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: What am I?
- One of a realm, though dimly in your charts
- Discern'd, so vast that as from out of it
- As from a fountain all the nations flow,
- Back they shall ebb again; and sway'd by One
- Who, without Oriental over-boast,
- Because from him all kings their crowns derive,
- Is rightfully saluted King of kings,
- Whose reign is as his kingdom infinite,
- Whose throne is heaven, and earth his footstool, and
- Sun, moon, and stars his diadem and crown.
- Who at the first disposal of his kingdom
- And distribution into sea and land--
- Me, who for splendour of my birth and grand
- Capacities above my fellows shone,
- Star of the Morning, Lucifer, alone--
- Me he made captain of the host who stand
- Clad as the morning star about his throne.
- Enough for all ambition but my own;
- Who discontented with the all but all
- Of chiefest subject of Omnipotence
- Rebell'd against my Maker; insolence
- Avenged as soon as done on me and all
- Who bolster'd up rebellion, by a fall
- Far as from heaven to Hades. Madness, I know;
- But worse than madness whining to repent
- Under a rod that never will relent.
- Therefore about the land and sea I go
- Arm'd with the very instrument of hate
- That blasted me: lightnings anticipate
- My coming, and the thunder rolls behind;
- Thus charter'd to enlarge among mankind,
- And to recruit from human discontent
- My ranks in spirit, not in number, spent.
- Of whom, in spite of this brave gaberdine,
- I recognize thee one: thee, by the line
- Scarr'd on thy brow, though not so deep as mine;
- Thee by the hollow circles of those eyes
- Where the volcano smoulders but not dies:
- Whose fiery torrent running down has scarr'd
- The cheek that time had not so deeply marr'd.
- Do not I read thee rightly?
- Aye, by the light of my own darkness
- Reading yours--how deep!
- But not, as mine is, irretrievable:
- Who from the fulness of my own perdition
- Would, as I may, revenge myself on him
- By turning to fruition your despair--
- What if I make you master at a blow,
- Not only of the easy woman's heart
- You now despair of as impregnable,
- And waiting but my word to let you in,
- But lord of nature's secret, and the lore
- That shall not only with the knowledge, but
- Possess you with the very power of him
- You sought so far and vainly for before?
- All that you have heard and witness'd hitherto
- But a foretaste to quicken appetite
- For that substantial after-feast of power
- That I shall set you down to take your fill of:
- When not the fleeting elements alone
- Of wind, and fire, and water, floating wrack,
- But this same solid frame of earth and stone,
- Yea, with the mountain loaded on her back,
- Reluctantly, shall answer to your spell
- From a more adamantine heart stone-cold
- Than her's you curse for inaccessible!
MORE MONOLOGUES BY CALDERÓN |
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