Life is a Dream

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Life is a Dream Page 6

by Pedro Calderón de La Barca


  That looking now upon that head whose crown

  Pronounces him a sovereign king, I feel

  No setting of the current in my blood

  Tow'rd him as sire. How is't with you, old man,

  Tow'rd him they call your son?—

  KING. Alas! Alas!

  SEGISMUND. Your sorrow, then?

  KING. Beholding what I do.

  SEGISMUND. Ay, but how know this sorrow that has grown

  And moulded to this present shape of man,

  As of your own creation?

  KING. Ev'n from birth.

  SEGISMUND. But from that hour to this, near, as I think,

  Some twenty such renewals of the year

  As trace themselves upon the barren rocks,

  I never saw you, nor you me—unless,

  Unless, indeed, through one of those dark masks

  Through which a son might fail to recognize

  The best of fathers.

  KING. Be that as you will:

  But, now we see each other face to face,

  Know me as you I know; which did I not,

  By whatsoever signs, assuredly

  You were not here to prove it at my risk.

  SEGISMUND. You are my father.

  And is it true then, as Clotaldo swears,

  'Twas you that from the dawning birth of one

  Yourself brought into being,—you, I say,

  Who stole his very birthright; not alone

  That secondary and peculiar right

  Of sovereignty, but even that prime

  Inheritance that all men share alike,

  And chain'd him—chain'd him!—like a wild beast's whelp.

  Among as savage mountains, to this hour?

  Answer if this be thus.

  KING. Oh, Segismund,

  In all that I have done that seems to you,

  And, without further hearing, fairly seems,

  Unnatural and cruel—'twas not I,

  But One who writes His order in the sky

  I dared not misinterpret nor neglect,

  Who knows with what reluctance—

  SEGISMUND. Oh, those stars,

  Those stars, that too far up from human blame

  To clear themselves, or careless of the charge,

  Still bear upon their shining shoulders all

  The guilt men shift upon them!

  KING. Nay, but think:

  Not only on the common score of kind,

  But that peculiar count of sovereignty—

  If not behind the beast in brain as heart,

  How should I thus deal with my innocent child,

  Doubly desired, and doubly dear when come,

  As that sweet second-self that all desire,

  And princes more than all, to root themselves

  By that succession in their people's hearts,

  Unless at that superior Will, to which

  Not kings alone, but sovereign nature bows?

  SEGISMUND. And what had those same stars to tell of me

  That should compel a father and a king

  So much against that double instinct?

  KING. That,

  Which I have brought you hither, at my peril,

  Against their written warning, to disprove,

  By justice, mercy, human kindliness.

  SEGISMUND. And therefore made yourself their instrument

  To make your son the savage and the brute

  They only prophesied?—Are you not afear'd,

  Lest, irrespective as such creatures are

  Of such relationship, the brute you made

  Revenge the man you marr'd—like sire, like son.

  To do by you as you by me have done?

  KING. You never had a savage heart from me;

  I may appeal to Poland.

  SEGISMUND. Then from whom?

  If pure in fountain, poison'd by yourself

  When scarce begun to flow.—To make a man

  Not, as I see, degraded from the mould

  I came from, nor compared to those about,

  And then to throw your own flesh to the dogs!—

  Why not at once, I say, if terrified

  At the prophetic omens of my birth,

  Have drown'd or stifled me, as they do whelps

  Too costly or too dangerous to keep?

  KING. That, living, you might learn to live, and rule

  Yourself and Poland.

  SEGISMUND. By the means you took

  To spoil for either?

  KING. Nay, but, Segismund!

  You know not—cannot know—happily wanting

  The sad experience on which knowledge grows,

  How the too early consciousness of power

  Spoils the best blood; nor whether for your long

  Constrain'd disheritance (which, but for me,

  Remember, and for my relenting love

  Bursting the bond of fate, had been eternal)

  You have not now a full indemnity;

  Wearing the blossom of your youth unspent

  In the voluptuous sunshine of a court,

  That often, by too early blossoming,

  Too soon deflowers the rose of royalty.

