Life is a dream E-Book

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

• Herausgeber: Cervantes Digital
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

"Life is a dream" (La vida es sueño) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca is a masterpiece of Spanish Golden Age theater. Written in the 17th century, it's a philosophical and allegorical play that delves into themes of fate, free will, and the nature of reality. The story revolves around Segismundo, a prince who has been imprisoned since birth due to a prophecy. The prophecy predicts that Segismundo will become a tyrant if he is ever given power. Throughout the play, the audience is taken on a journey that questions the true nature of life and whether our experiences are real or merely fleeting dreams.

Calderón de la Barca weaves a rich tapestry of existential questions, blurring the lines between the conscious and unconscious, reality and illusion. Segismundo's journey, from captivity to power and back, is a metaphor for the human experience — a dream that we grapple with, often uncertain if what we perceive is genuine or a construct of our minds. The philosophical undertones of the play challenge us to contemplate the complexities of life and the human psyche.

In 'Life is a dream,' Calderón de la Barca provides a thought-provoking exploration of the human condition, leaving the audience pondering the duality of existence and the enigmatic realms of dreams and reality. The play remains a timeless work, compelling us to reflect on the fundamental questions that have intrigued humanity for centuries.

Leseprobe

Copyright 2023

Cervantes Digital

All rights reserved

LIFE IS A DREAM

By Pedro Calderon De La Barca

Translated by Edward Fitzgerald

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III.

ACT IV.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Pedro Calderon de la Barca was born in Madrid, January 17, 1600, of good family. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Madrid and at the University of Salamanca; and a doubtful tradition says that he began to write plays at the age of thirteen. His literary activity was interrupted for ten years, 1625-1635, by military service in Italy and the Low Countries, and again for a year or more in Catalonia. In 1637 he became a Knight of the Order of Santiago, and in 1651 he entered the priesthood, rising to the dignity of Superior of the Brotherhood of San Pedro in Madrid. He held various offices in the court of Philip IV, who rewarded his services with pensions, and had his plays produced with great splendor. He died May 5, 1681.

At the time when Calderon began to compose for the stage, the Spanish drama was at its height. Lope de Vega, the most prolific and, with Calderon, the greatest, of Spanish dramatists, was still alive; and by his applause gave encouragement to the beginner whose fame was to rival his own. The national type of drama which Lope had established was maintained in its essential characteristics by Calderon, and he produced abundant specimens of all its varieties. Of regular plays he has left a hundred and twenty; of "Autos Sacramentales," the peculiar Spanish allegorical development of the medieval mystery, we have seventy-three; besides a considerable number of farces.

The dominant motives in Calderon's dramas are characteristically national: fervid loyalty to Church and King, and a sense of honor heightened almost to the point of the fantastic. Though his plays are laid in a great variety of scenes and ages, the sentiment and the characters remain essentially Spanish; and this intensely local quality has probably lessened the vogue of Calderon in other countries. In the construction and conduct of his plots he showed great skill, yet the ingenuity expended in the management of the story did not restrain the fiery emotion and opulent imagination which mark his finest speeches and give them a lyric quality which some critics regard as his greatest distinction.

Of all Calderon's works, "Life is a Dream" may be regarded as the most universal in its theme. It seeks to teach a lesson that may be learned from the philosophers and religious thinkers of many ages—that the world of our senses is a mere shadow, and that the only reality is to be found in the invisible and eternal. The story which forms its basis is Oriental in origin, and in the form of the legend of "Barlaam and Josaphat" was familiar in all the literatures of the Middle Ages. Combined with this in the plot is the tale of Abou Hassan from the "Arabian Nights," the main situations in which are turned to farcical purposes in the Induction to the Shakespearean "Taming of the Shrew." But with Calderon the theme is lifted altogether out of the atmosphere of comedy, and is worked up with poetic sentiment and a touch of mysticism into a symbolic drama of profound and universal philosophical significance.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Basilio King of Poland.

Segismund his Son.

Astolfo his Nephew.

Estrella his Niece.

Clotaldo a General in Basilio's Service.

Rosaura a Muscovite Lady.

Fife her Attendant.

Chamberlain, Lords in Waiting, Officers,

Soldiers, etc., in Basilio's Service.

The Scene of the first and third Acts lies on the Polish frontier: of the second Act, in Warsaw.

As this version of Calderon's drama is not for acting, a higher and wider mountain-scene than practicable may be imagined for Rosaura's descent in the first Act and the soldiers' ascent in the last. The bad watch kept by the sentinels who guarded their state-prisoner, together with much else (not all!) that defies sober sense in this wild drama, I must leave Calderon to answer for; whose audience were not critical of detail and probability, so long as a good story, with strong, rapid, and picturesque action and situation, was set before them.

ACT I

SCENE I—A pass of rocks, over which a storm is rolling away,

and the sun setting: in the foreground, half-way down, a fortress.

(Enter first from the topmost rock Rosaura, as from horseback, in man's attire; and, after her, Fife.)

ROSAURA.

There, four-footed Fury, blast

Engender'd brute, without the wit

Of brute, or mouth to match the bit

Of man—art satisfied at last?

Who, when thunder roll'd aloof,

Tow'rd the spheres of fire your ears

Pricking, and the granite kicking

Into lightning with your hoof,

Among the tempest-shatter'd crags

Shattering your luckless rider

Back into the tempest pass'd?

There then lie to starve and die,

Or find another Phaeton

Mad-mettled as yourself; for I,

Wearied, worried, and for-done,

Alone will down the mountain try,

That knits his brows against the sun.

FIFE (as to his mule).

