The Purgatory of St. Patrick, Pedro Calderón de la Barca [i read a book TXT] 📗

The translation is comprised in the same number of lines as the original, and all the preceding remarks on "Life is a Dream", whether in reference to the period of the first publication of the drama in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting this version may be applied to it. As in the Case of "Life is a Dream", "The Wonderful Magician" has previously been translated entire by an English writer, ("Justina", by J.H. 1848); but as Archbishop Trench truly observes, "the writer did not possess that command of the resources of the English language, which none more than Calderon requires."

The Legend on which Calderon founded "El Magico Prodigioso" will be found in Surius, "De probatis Sanctorum historiis", t. V. (Col. Agr. 1574), p. 351: "Vita et Martyrium SS. Cypriani et Justinae, autore Simeone Metaphraste", and in Chapter cxlii, of the "Legenda Aurea" of Jacobus de Voragine "De Sancta Justina virgine".

The martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their festival is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of September.

Mr. Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature, 1863, volume ii. p. 369, says that the Wonder-working Magician is founded on "the same legend on which Milman has founded his 'Martyr of Antioch.'" This is a mistake of the learned writer. "The Martyr of Antioch" is founded not on the history of St. Justina but of Saint Margaret, as Milman himself expressly states. Chapter xciii., "De Sancta Margareta", in the "Legenda Aurea" of Jacobus de Voragine contains her story.

The third translation in this volume is that of "The Purgatory of St. Patrick". This, though perhaps not so famous as the two preceding dramas, is intended to be given by Don P. De la Escosura, in a selection of Calderon's finest "comedias", now being edited by him for the Spanish Academy, as the representative piece of its class - namely, the mystical drama founded on the lives of Saints. Mr. Ticknor prefers it to the more celebrated "Devotion of the Cross," and says that it "is commonly ranked among the best religious plays of the Spanish theatre in the seventeenth century."

In all that relates to the famous cave known through the middle ages as the "Purgatory of Saint Patrick", as well as the Story of Luis Enius - the Owain Miles of Ancient English poetry - Calderon was entirely indebted to the little volume published at Madrid, in 1627, by Juan Perez de Montalvan, entitled "Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio". This singular work met with immense success. It went through innumerable editions, and continues to be reprinted in Spain as a chap-book, down to the present day. I have the fifth impression "improved and enlarged by the author himself," Madrid, 1628, the year after its first appearance: also a later edition, Madrid, 1664. As early as 1637 a French translation appeared at Brussels by "F. A. S. Chartreux, a Bruxelles." In 1642 a second French translation was published at Troyes, by "R. P. Francois Bouillon, de l'Ordre de S. Francois, et Bachelier de Theologie." Mr. Thomas Wright in his "Essay on St. Patrick's Purgatory," London, 1844, makes the singular mistake of supposing that Bouillon's "Histoire de la Vie et Purgatoire de S. Patrice" was founded on the drama of Calderon, it being simply a translation of Montalvan's "Vida y Purgatorio," from which, like itself, Calderon's play was derived. Among other translations of Montalvan's work may be mentioned one in Dutch (Brussels, 1668) and one in Portuguese (Lisbon, 1738). It was also translated into German and Italian, but I find no mention of an English version. For this reason I have thought that a few extracts might be interesting, as showing how closely Calderon adhered even to the language of his predecessor.

In all that relates to the Purgatory, Montalvan's work is itself chiefly compiled from the "Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum, seu vitae et Actae sanctorum Hiberniae," Paris, 1624, fol. This work, which has now become scarce, was written by Thomas Messingham an Irish priest, the Superior of the Irish Seminary in Paris. No complete English version appears to have been made of it, but a small tract in English containing everything in the original work that referred to St. Patrick's Purgatory was published at Paris in 1718. As this tract is perhaps more scarce than even the Florilegium itself, the account of the Purgatory as given by Messingham from the MS. of Henry of Saltrey is reprinted in the notes to this drama in the quaint language of the anonymous translator. Of this tract, "printed at Paris in 1718" without the name of author, publisher or printer, I have not been able to trace another copy. In other points of interest connected with Calderon's drama, particularly to the clearing up of the difficulty hitherto felt as to the confused list of authorities at the end, the reader is also referred to the notes.

The present version of "The Purgatory of Saint Patrick" is, with the exception of a few unimportant lines, an entirely new translation. It is made with the utmost care, imitating all the measures and contained, like the two preceding dramas, in the exact number of lines of the original. One passage of the translation which I published in 1853 is retained in the notes, as a tribute of respect to the memory of the late John Rutter Chorley, it having been mentioned with praise by that eminent Spanish scholar in an elaborate review of my earlier translations from Calderon, which appeared in the "Athenaeum", Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1853.