  SEGISMUND. Ay, but what some precocious warmth may spill,

  May not an early frost as surely kill?

  KING. But, Segismund, my son, whose quick discourse

  Proves I have not extinguish'd and destroy'd

  The Man you charge me with extinguishing,

  However it condemn me for the fault

  Of keeping a good light so long eclipsed,

  Reflect! This is the moment upon which

  Those stars, whose eyes, although we see them not,

  By day as well as night are on us still,

  Hang watching up in the meridian heaven

  Which way the balance turns; and if to you—

  As by your dealing God decide it may,

  To my confusion!—let me answer it

  Unto yourself alone, who shall at once

  Approve yourself to be your father's judge,

  And sovereign of Poland in his stead,

  By justice, mercy, self-sobriety,

  And all the reasonable attributes

  Without which, impotent to rule himself,

  Others one cannot, and one must not rule;

  But which if you but show the blossom of—

  All that is past we shall but look upon

  As the first out-fling of a generous nature

  Rioting in first liberty; and if

  This blossom do but promise such a flower

  As promises in turn its kindly fruit:

  Forthwith upon your brows the royal crown,

  That now weighs heavy on my aged brows,

  I will devolve; and while I pass away

  Into some cloister, with my Maker there

  To make my peace in penitence and prayer,

  Happily settle the disorder'd realm

  That now cries loudly for a lineal heir.

  SEGISMUND. And so—

  When the crown falters on your shaking head,

  And slips the sceptre from your palsied hand,

  And Poland for her rightful heir cries out;

  When not only your stol'n monopoly

  Fails you of earthly power, but 'cross the grave

  The judgment-trumpet of another world

  Calls you to count for your abuse of this;

  Then, oh then, terrified by the double danger,

  You drag me from my den—

  Boast not of giving up at last the power

  You can no longer hold, and never rightly

  Held, but in fee for him you robb'd it from;

  And be assured your Savage, once let loose,

  Will not be caged again so quickly; not

  By threat or adulation to be tamed,

  Till he have had his quarrel out with those

  Who made him what he is.

  KING. Beware! Beware!
<
br />   Subdue the kindled Tiger in your eye,

  Nor dream that it was sheer necessity

  Made me thus far relax the bond of fate,

  And, with far more of terror than of hope

  Threaten myself, my people, and the State.

  Know that, if old, I yet have vigour left

  To wield the sword as well as wear the crown;

  And if my more immediate issue fail,

  Not wanting scions of collateral blood,

  Whose wholesome growth shall more than compensate

  For all the loss of a distorted stem.

  SEGISMUND. That will I straightway bring to trial—Oh,

  After a revelation such as this,

  The Last Day shall have little left to show

  Of righted wrong and villainy requited!

  Nay, Judgment now beginning upon earth,

  Myself, methinks, in sight of all my wrongs,

  Appointed heaven's avenging minister,

  Accuser, judge, and executioner

  Sword in hand, cite the guilty—First, as worst,

  The usurper of his son's inheritance;

  Him and his old accomplice, time and crime

  Inveterate, and unable to repay

  The golden years of life they stole away.

  What, does he yet maintain his state, and keep

  The throne he should be judged from? Down with him,

  That I may trample on the false white head

  So long has worn my crown! Where are my soldiers?

  Of all my subjects and my vassals here

  Not one to do my bidding? Hark! A trumpet!

  The trumpet—

  [He pauses as the trumpet sounds as in ACT I., and masked Soldiers gradually fill in behind the Throne.]

  KING (rising before his throne). Ay, indeed, the trumpet blows

  A memorable note, to summon those

  Who, if forthwith you fall not at the feet

  Of him whose head you threaten with the dust,

  Forthwith shall draw the curtain of the Past

  About you; and this momentary gleam

  Of glory that you think to hold life-fast,

  So coming, so shall vanish, as a dream.

