The Purgatory of St. Patrick by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (top 100 books to read txt) 📕

my highest fame, When soaring to the sun on waves of flame, Or wings as swift, my proud name shall ascend, There it may be with Pallas to contend. [Aside. A stronger motive urges me to go: If it is Philip's ship I wish to know. [Exit.

LEOGAIRE. Descend, my lord, with me Down where the foam-curled head of the blue sea Bows at the base of this majestic hill, Whose sands, like chains of gold, restrain its wilder will.

CAPTAIN. Let it divert thy care, This snow-white monster fair, Whose waves of dazzling hue Shape silver frames round mirrors sapphire blue.

KING. Nothing can give relief; Nothing can now divert me from my grief; That mystic fire will give my life no rest,- My heart an Etna seems within my breast.

LESBIA. Is any sight more fair? can aught surpass That of a vessel breaking through the glass Of crystal seas, and seeming there to be, As with light share it cuts the azure mass, A fish of the wind, a swift bird of the sea, And being for two elements designed, Flies in the wave and swims upon the wind? But now no witchery Were it to any eyes that sight to see; For lo! the roused-up ocean, Heaving with all its mountain waves in motion, Wrinkles its haughty brow, And suddenly awaking, Neptune, his trident shaking, Ruffles the beauteous face so sweet and calm but now. Well may the sailor in his floating home Expect a storm, for, lo! in heaven's high vault Rise pyramids of ice, mountains of salt, Turrets of snow, and palaces of foam.

POLONIA returns.

POLONIA. O dire misfortune!

KING. What so suddenly Has chanced, Polonia?

POLONIA. This inconstant sea, This Babel of wild waves that seeks heaven's gate, So great its fury, and its rage so great, Driven by a drought accursed, (Who would have thought that waves themselves could thirst?) Has swallowed in the depths of its dread womb, But now, a numerous company, to whom It consecrates below Red sepulchres of coral, tombs of snow, In silver-shining caves; For from their prison out o'er all the waves Has Aeolus the winds let loose, and they, Without a law to guide them on their way, Fell on that bark from which the trumpet rang, A swan whose own sad obsequies it sang. I from that cliff's stupendous height, Which dares to intercept the great sun's light, Looked full of hope along that vessel's track, To see if it was Philip who came back; Philip whose flag had borne upon the breeze Thy royal arms triumphant through the seas; When his sad wreck swept by, And every sound was buried in a sigh, His ruin seemed not wrought by seas or skies, But by my lips and eyes, Because my cries, the tears that made me blind, Increased still more the water and the wind.

KING. How! ye immortal deities, Would you still try by threatenings such as these What I can bear? Is it your wish that I should mount and tear This azure palace down, as if the shape Of a new Nimrod* I assumed, to show How on my shoulders might the world escape, Nor as I gazed below Feel any fear, though all the abysses under Were rent with fire and flame, with lightning and with thunder.


[footnote] *Nimrod is here used for Atlas. "Nimrod aber ist hier, was den Profandichtern und auch dem Calderon oft Atlas ist." - Schmidt, 'Die Schauspiele Calderon's' etc.,' p. 426.


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SCENE II.

PATRICK, and then LUIS ENIUS.

PATRICK [within]. Ah me!

LEOGAIRE. Some mournful voice.

KING. What's this?

CAPTAIN. The form, As of a man who has escaped the storm, Swims yonder to the land.

LESBIA. And strives to give a life-sustaining hand Unto another wretch, when he Appeared about to sink in death's last agony.

POLONIA. Poor traveller from afar, Whom evil fate and thy malignant star On this far shore have cast, Let my voice guide thee, if amid the blast My accents thou canst hear; since it is only To rouse thy courage that I speak to thee. Come!

[Enter PATRICK and LUIS ENIUS, clasping each other.

PATRICK. Oh, God save me!

LUIS. Oh, the devil save ME!

LESBIA. They move my pity, these unhappy two.

KING. Not mine, for what it is I never knew.

PATRICK. Oh, sirs, if wretchedness Can move most hearts to pity man's distress, I will not think that here A heart can be so cruel and severe As to repel a wretch from out the wave. Pity, for God's sake, at your feet I crave.

LUIS. I don't, for I disdain it. From God or man I never hope to gain it.

KING. Say who you are; we then shall know What hospitable care your needs we owe. But first I will inform you of my name, Lest ignorance of that perchance might claim Exemption from respect, and words be said Unworthy of the deference and the dread That here my subjects show me, Or wanting the due homage that you owe me. I am the King Egerius, The worthy lord of this small realm, for thus I call it being mine; Till 'tis the world, my sword shall not resign Its valorous hope. The dress, Not of a king, but of wild savageness I wear: to testify, Thus seeming a wild beast, how wild am I. No god my worship claims; I do not even know the deities' names: Here they no service nor respect receive; To die and to be born is all that we believe. Now that you know how much you should revere My royal state, say who you are.