It only remains to add that the text I have followed is that of Hartzenbusch in his edition of Calderon's Comedias, Madrid, 1856 ("Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles"). His arrangement of the scenes has been followed throughout, thus enabling the reader in a moment to verify for himself the exactness of the translation by a reference to the original, a crucial test which I rather invite than decline.

CLAPHAM PARK, Easter, 1873.


* * * * *


THE

PURGATORY OF ST. PATRICK.


TO

AUBREY DE VERE,

WHOSE

"LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK"

ARE AMONG THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ENGLISH POEMS,

THIS VERSION

OF THE CELEBRATED LEGEND OF ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY,

AS TOLD BY CALDERON,

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY

THE AUTHOR.


PERSONS.

* * * * *


EGERIUS, King of Ireland. PATRICK. LUIS ENIUS. A GOOD ANGEL. A BAD ANGEL. PHILIP. LEOGAIRE. A CAPTAIN. POLONIA, Daughter of the King. LESBIA, her Sister. PAUL, a Peasant. LUCY, his Wife. Two Canons Regular. Two Peasants. An Old Countryman. A Muffled Figure. Attendants, Friars, and others.

* * * * *

The Scene passes in Ireland, in the Court of King Egerius, and other parts.


THE PURGATORY OF SAINT PATRICK.

* * * * *


ACT THE FIRST.

THE SEA-SHORE, WITH PRECIPITOUS CLIFFS.

SCENE I.

The King EGERIUS, clad in skins, LEOGAIRE, POLONIA, LESBIA, and a Captain.

KING [furious]. Here let me die. Away!

LEOGAIRE. Oh, stop, my lord!

CAPTAIN. Consider . . .

LESBIA. Listen . . .

POLONIA. Stay . . .

KING. Yes, from this rocky height, Nigh to the sun, that with one starry light Its rugged brow doth crown, Headlong among the salt waves leaping down Let him descend who so much pain perceives; There let him raging die who raging lives.

LESBIA. Why wildly seekest thou the sea?

POLONIA. Thou wert asleep, my lord; what could it be?

KING. Every torment that doth dwell For ever with the thirsty fiends of hell - Dark brood of that dread mother, The seven-necked snake, whose poisoned breath doth smother The fourth celestial sphere; In fine, its horror and its misery drear Within me reach so far, That I myself upon myself make war, When in the arms of sleep A living corse am I, for it doth keep Such mastery o'er my life, that, as I dream, A pale foreshadowing threat of coming death I seem.

POLONIA. How could a dream, my lord, provoke you so?

KING. Alas! my daughters, listen, you shall know. From out the lips of a most lovely youth (And though a miserable slave, in sooth I dare not hurt him, and I speak his praise), Well, from the mouth of a poor slave, a blaze Of lambent lustre came, Which mildly burned in rays of gentlest flame; Till reaching you, The living fire at once consumed ye two. I stood betwixt ye both, and though I sought To stay its fury, the strange fire would not Molest or wound me, passing like the wind, So that despairing, blind, I woke from out a deep abysm Of dream, a lethargy, a paroxysm; But find my pains the same, For still it seems to me I see that flame, And flying, at every turn See you consumed; but now I also burn.*


[footnote] *The Dream of Egerius, as given by Calderon, agrees substantially with Jocelin's description, and differs only in one slight particular (the number of the flames) from that in Montalvan's "Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio". In the latter, the name of the Irish prince to whom Patrick was sold is not given; in Jocelin he is called "Milcho." Calderon was either ignorant of this, and gave the king a name that was purely imaginary, or, considering it less musical than he would wish, gave him the more harmonious one of Egerio. The following is Jocelin's version: "And Milcho beheld a vision in the night: and behold Patrick entered his palace as all on fire, and the flames, issuing from his mouth, and from his nose, and from his eyes, and from his ears, seemed to burn him; but Milcho repelled from himself the flaming hair of the boy, nor did it prevail to touch him any nearer; but the flame, being spread, turned aside to the right and catching on his two little daughters, who were lying in one bed, burned them even to ashes: then the south wind blowing strongly dispersed their ashes over many parts of Ireland." - "Jocelin's Life of St. Patrick, translated by Swift" (Dublin, 1804), pp. 17, 18.


LESBIA. Light phantoms these, Chimeras which an entrance find with ease Into the dreamer's brain. [A trumpet sounds. But wherefore sounds this trumpet?

CAPTAIN. It is plain Ships are approaching to our port below.

POLONIA. Grant me thy leave, great lord, since thou dost know A trumpet in my ear Sounds like a siren's voice, serene and clear; Ever to war inclined, In martial music my chief joy I find; Its clangour and its din Lead my rapt senses on: for I may win Through it