There, thou mis-begotten thing,

Long-ear'd lightning, tail'd tornado,

Griffin-hoof-in hurricano,

(I might swear till I were almost

Hoarse with roaring Asonante)

Who forsooth because our betters

Would begin to kick and fling

You forthwith your noble mind

Must prove, and kick me off behind,

Tow'rd the very centre whither

Gravity was most inclined.

There where you have made your bed

In it lie; for, wet or dry,

Let what will for me betide you,

Burning, blowing, freezing, hailing;

Famine waste you: devil ride you:

Tempest baste you black and blue:

(To Rosaura.)

There! I think in downright railing

I can hold my own with you.

ROS.

Ah, my good Fife, whose merry loyal pipe,

Come weal, come woe, is never out of tune

What, you in the same plight too?

FIFE.

Ay; And madam—sir—hereby desire,

When you your own adventures sing

Another time in lofty rhyme,

You don't forget the trusty squire

Who went with you Don-quixoting.

ROS.

Well, my good fellow—to leave Pegasus

Who scarce can serve us than our horses worse—

They say no one should rob another of

The single satisfaction he has left

Of singing his own sorrows; one so great,

So says some great philosopher, that trouble

Were worth encount'ring only for the sake

Of weeping over—what perhaps you know

Some poet calls the 'luxury of woe.'

FIFE.

Had I the poet or philosopher

In the place of her that kick'd me off to ride,

I'd test his theory upon his hide.

But no bones broken, madam—sir, I mean?—

ROS.

A scratch here that a handkerchief will heal—

And you?—

FIFE.

A scratch in quiddity, or kind:

But not in 'quo'—my wounds are all behind.

But, as you say, to stop this strain,

Which, somehow, once one's in the vein,

Comes clattering after—there again!—

What are we twain—deuce take't!—we two,

I mean, to do—drench'd through and through—

Oh, I shall choke of rhymes, which I believe

Are all that we shall have to live on here.

ROS.

What, is our victual gone too?—

FIFE.

Ay, that brute

Has carried all we had away with her,

Clothing, and cate, and all.

ROS.

And now the sun,

Our only friend and guide, about to sink

Under the stage of earth.

FIFE.

And enter Night,

With Capa y Espada—and—pray heaven!

With but her lanthorn also.

ROS.

Ah, I doubt

To-night, if any, with a dark one—or

Almost burnt out after a month's consumption.

Well! well or ill, on horseback or afoot,

This is the gate that lets me into Poland;

And, sorry welcome as she gives a guest

Who writes his own arrival on her rocks

In his own blood—

Yet better on her stony threshold die,

Than live on unrevenged in Muscovy.

FIFE.

Oh, what a soul some women have—I mean

Some men—

ROS.

Oh, Fife, Fife, as you love me, Fife,

Make yourself perfect in that little part,

Or all will go to ruin!

FIFE.

Oh, I will,

Please God we find some one to try it on.

But, truly, would not any one believe

Some fairy had exchanged us as we lay

Two tiny foster-children in one cradle?

ROS.

Well, be that as it may, Fife, it reminds me

Of what perhaps I should have thought before,

But better late than never—You know I love you,

As you, I know, love me, and loyally

Have follow'd me thus far in my wild venture.

Well! now then—having seen me safe thus far

Safe if not wholly sound—over the rocks

Into the country where my business lies

Why should not you return the way we came,

The storm all clear'd away, and, leaving me

(Who now shall want you, though not thank you, less,

Now that our horses gone) this side the ridge,

Find your way back to dear old home again;

While I—Come, come!—

What, weeping my poor fellow?

FIFE.

Leave you here

Alone—my Lady—Lord! I mean my Lord—

In a strange country—among savages—

Oh, now I know—you would be rid of me

For fear my stumbling speech—

ROS.

Oh, no, no, no!—

I want you with me for a thousand sakes

To which that is as nothing—I myself

More apt to let the secret out myself

Without your help at all—Come, come, cheer up!

And if you sing again, 'Come weal, come woe,'

Let it be that; for we will never part

Until you give the signal.

FIFE.

'Tis a bargain.

ROS.

Now to begin, then. 'Follow, follow me,

'You fairy elves that be.'

FIFE.

Ay, and go on—

Something of 'following darkness like a dream,'

For that we're after.

ROS.

No, after the sun;

Trying to catch hold of his glittering skirts

That hang upon the mountain as he goes.

FIFE.

Ah, he's himself past catching—as you spoke

He heard what you were saying, and—just so—

Like some scared water-bird,

As we say in my country, dove below.

ROS.

Well, we must follow him as best we may.

Poland is no great country, and, as rich

In men and means, will but few acres spare

To lie beneath her barrier mountains bare.

We cannot, I believe, be very far

From mankind or their dwellings.

FIFE.

Send it so!

And well provided for man, woman, and beast.

No, not for beast. Ah, but my heart begins

To yearn for her—

ROS.

Keep close, and keep your feet

From serving you as hers did.

FIFE.

As for beasts,

If in default of other entertainment,

We should provide them with ourselves to eat—

Bears, lions, wolves—

ROS.

Oh, never fear.

FIFE.

Or else,

Default of other beasts, beastlier men,

Cannibals, Anthropophagi, bare Poles

Who never knew a tailor but by taste.

ROS.

Look, look! Unless my fancy misconceive

With twilight—down among the rocks there, Fife—

Some human dwelling, surely—

Or think you but a rock torn from the rocks

In some convulsion like to-day's, and perch'd

Quaintly among them in mock-masonry?

FIFE.

Most likely that, I doubt.

ROS.

No, no—for look!

A square of darkness opening in it—

FIFE.

Oh, I don't half like such openings!—

ROS.

Like the loom

Of night from which she spins her outer gloom—

FIFE.