LIFE IS A DREAM
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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- SEGISMUND: Once more the storm has roar'd itself away,
- Splitting the crags of God as it retires;
- But sparing still what it should only blast,
- This guilty piece of human handiwork,
- And all that are within it. Oh, how oft,
- How oft, within or here abroad, have I
- Waited, and in the whisper of my heart
- Pray'd for the slanting hand of heaven to strike
- The blow myself I dared not, out of fear
- Of that Hereafter, worse, they say, than here,
- Plunged headlong in, but, till dismissal waited,
- To wipe at last all sorrow from men's eyes,
- And make this heavy dispensation clear.
- Thus have I borne till now, and still endure,
- Crouching in sullen impotence day by day,
- Till some such out-burst of the elements
- Like this rouses the sleeping fire within;
- And standing thus upon the threshold of
- Another night about to close the door
- Upon one wretched day to open it
- On one yet wretcheder because one more;--
- Once more, you savage heavens, I ask of you--
- I, looking up to those relentless eyes
- That, now the greater lamp is gone below,
- Begin to muster in the listening skies;
- In all the shining circuits you have gone
- About this theatre of human woe,
- What greater sorrow have you gazed upon
- Than down this narrow chink you witness still;
- And which, did you yourselves not fore-devise,
- You register'd for others to fulfil!
MORE MONOLOGUES BY CALDERÓN |
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