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

assisted.
Nay, ere yet to life's sweet life
Gave him forth her womb, that living
Sepulchre (for death and life
Have like ending and beginning),
Many a time his mother saw
In her dreams' delirious dimness
From her side a monster break,
Fashioned like a man, but sprinkled
With her blood, who gave her death,
By that human viper bitten.
Round his birthday came at last,
All its auguries fulfilling
(For the presages of evil
Seldom fail or even linger):
Came with such a horoscope,
That the sun rushed blood-red tinted
Into a terrific combat
With the dark moon that resisted;
Earth its mighty lists outspread
As with lessening lights diminished
Strove the twin-lamps of the sky.
'Twas of all the sun's eclipses
The most dreadful that it suffered
Since the hour its bloody visage
Wept the awful death of Christ.
For o'erwhelmed in glowing cinders
The great orb appeared to suffer
Nature's final paroxysm.
Gloom the glowing noontide darkened,
Earthquake shook the mightiest buildings,
Stones the angry clouds rained down,
And with blood ran red the rivers.
In this frenzy of the sun,
In its madness and delirium,
Sigismund was born, thus early
Giving proofs of his condition,
Since his birth his mother slew,
Just as if these words had killed her,
"I am a man, since good with evil
I repay here from the beginning,"-
I, applying to my studies,
Saw in them as 'twere forewritten
This, that Sigismund would be
The most cruel of all princes,
Of all men the most audacious,
Of all monarchs the most wicked;
That his kingdom through his means
Would be broken and partitioned,
The academy of the vices,
And the high school of sedition;
And that he himself, borne onward
By his crimes' wild course resistless,
Would even place his feet on me;
For I saw myself down-stricken,
Lying on the ground before him
(To say this what shame it gives me!)
While his feet on my white hairs
As a carpet were imprinted.
Who discredits threatened ill,
Specially an ill previsioned
By one's study, when self-love
Makes it his peculiar business?-
Thus then crediting the fates
Which far off my science witnessed,
All these fatal auguries
Seen though dimly in the distance,
I resolved to chain the monster
That unhappily life was given to,
To find out if yet the stars
Owned the wise man's weird dominion.
It was publicly proclaimed
That the sad ill-omened infant
Was stillborn. I then a tower
Caused by forethought to be builded
'Mid the rocks of these wild mountains
Where the sunlight scarce can gild it,
Its glad entrance being barred
By these rude shafts obeliscal.
All the laws of which you know,
All the edicts that prohibit
Anyone on pain of death
That secluded part to visit
Of the mountain, were occasioned
By this cause, so long well hidden.
There still lives Prince Sigismund,
Miserable, poor, in prison.
Him alone Clotaldo sees,
Only tends to and speaks with him;
He the sciences has taught him,
He the Catholic religion
Has imparted to him, being
Of his miseries the sole witness.
Here there are three things: the first
I rate highest, since my wishes
Are, O Poland, thee to save
From the oppression, the affliction
Of a tyrant King, because
Of his country and his kingdom
He were no benignant father
Who to such a risk could give it.
Secondly, the thought occurs
That to take from mine own issue
The plain right that every law
Human and divine hath given him
Is not Christian charity;
For by no law am I bidden
To prevent another proving,
Say, a tyrant, or a villain,
To be one myself: supposing
Even my son should be so guilty,
That he should not crimes commit
I myself should first commit them.
Then the third and last point is,
That perhaps I erred in giving
Too implicit a belief
To the facts foreseen so dimly;
For although his inclination
Well might find its precipices,
He might possibly escape them:
For the fate the most fastidious,
For the impulse the most powerful.
Even the planets most malicious
Only make free will incline,
But can force not human wishes.
And thus 'twist these different causes
Vacillating and unfixed,
I a remedy have thought of
Which will with new wonder fill you.
I to-morrow morning purpose,
Without letting it be hinted
That he is my son, and therefore
Your true King, at once to fix him
As King Sigismund (for the name
Still he bears that first was given him)
'Neath my canopy, on my throne,
And in fine in my position,
There to govern and command you,
Where in dutiful submission
You will swear to him allegiance.
My resources thus are triple,
As the causes of disquiet
Were which I revealed this instant.
The first is; that he being prudent,
Careful, cautious and benignant,
Falsifying the wild actions
That of him had been predicted,
You'll enjoy your natural prince,
He who has so long been living
Holding court amid these mountains,
With the wild beasts for his circle.
Then my next resource is this:
If he, daring, wild, and wicked,
Proudly runs with loosened rein
O'er the broad plain of the vicious,
I will have fulfilled the duty
Of my natural love and pity;
Then his righteous deposition
Will but prove my royal firmness,
Chastisement and not revenge
Leading him once more to the prison.
My third course is this: the Prince
Being what my words have pictured,
From the love I owe you, vassals,
I will give you other princes
Worthier of the crown and sceptre;
Namely, my two sisters' children,
Who their separate pretensions
Having happily commingled
By the holy bonds of marriage,
Will then fill their fit position.
This is what a king commands you,
This is what a father bids you,
This is what a sage entreats you,
This is what an old man wishes;
And as Seneca, the Spaniard,
Says, a king for all his riches
Is but slave of his Republic,
This is what a slave petitions.

