Pedro Calderón de la Barca

“ CYPRIAN. Thou dost owe Him that, Justina, For thy God was thy defender, He watched o'er thee in His goodness. Get my prayers to Him accepted. JUSTINA. Pray with faith, and He will listen. CYPRIAN. Then with that I will address Him. Though a fear, that's not despair, Makes me for my great sins tremble. JUSTINA. Oh! have confidence. CYPRIAN. My crimes are So immense. JUSTINA. But more immense are His great mercies. CYPRIAN. Then, will He Pardon have on me? JUSTINA. 'Tis certain. CYPRIAN. How, if my soul surrendered To the Demon's self, as purchase Of thy beauty? ”

“ And have alive his Purgatory here.
KING. And dost thou think, O Patrick, that I owe
My blood so little, as to yield to dread,
And trembling fear like a weak woman show?
Say, who shall be the first this cave to tread?
What silent! Philip?
PHILIP. Sire, I dare not go.
KING. Then, Captain, thou?
CAPTAIN. Enough to strike me dead
Is even the thought.
KING. Leogaire, thou'lt surely dare?
LEOGAIRE. The heavens, my lord, themselves exclaim forbear!
KING. O cowards, lost to every sense of shame,
Unfit to gird the warrior's sword around
Your shrinking loins! Men are ye but in name. ”

“ To form a notion of what manner of man Calderon was, we must imagine a writer hardly inferior to Shakespeare in fertility of invention and dramatic insight, inspired by a religious fervour like that of Doune or Crashaw, and endowed with the wild and ethereal imagination of Shelley. But the religious fervour is Catholic, not Protestant, Southern, not Northern: it is intense, mystical, and ecstatic: like a tongue of upward-darting flame, it burns and trembles with impassioned impulse to mingle with empyrean fire. ”

“ SEG. Oh, rather pray for me a sleep so fast As shall obliterate dream and waking too. (Exit into the tower.) CLO. So sleep; sleep fast: and sleep away those two Night-potions, and the waking dream between Which dream thou must believe; and, if to see Again, poor Segismund! that dream must be.— And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives, Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake, How if our waking life, like that of sleep, Be all a dream in that eternal life To which we wake not till we sleep in death? ”

“ To the works that Patrick worketh.
Since they'd say, who worship only
Their own vices most immodest,
Who deny unto the soul
Its eternal joy or torment,
"Of what use is Patrick's preaching
That man's soul must be immortal,
If the Christian, Luis Enius,
Kills himself? He can't acknowledge
Its eternal life who'd lose it."—
Thus with actions so discordant,
He the light and I the shadow,
We would neutralize each other.
'Tis enough to be so wicked
As even now to feel no sorrow,
No repentance for past sins,
Rather a desire for others. ”

“ I can follow to the brink, Free to pause or to pursue, Move my foot, or backward shrink, For it is one thing to do, And another thing to think. DEMON. If a stronger power than thine, Drawn from a profounder source, With thine own desires combine, How resist the double force Which with force thy steps incline? JUSTINA. I will trust a safer spell:— My free will suffices me. DEMON. But my power will it excel. JUSTINA. Then the will no more were free If a force could it compel. DEMON. Come where every bliss thou'lt meet. ”

“ On that same self-same festival, in a northern land, under a gray and clouded sky, in the heart of a city most unlike gay, garden-hued, out-of-door Madrid, we have spent the long hours over these resurrected dramas, and the spell of both the poets is still upon us, as we unite together, in dutiful juxtaposition, the names of Calderon and Mac-Carthy.
"How richly gifted was this Spanish priest-poet! this pious playwright! this moral mechanist! this devout dramatist! How rare his experience! how broad the contrasts of his career, and of his observation. . . . . Happy poet! ”

“ LELIUS. Cyprian, although respect Which on many grounds I give thee, Holds my sword suspended thus In due deference for an instant,— To the scabbard's calm repose It hath got no power to win it. Thou of science knowest more, Than the duel, pretermitting This, that when two nobles meet In the field, no power can link them Friends again, save this, that one Must his life give as a victim. FLORUS. This I also say, and ask thee, With thy people, that thou quittest, Leaving us to end our quarrel Without any help or hindrance. ”

“ SEG. For you know 'Tis nothing but a dream? CLO. Nay, you yourself Know best how lately you awoke from that You know you went to sleep on?— Why, have you never dreamt the like before? SEG. Never, to such reality. CLO. Such dreams Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations Of that ambition that lies smouldering Under the ashes of the lowest fortune; By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost The reins of sensible comparison, We fly at something higher than we are— Scarce ever dive to lower—to be kings, Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold, Nay, mounting heaven itself on eagle wings. ”

