Life Is a Dream/La Vida es Sueño

A Dual-Language Book

Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Stanley Appelbaum

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486117652
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Langue espagnole

The most famous of all Calderon's varied and romantic dramas, this seventeenth-century masterpiece by the great Spanish playwright explores the conflict between free will and predestination as it focuses on the life of Segismundo, a Polish prince imprisoned at birth by his father, the King.

The monarch's heartless action, precipitated by astrologers who predict the boy will one day usurp the throne, paves the way for a series of events that turn the son against the father and lead to rebellion. Years later, following a revolution and the peasants' seizure of power, the grim prophecy uttered at the Prince's birth threatens to become a painful reality.
For this edition, Stanley Appelbaum has written an informative introduction and an excellent new literal translation that appears on pages facing the Spanish original. A valuable text for students of Spanish language and literature, this volume will delight any reader interested in classics from Spain's Golden Age of drama.

Jornada segunda

Salen el REY BASILIO y CLOTALDO.

CLO.:	Todo como lo mandaste,
	queda efectuado.
BAS.:	Cuenta,
	Clotaldo, cómo pasó.
CLO.:	Fue, señor, desta manera.
	Con la apacible bebida,
	que de confecciones llena
	hacer mandaste, mezclando
	la virtud de algunas yerbas
	cuyo tirano poder
	y cuya secreta fuerza
	así el humano discurso
	priva, roba y enajena,
	que deja vivo cadáver
	a un hombre, y cuya violencia,
	adormecido, le quita
	los sentidos y potencias . . .
	No tenemos que argüir,
	que aquesto posible sea,
	pues tantas veces, señor,
	nos ha dicho la experiencia,
	y es cierto, que de secretos
	naturales está llena
	la medicina, y no hay
	animal, planta ni piedra
	que no tenga calidad
	determinada; y si llega
	a examinar mil venenos
	la humana malicia nuestra,

Act Two

Enter BASILIO and CLOTALDO.

CLO.:	Everything you ordered
	has been carried out.
BAS.:	Tell me
	how things went, Clotaldo.
CLO.:	It was this way, Sire.
	With the soporific potion,
	filled with various compounds,
	that you ordered to be brewed, mingling into it
	the power of certain herbs
	whose tyrannical force
	and secret strength
	deprives, robs, and dispossesses
	a man of his reasoning powers so drastically
	that he remains a living corpse,
	and whose violence
	puts him to sleep and takes away
	his senses and abilities . . .
	There’s no need for us to debate
	whether such things are possible,
	because experience, Sire,
	has informed us of it so often,
	and it’s verified that the medical art
	is full of natural
	mysteries, and tha...