated into German and Italian, but I find no mention of an
English version. For this reason I have thought that a few extracts
might be interesting, as showing how closely Calderon adhered even to
the language of his predecessor.

In all that relates to the Purgatory, Montalvan's work is itself
chiefly compiled from the "Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum, seu vitae
et Actae sanctorum Hiberniae," Paris, 1624, fol. This work, which
has now become scarce, was written by Thomas Messingham an Irish
priest, the Superior of the Irish Seminary in Paris. No complete
English version appears to have been made of it, but a small tract in
English containing everything in the original work that referred to
St. Patrick's Purgatory was published at Paris in 1718. As this
tract is perhaps more scarce than even the Florilegium itself, the
account of the Purgatory as given by Messingham from the MS. of Henry
of Saltrey is reprinted in the notes to this drama in the quaint
language of the anonymous translator. Of this tract, "printed at
Paris in 1718" without the name of author, publisher or printer, I
have not been able to trace another copy. In other points of
interest connected with Calderon's drama, particularly to the
clearing up of the difficulty hitherto felt as to the confused list
of authorities at the end, the reader is also referred to the notes.

The present version of "The Purgatory of Saint Patrick" is, with the
exception of a few unimportant lines, an entirely new translation.
It is made with the utmost care, imitating all the measures and
contained, like the two preceding dramas, in the exact number of
lines of the original. One passage of the translation which I
published in 1853 is retained in the notes, as a tribute of respect
to the memory of the late John Rutter Chorley, it having been
mentioned with praise by that eminent Spanish scholar in an elaborate
review of my earlier translations from Calderon, which appeared in
the "Athenaeum", Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1853.

It only remains to add that the text I have followed is that of
Hartzenbusch in his edition of Calderon's Comedias, Madrid, 1856
("Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles"). His arrangement of the scenes
has been followed throughout, thus enabling the reader in a moment to
verify for himself the exactness of the translation by a reference to
the original, a crucial test which I rather invite than decline.


CLAPHAM PARK, Easter, 1873.


LIFE IS A DREAM.


TO

DON JUAN EUGENIO HARTZENBUSCH,

POET, DRAMATIST, NOVELIST, AND CRITIC,
THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF LIVING SPANISH WRITERS,

THIS TRANSLATION
INTO ENGLISH IMITATIVE VERSE
OF
CALDERON'S MOST FAMOUS DRAMA,

IS INSCRIBED,
WITH THE ESTEEM AND REGARD
OF
THE AUTHOR.


PERSONS.

* * * * *

BASILIUS, King of Poland.
SIGISMUND, his Son.
ASTOLFO, Duke of Muscovy.
CLOTALDO, a Nobleman.
ESTRELLA, a Princess.
ROSAURA, a Lady.
CLARIN, her Servant.
Soldiers.
Guards.
Musicians.
Attendants.
Ladies.
Servants.

* * * * *

The Scene is in the Court of Poland, in a fortress at some distance,
and in the open field.


LIFE IS A DREAM.

* * * * *

ACT THE FIRST.

At one side a craggy mountain, at the other a tower, the lower part
of which serves as the prison of Sigismund. The door facing the
spectators is half open. The action commences at nightfall.


SCENE I.

ROSAURA, CLARIN.

ROSAURA in man's attire appears on the rocky heights and descends to
the plain. She is followed by CLARIN.

ROSAURA. Wild hippogriff swift speeding,
Thou that dost run, the winged winds exceeding,
Bolt which no flash illumes,
Fish without scales, bird without shifting plumes,
And brute awhile bereft
Of natural instinct, why to this wild cleft,
This labyrinth of naked rocks, dost sweep
Unreined, uncurbed, to plunge thee down the steep?
Stay in this mountain wold,
And let the beasts their Phaeton behold.
For I, without a guide,
Save what the laws of destiny decide,
Benighted, desperate, blind.
Take any path whatever that doth wind
Down this rough mountain to its base,
Whose wrinkled brow in heaven frowns in the sun's bright face.
Ah, Poland! in ill mood
Hast thou received a stranger, since in blood
The name thou writest on thy sands
Of her who hardly here fares hardly at thy hands.
My fate may well say so:-
But where shall one poor wretch find pity in her woe?

CLARIN. Say two, if you please;
Don't leave me out when making plaints like these.
For if we are the two
Who left our native country with the view
Of seeking strange adventures, if we be
The two who, madly and in misery,
Have got so far as this, and if we still
Are the same two who tumbled down this hill,
Does it not plainly to a wrong amount,
To put me in the pain and not in the account?

ROSAURA. I do not wish to impart,
Clarin, to thee, the sorrows of my heart;
Mourning for thee would spoil the consolation
Of making for thyself thy lamentation;
For there is such a pleasure in complaining,
That a philosopher I've heard maintaining
One ought to seek a sorrow and be vain of it,
In order to be privileged to complain of it.

CLARIN. That same philosopher
Was an old drunken fool, unless I err:
Oh, that I could a thousand thumps present him,
In order for complaining to content him!
But what, my lady, say,
Are we to do, on foot, alone, our way
Lost in the shades of night?
For see, the sun descends another sphere to light.

ROSAURA. So strange a misadventure who has seen?
But if my sight deceives me not, between
These rugged rocks, half-lit by the moon's ray
And the declining day,
It seems, or is it fancy? that I see
A human dwelling?

CLARIN. So it seems to me,
Unless my wish the longed-for lodging mocks.

ROSAURA. A rustic little palace 'mid the rocks
Uplifts its lowly roof,
Scarce seen by the far sun that shines aloof.
Of such a rude device
Is the whole structure of this edifice,
That lying at the feet
Of these gigantic crags that rise to greet
The sun's first beams of gold,
It seems a rock that down the mountain rolled.

CLARIN. Let us approach more near,
For long enough we've looked at it from here;
Then better we shall see
If those who dwell therein will generously
A welcome give us.

ROSAURA. See an open door
(Funereal mouth 'twere best the name it bore),
From which as from a womb
The night is born, engendered in its gloom.

[The sound of chains is heard within.]

CLARIN. Heavens! what is this I hear?

ROSAURA. Half ice, half fire, I stand transfixed with fear.

CLARIN. A sound of chains, is it not?
Some galley-slave his sentence here hath got;
My fear may well suggest it so may be.


* * * * *


SCENE II.

SIGISMUND, [in the tower.] ROSAURA, CLARIN.

SIGISMUND [within]. Alas! Ah, wretched me! Ah, wretched me!

ROSAURA. Oh what a mournful wail!
Again my pains, again my fears prevail.

CLARIN. Again with fear I die.

ROSAURA. Clarin!

CLARIN. My lady!

ROSAURA.