“ He who could Snatch Justina from thy clutches, Can He not, too, rescue me? DEMON. No. By choice thou wert a culprit, And He does not favour crimes, Virtues only. CYPRIAN. If the summit Of all power He be, to pardon Is as easy as to punish. DEMON. He rewardeth by His power, He chastiseth from His justice. CYPRIAN. One who yields He'll not chastise. I am one, since I am humbled. DEMON. Thou art mine, my slave: no master Canst thou have but me. CYPRIAN. I trust not. DEMON. How, when still in my possession Is that bond of thine, that bloody Scroll inscribed by thine own hand? ”

“ He coming into light, if light it were That darken'd at his very horoscope, When heaven's two champions—sun and moon I mean— Suffused in blood upon each other fell In such a raging duel of eclipse As hath not terrified the universe Since that which wept in blood the death of Christ: When the dead walk'd, the waters turn'd to blood, Earth and her cities totter'd, and the world Seem'd shaken to its last paralysis. ”

“ CYPRIAN. Yes. DEMON. I am since you wish to know it, An epitome, a wonder* Of all happiness and misfortune, One I have lost, I weep the other. By my gifts was I so glorious, So conspicuous in my order, Of a lineage so illustrious, With a mind so well informed, That my rare endowments feeling, A great king (in truth the noblest King of Kings, for all would tremble If he looked in anger on them,) In his palace roofed with diamonds And with gems as bright as morning, (If I called them stars, 'tis certain The comparison were too modest,) His especial favourite called me. ”

“ CLO. Courage, my liege! The curtain is undrawn, And each must play his part out manfully, Leaving the rest to heaven. KING. Whose written words If I should misinterpret or transgress! But as you say— (To the Lord, who exit.) You, back to him at once; Clotaldo, you, when he is somewhat used To the new world of which they call him Prince, Where place and face, and all, is strange to him, With your known features and familiar garb Shall then, as chorus to the scene, accost him, And by such earnest of that old and too Familiar world, assure him of the new. ”

“ CYPRIAN, the Demon, MOSCON, and CLARIN. DEMON. Since the hour that I have been In your house a guest, you ne'er Show a gay and cheerful air. Sadness in your face is seen. It is wrong your cure to shun, Seeking to mislead mine eyes, Since I would unsphere the skies, Shake the stars, and shroud the sun, For the least desire you feel That more pleasantly you might live. CYPRIAN. Magic has no power to give The impossible I conceal, Though the misery I betray. DEMON. Come, confess the longed-for bliss. CYPRIAN. I love a woman. ”

“ This is the moment upon which Those stars, whose eyes, although we see them not, By day as well as night are on us still, Hang watching up in the meridian heaven Which way the balance turns; and if to you— As by your dealing God decide it may, To my confusion!—let me answer it Unto yourself alone, who shall at once Approve yourself to be your father's judge, And sovereign of Poland in his stead, By justice, mercy, self-sobriety, And all the reasonable attributes Without which, impotent to rule himself, Others one cannot, and one must not rule ”

“ DEMON. On impossible and false issues There can be no argument;— But your premises admitting, Say what then? CYPRIAN. That there must be One sole God, all hands, all vision, Good Supreme, supreme in grace, One who cannot err, omniscient, One the highest, none can equal, Not beginning, yet the Beginner, One pure essence, one sole substance, One wise worker, ozone sole willer;— And though He in one or two Or more persons be distinguished, Yet the sovereign Deity Must be one, sublime and single, The first cause of every cause, The first germ of all existence. ”

“ For though your father, King Basilio, Now King of Poland, jealous of the stars That prophesy his setting with your rise, Here holds you ignominiously eclipsed, And would Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy, Mount to the throne of Poland after him; So will not we, your loyal soldiery And subjects; neither those of us now first Apprised of your existence and your right: Nor those that hitherto deluded by Allegiance false, their vizors now fling down, And craving pardon on their knees with us For that unconscious disloyalty, Offer with us the service of their blood; Not only we and they ”

“ A VOICE. No creature lives on which love's flame Has not impressed its burning seal, The man feels more who love doth feel Than when Life's breath first warmed his frame. Love owns one universal claim,— To Love, it only needs To Be,— Whether a bird, a flower, a tree: Then the chief glory, far above All else in life must be.... CHORUS [within] . Love, love. JUSTINA [alarmed and restless] . Fancy, flatter that thou art, Though thou should'st be sad to-day, When did I to thee impart, In this strange and sudden way, Licence to afflict my heart? ”

“ And shall not I, Till now the mere dumb instrument that wrought The battle Fate has with my father fought, Now the mere mouth-piece of its victory Oh, shall not I, the champions' sword laid down, Be yet more shamed to wear the teacher's gown, And, blushing at the part I had to play, Down where that honour'd head I was to lay By this more just submission of my own, The treason Fate has forced on me atone? KING. Oh, Segismund, in whom I see indeed, Out of the ashes of my self-extinction A better self revive ”

