THE MIGHTY MAGICIAN
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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- LUCIFER: Rash leap to necessary non-conclusion
- From a premiss that quarrels with itself
- More than the deity it woulg impugn;
- For if one God eternal and all wise,
- Omnipotent to do as to devise,
- Whence this disorder and discordance in--
- Not only this material universe,
- That seems created only to be rack'd
- By the rebellion of its elements,
- In earthquake and tempestuous anarchy--
- But also in the human microcosm
- You say created to reflect it all?
- For Deity, all goodness as all wise,
- Why create man the thing of lust and lies
- You say reflects himself in his false god?--
- By modern oracle no more convicted
- Of falsehood, than by that first oracle
- Which first creation settled in man's heart.
- No, if you must define, premise, conclude,
- Away with all the coward squeamishness
- That dares not face the universe it questions;
- Blinking the evil and antagonism
- Into its very constitution breathed
- By him who, but himself to quarrel with,
- Quarrels as might the many with each other.
- Or would you be yourself one with yourself,
- Catch hold of such as Epicurus' skirt,
- Who, desperately confounded this confusion
- Of matter, spirit, good and evil, yea,
- Godhead itself, into a universe
- That is created, roll'd along, and ruled,
- By no more wise direction than blind Chance.
- Trouble yourself no more with disquisition
- That by sad, slow, and unprogressive steps
- Of wasted soul and body lead to nothing:
- And only sure of life's short breathing-while,
- And knowing that the gods who threaten us
- With after-vengeance of the very crimes
- They revel in themselves, are nothing more
- Than the mere coinage of our proper brain
- To cheat us of our scanty pleasure here
- With terror of a harsh account hereafter;--
- Eat, drink, be merry; crown yourselves with flowers
- About as lasting as the heads they garland;
- And snatching what you can of life's poor feast,
- When summon'd to depart, with no ill grace,
- Like a too greedy guest, cling to the table
- Whither the generations that succeed
- Press forward famish'd for their turn to feed.
- Nay, or before your time self-surfeited,
- Wait not for nature's signal to be gone,
- But with the potion of the spotted weed,
- That peradventure wild beside your door
- For some such friendly purpose cheaply grows,
- Anticipate too tardy nature's call:
- Ev'n as one last great Roman of them all
- Dismiss'd himself betimes into the sum
- Of universe; not nothing to become;
- For that can never cease that was before;
- But not that sad Lucretius any more.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY CALDERÓN |
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