THREE JUDGMENTS AT A BLOW
A monologue from the
play by Pedro
Calderón de la Barca
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Eight Dramas of Calderon. Trans. Edward Fitzgerald.
London: Macmillan & Co., 1906. |
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- URREA: I will speak, if I can, whose sorrow rising
still
- Clouds its own utterance. My liege, my son,
- Don Lope, loved a lady here; seduced her
- By no feign'd vows of marriage, but compell'd
- By me, who would not listen to a suit
- Without my leave contracted, put it off
- From day to day, until the lady, tired
- Of a delay that argued treachery,
- Engaged her brother in the quarrel; who
- With two companions set upon my son
- One night to murder him. The lad, whose metal
- Would never brook affront, nor cared for odds,
- Drew on all three; slew one--a homicide
- That nature's common law of self-defence
- Permits. The others fled, and set on him
- The officers of justice, one of whom
- In his escape he struck--
- A self-defence against your laws I own
- Not so to be excused--then fled himself
- Up to the mountains. I must needs confess
- He better had deserved an after-pardon
- By lawful service in your camp abroad
- Than aggravating old offense at home,
- By lawless plunder; but your Highness knows
- It is an ancient law of honour here
- In Arragon, that none of noble blood
- In mortal quarrel quit his native ground
- But to return. The woman, twice aggrieved,
- Her honour and her brother lost at once,
- (For him it was my son slew of the three,)
- Now seeks to bring her sorrows into port:
- And pitying my grey hairs and misery,
- Consents to acquit my son on either count,
- Providing I supply her wherewithal
- To hide her shame within some holy house;
- Which, straiten'd as I am, (that, by my troth,
- I scarce, my liege, can find my daily bread,)
- I have engaged to do; not only this,
- But, in addition to the sum in hand,
- A yearly income--which to do, I now
- Am crept into my house's poorest rooms,
- And, (to such straits may come nobility!)
- Have let for hire what should become my rank
- And dignity to an old friend, Don Mendo
- Torellas, who I hear returns to-day
- To Saragossa. It remains, my liege,
- That, being by the plaintiff's self absolved,
- My son your royal pardon only needs;
- Which if not he nor I merit ourselves,
- Yet let the merits of a long ancestry,
- Who swell your glorious annals with their names
- Writ in their blood, plead for us not in vain;
- Pity the snows of age that misery
- Now thaws in torrents from my eyes; yet more,
- Pity a noble lady--my wife--his mother--
- Who sits bow'd down with sorrow and disgrace
- In her starved house.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY CALDERÓN |
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