[footnote] *The metre changes here to the "asonante" in "i-e", or
their vocal equivalents, and is kept up for the remainder of the Act.

ASTOLFO. If on me devolves the answer,
As being in this weighty business
The most interested party,
I, of all, express the opinion:-
Let Prince Sigismund appear;
He's thy son, that's all-sufficient.

ALL. Give to us our natural prince,
We proclaim him king this instant!

BASILIUS. Vassals, from my heart I thank you
For this deference to my wishes:-
Go, conduct to their apartments
These two columns of my kingdom,
On to-morrow you shall see him.

ALL. Live, long live great King Basilius!

[Exeunt all, accompanying ESTRELLA and ASTOLFO;
The King remains.]


* * * * *


SCENE VII.

CLOTALDO, ROSAURA, CLARIN, and BASILIUS.

CLOTALDO. May I speak to you, sire?

BASILIUS. Clotaldo,
You are always welcome with me.

CLOTALDO. Although coming to your feet
Shows how freely I'm admitted,
Still, your majesty, this once,
Fate as mournful as malicious
Takes from privilege its due right,
And from custom its permission.

BASILIUS. What has happened?

CLOTALDO. A misfortune,
Sire, which has my heart afflicted
At the moment when all joy
Should have overflown and filled it.

BASILIUS. Pray proceed.

CLOTALDO. This handsome youth here,
Inadvertently, or driven
By his daring, pierced the tower,
And the Prince discovered in it.
Nay . . . .

BASILIUS. Clotaldo, be not troubled
At this act, which if committed
At another time had grieved me,
But the secret so long hidden
Having myself told, his knowledge
Of the fact but matters little.
See me presently, for I
Much must speak upon this business,
And for me you much must do
For a part will be committed
To you in the strangest drama
That perhaps the world e'er witnessed.
As for these, that you may know
That I mean not your remissness
To chastise, I grant their pardon.
[Exit.]

CLOTALDO. Myriad years to my lord be given!


* * * * *


SCENE VIII.

CLOTALDO, ROSAURA, and CLARIN.

CLOTALDO [aside]. Heaven has sent a happier fate;
Since I need not now admit it,
I'll not say he is my son.-
Strangers who have wandered hither,
You are free.

ROSAURA. I give your feet
A thousand kisses.

CLARIN. I say misses,
For a letter more or less
'Twixt two friends is not considered.

ROSAURA. You have given me life, my lord,
And since by your act I'm living,
I eternally will own me
As your slave.

CLOTALDO. The life I've given
Is not really your true life,
For a man by birth uplifted
If he suffers an affront
Actually no longer liveth;
And supposing you have come here
For revenge as you have hinted,
I have not then given you life,
Since you have not brought it with you,
For no life disgraced is life.-
[Aside.] (This I say to arouse his spirit.)

ROSAURA. I confess I have it not,
Though by you it has been given me;
But revenge being wreaked, my honour
I will leave so pure and limpid,
All its perils overcome,
That my life may then with fitness
Seem to be a gift of yours.

CLOTALDO. Take this burnished sword which hither
You brought with you; for I know,
To revenge you, 'tis sufficient,
In your enemy's blood bathed red;
For a sword that once was girded
Round me (I say this the while
That to me it was committed),
Will know how to right you.

ROSAURA. Thus
In your name once more I gird it,
And on it my vengeance swear,
Though the enemy who afflicts me
Were more powerful.

CLOTALDO. Is he so?

ROSAURA. Yes; so powerful, I am hindered
Saying who he is, not doubting
Even for greater things your wisdom
And calm prudence, but through fear
Lest against me your prized pity
Might be turned.

CLOTALDO. 'Twill rather be,
By declaring it, more kindled;
Otherwise you bar the passage
'Gainst your foe of my assistance.-
[Aside.] (Would that I but knew his name!)

ROSAURA. Not to think I set so little
Value on such confidence,
Know my enemy and my victim
Is no less than Prince Astolfo,
Duke of Muscovy.

CLOTALDO [aside]. Resistance
Badly can my grief supply
Since 'tis heavier than I figured.
Let us sift the matter deeper.-
If a Muscovite by birth, then
He who is your natural lord
Could not 'gainst you have committed
Any wrong; reseek your country,
And abandon the wild impulse
That has driven you here.

ROSAURA. I know,
Though a prince, he has committed
'Gainst me a great wrong.

CLOTALDO. He could not,
Even although your face was stricken
By his angry hand. [Aside.] (Oh, heavens!)

ROSAURA. Mine's a wrong more deep and bitter.

CLOTALDO. Tell it, then; it cannot be
Worse than what my fancy pictures.

ROSAURA. I will tell it; though I know not,
With the respect your presence gives me,
With the affection you awaken,
With the esteem