  SEGISMUND. He prophesies; the old man prophesies;

  And, at his trumpet's summons, from the tower

  The leash-bound shadows loosen'd after me

  My rising glory reach and over-lour—

  But, reach not I my height, he shall not hold,

  But with me back to his own darkness!

  [He dashes toward the throne and is enclosed by the soldiers.]

  Traitors!

  Hold off! Unhand me!—Am not I your king?

  And you would strangle him!—

  But I am breaking with an inward Fire

  Shall scorch you off, and wrap me on the wings

  Of conflagration from a kindled pyre

  Of lying prophecies and prophet-kings

  Above the extinguish'd stars—Reach me the sword

  He flung me—Fill me such a bowl of wine

  As that you woke the day with—

  KING. And shall close,—

  But of the vintage that Clotaldo knows. [Exeunt.]

  ACT III

  SCENE I.—The Tower, etc., as in ACT I. SCENE I.

  SEGISMUND, as at first, and CLOTALDO

  CLOTALDO. Princes and princesses, and counsellors

  Fluster'd to right and left—my life made at—

  But that was nothing

  Even the white-hair'd, venerable King

  Seized on—Indeed, you made wild work of it;

  And so discover'd in your outward action,

  Flinging your arms about you in your sleep,

  Grinding your teeth—and, as I now remember,

  Woke mouthing out judgment and execution,

  On those about you.

  SEGISMUND. Ay, I did indeed.

  CLOTALDO. Ev'n now your eyes stare wild; your hair stands up—

  Your pulses throb and flutter, reeling still

  Under the storm of such a dream—

  SEGISMUND. A dream!

  That seem'd as swearable reality

  As what I wake in now.

  CLOTALDO. Ay—wondrous how

  Imagination in a sleeping brain

  Out of the uncontingent senses draws

  Sensations strong as from the real touch;

  That we not only laugh aloud, and drench

  With tears our pillow; but in the agony

  Of some imaginary conflict, fight

  And struggle—ev'n as you did; some, 'tis thought,

  Under the dreamt-of stroke of death have died.

  SEGISMUND. And what so very strange too—In that world

  Where place as well as people all was strange,

  Ev'n I almost as strange unto myself,

  You only, you, Clotaldo—you, as much

  And palpably yourself as now you are,

  Came in this very garb you ever wore,

  By such a token of the past, you said,

  To assure me of that seeming present.

  CLOTALDO. Ay?

  SEGISMUND. Ay; and even told me of the very stars

  You tell me here of—how in spite of them,

  I was enlarged to all that glory.

  CLOTALDO. Ay,

  By the false spirits' nice contrivance thus

  A little truth oft leavens all the false,

  The better to delude us.

  SEGISMUND. For you know

  'Tis nothing but a dream?

  CLOTALDO. Nay, you yourself

  Know best how lately you awoke from that

  You know you went to sleep on?—

  Why, have you never dreamt the like before?

  SEGISMUND. Never, to such reality.

  CLOTALDO. Such dreams

  Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations

  Of that ambition that lies smouldering

  Under the ashes of the lowest fortune;

  By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost

  The reins of sensible comparison,

  We fly at something higher than we are—

  Scarce ever dive to lower—to be kings,

  Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold,

  Nay, mounting heaven itself on eagle wings.

  Which, by the way, now that I think of it,

  May furnish us the key to this high flight

  That royal Eagle we were watching, and

  Talking of as you went to sleep last night.

  SEGISMUND. Last night? Last night?

  CLOTALDO. Ay, do you not remember

  Envying his immunity of flight,

  As, rising from his throne of rock, he sail'd

  Above the mountains far into the West,

  That burn'd about him, while with poising wings

  He darkled in it as a burning brand

  Is seen to smoulder in the fire it feeds?

  SEGISMUND. Last night—last night—Oh, what a day was that

  Between that last night and this sad To-day!

  CLOTALDO. And yet, perhaps,

  Only some few dark moments, into which

 

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