PATRICK. Then hear: Patrick is my name, my country Ireland, and an humble hamlet,* Scarcely known to men, called Empthor,** Is my place of birth: It standeth Midway 'twixt the north and west, On a mountain which is guarded As a prison by the sea,- In the island which hereafter Will be called the Isle of Saints, To its glory everlasting; Such a crowd, great lord, therein Will give up their lives as martyrs In religious attestation Of the faith, faith's highest marvel. Of an Irish cavalier, And of his chaste spouse and partner, A French lady, I was born, Unto whom I owe (oh, happy That 'twas so!), beyond my birthright Of nobility, the vantage Of the Christian faith, the light Of Christ's true religion granted In the sacred rite of baptism, Which a mark indelibly stampeth On the soul, heaven's gate, as it Is the sacrament first granted By the Church. My pious parents, Having thus the debt exacted From all married people paid By my birth, retired thereafter To two separate convents, where In the purity and calmness Of their chaste abodes they lived, Till the fatal line of darkness, Ending life, was reached, and they, Fortified by every practice Of the Catholic faith, in peace Yielded up their souls in gladness, Unto heaven their spirits giving, Giving unto earth their ashes. I, an orphan, then remained Carefully and kindly guarded By a very holy matron, Underneath whose rule I hardly Had completed one brief lustrum - Five short years had scarce departed - Five bright circles of the sun Wheeling round on golden axles, Twelve high zodiac signs illuming And one earthly sphere, when happened Through me an event that showed God's omnipotence and marvels; Since of weakest instruments God makes use of, to enhance his Majesty the more, to show That for what men think the grandest And most strange effects, to Him Should alone the praise be granted.- It so happened, and Heaven knoweth That it is not pride, but rather Pure religious zeal, that men Should know how the Lord hath acted, Makes me tell it, that one day To my doors a blind man rambled, Gormas was his name, who said, "God who sends me here commands thee In His name to give me sight;" I, obedient to the mandate, Made at once the sign of the cross On his sightless eyes, that started Into life and light once more From their state of utter darkness. At another time when heaven, Muffled in the thickest, blackest Clouds, made war upon the world, Hurling at it lightning lances Of white snow, which fell so thickly On a mountain, that soon after They being melted by the sun, So filled up our streets and alleys, So inundated our houses, That amid the wild waves stranded They were ships of bricks and stones, Barks of cement and of plaster. Who before saw waves on mountains? Who 'mid woods saw ships at anchor? I the sign of the cross then made On the waters, and in accents, In a tone of grave emotion, In God's name the waves commanded To retire: they turned that moment And left dry the lands they ravaged. Oh, great God! who will not praise Thee? Who will not confess Thee Master?- Other wonders I could tell you, But my modesty throws shackles On my tongue, makes mute my voice, And my lips seals up and fastens. I grew up, in fine, inclined Less to arms than to the marvels Knowledge can reveal: I gave me Almost wholly up to master Sacred Science, to the reading Of the Lives of Saints, a practice Which doth teach us faith, hope, zeal, Charity and Christian manners. In these studies thus immersed, I one day approached the margin Of the sea with some young friends, Fellow-students and companions, When a bark drew nigh, from which Suddenly out-leaping landed Armed men, fierce pirates they, Who these seas, these islands, ravaged; We at once were captives made, And in order not to hazard Losing us their prey, they sailed Out to sea with swelling canvas. Of this daring pirate boat Philip de Roqui was the captain, In whose breast, for his destruction, Pride, the poisonous weed, was planted. He the Irish seas and coast Having thus for some days ravaged, Taking property and life, Pillaging our homes and hamlets; But myself alone reserved To be offered as a vassal, As a slave to thee, O king! In thy presence as he fancied. Oh! how ignorant is man, When of God's wise laws regardless, When, without consulting Him, He his future projects planneth! Philip well, at sea might say so; Since to-day, in sight of land here, Heaven the while being all serene, Mild the air, the water tranquil, In an instant, in a moment, He beheld his proud hopes blasted. In the hollow-breasted waves Roared the wind, the sea grew maddened, Billows upon billows rolled Mountain high, and wildly dashed them Wet against the sun, as if They its light would quench and darken. The poop-lantern of our ship Seemed a comet most erratic - Seemed a moving exhalation, Or a star from space outstarted; At another time it touched The profoundest deep sea-caverns, Or the treacherous sands whereon Ran the stately ship and parted. Then the fatal waves became Monuments of alabaster, Tombs of coral and of pearl. I (and why this boon was granted