“ They fight. CYPRIAN. What's this? Hold, good Florus! Lelius, listen!— Here until your rage is calmed, Even unarmed I stand betwixt ye. LELIUS. Thus to interrupt my vengeance, Whence, O Cyprian, have you risen Like a spectre? FLORUS. A wild wood-god, Have you from these tree-trunks issued? SCENE V. Enter MOSCON and CLARIN. MOSCON. Yonder, where we left our master, I hear sword-strokes; run, run quickly. CLARIN. Well, except to run away, I am anything but nimble;— Truly a retiring person. MOSCON and CLARIN. Sir.... CYPRIAN. No more: your gabble irks me.— How? ”

“ SEG. Oh God, if this be dreaming, charge it not To burst the channel of enclosing sleep And drown the waking reason! Not to dream Only what dreamt shall once or twice again Return to buzz about the sleeping brain Till shaken off for ever— But reassailing one so quick, so thick— The very figure and the circumstance Of sense-confess'd reality foregone In so-call'd dream so palpably repeated, The copy so like the original, We know not which is which; and dream so-call'd Itself inweaving so inextricably Into the tissue of acknowledged truth ”

“ LELIUS. Yes; the life that I deplore I return to seek once more Where 'twas lost. Ah! guide my feet, Love, to find it!— FABIUS. That house there Is Justina's; come away. LELIUS. Wherefore, when I will to-day Once again my love declare. And as she, I saw it plain, Trusted some one else at night, 'Tis not strange, in open light, That I try to soothe my pain. Leave me, go; for it is best That I enter here alone. My rank in Antioch is known, My father Governor; thus drest In his robe as 'twere, my strong Passion listening to no mentor, I Justina's house will enter To protest against my wrong. ”

“ SEG. The chair? CHAMB. The royal throne of Poland, Sir, Which may your Royal Highness keep as long As he that now rules from it shall have ruled When heaven has call'd him to itself. SEG. When he?— CHAMB. Your royal father, King Basilio, Sir. SEG. My royal father—King Basilio. You see I answer but as Echo does, Not knowing what she listens or repeats. This is my throne—this is my palace—Oh, But this out of the window?— CHAMB. Warsaw, Sir, Your capital— SEG. And all the moving people? CHAMB. Your subjects and your vassals like ourselves. ”

“ Choose but one! My heart expanding, Beats so hard a strait to shun! I one only! 'Tis for fun That you ask me so to do. For with heart enough for two, Why require that I choose one? CLARIN. Two at once would you have to woo? Would not two embarrass you, pray? LIVIA. No, we women have a way To dispose of them two by two. MOSCON. What's the way? do tell us, do;— What is it? speak. LIVIA. You put one out!— I would love them, do not doubt.... MOSCON. How? LIVIA. ALTERNATIVELY. CLARIN. Eh, What's ALTERNATIVELY? LIVIA. 'Tis to say, That I would love them day about. ”

“ One man—like this—but only so much longer As life is longer than a summer's day, Believed himself a king upon his throne, And play'd at hazard with his fellows' lives, Who cheaply dream'd away their lives to him. The sailor dream'd of tossing on the flood: The soldier of his laurels grown in blood: The lover of the beauty that he knew Must yet dissolve to dusty residue: The merchant and the miser of his bags Of finger'd gold ”

“ Outspread below, the whole horizon round Is one volcanic pyre. The sun is dead, the air is smoke, heaven fire. Philosophy, how far from thee I stray, When I cannot explain the marvels of this day! And now the sea, upborne on clouds the while, Seems like some ruined pile, That crumbling down the wind as 'twere a wall, In dust not foam doth fall. And struggling through the gloom, Facing the storm, a mighty ship seeks room On the open sea, whose rage it seems to court, Flying the dangerous pity of the port. The noise, the terror, and that fearful cry, Give fatal augury Of the impending stroke. ”

“ Clotaldo, Who guards my son with old fidelity, Shall bring him hither from his tower by night Lockt in a sleep so fast as by my art I rivet to within a link of death, But yet from death so far, that next day's dawn Shall wake him up upon the royal bed, Complete in consciousness and faculty, When with all princely pomp and retinue My loyal Peers with due obeisance Shall hail him Segismund, the Prince of Poland. ”

“ CYPRIAN. Moscon, Clarin, both I bid ye Cease this silly altercation. It is ever thus betwixt ye, Puffed up with your little knowledge Each maintains his own opinion. Go, and (as I've said) here seek me When night falls, and with the thickness Of its shadows veils from view This most fair and wondrous system Of the universe. MOSCON. How comes it, That although you have admitted 'Tis not right to see the feast, Yet you go to see it? CLARIN. Simple Is the answer: no one follows The advice which he has given To another. MOSCON [aside] . To see Livia, Would the gods that I were winged. ”