Life is a Dream

Full Text and Introduction (NHB Drama Classics)

Pedro Calderón, John Clifford

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781780016450
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

A masterpiece of the Spanish Golden Age.

It is foretold that Prince Sigismund will become a tyrant. Alarmed, his father, the king, imprisons him. When he is released for a day as an experiment he proves the omens only too right, and, as a result, is incarcerated once more. Sigismund persuades himself that all that has passed is a dream and emerges to rule wisely and justly.

Pedro Calderon's play Life is a Dream was first published in 1635. This English translation by John Clifford was first performed at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in 1998. It is published in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series.

LIFE IS A DREAM

Characters

ROSAURA	(lady)
CLARIN	(comedian)
SEGISMUNDO	(prince)
CLOTALDO	(old man)
ASTOLFO	(prince)
ESTRELLA	(princess)
BASILIO	(king)
GUARD 1/SOLDIER 1/COURTIER 1
MUSICIANS

ACT ONE

A noise off. ROSAURA falls onto the stage. She is dressed as a man.

ROSAURA. Call yourself a horse! You hippogriff!

Violently running, fast as the wind,

Then falling like a meteor crashing

Into the labyrinth, into the maze,

Of these naked mountain crags.

You’re a thunderbolt with a limp!

A bird without wings. A fish without scales.

Stay in this mountain. You be its Phaeton

You be so foolish and fall from the sky!

Abandon me! Leave me here, desperate, alone

With no map or path to guide me

Nothing but the working of blind chance

As I struggle randomly through the tangled hair

On the head of this giant mountain.

Whose furrowed ridges frown at the sun.

And this is Poland! You vile country!

Viciously greeting this stranger

Writing your greeting in letters of blood.

I’ve hardly arrived. Such a hard arrival.

Where can I find pity in my pitiless fate

Arriving in anguish. Greeted with hate.

Enter CLARIN.

CLARIN. Wait a minute. ‘Where can I find pity?’

What about me? Why not ‘Where can we . . . ’

Where can we find pity? That’s a better line.

After all, it was the two of us left home,

Looking for adventure, us two,

Sadly and madly reaching this god forsaken place.

Us two rolling half way down this mountain

Us two sharing disaster and pain

So it’s us two who get to complain.

ROSAURA. Listen, Clarin, I didn’t mention you in my speech

Because I didn’t want to deprive you of your opportunity

To make your own. To lament your misfortune,

Find consolation in your grief. Remember the philosopher

Who said that to complain was such a pleasure

That misfortunes should be looked for, like a moral treasure.

CLARIN. Lady, your philosopher’s an idiot and I wish he was here

So I could kick his head in. Only then I’d have to hear him

Complaining about my utterly amazing skill in kicking.

But, lady, look at us. Look at the state we’re in.

On foot, completely and utterly lost

In a totally deserted mountain

With night falling like a guillotine.

Even the sun’s deserting us.

We’re completely on our own.

ROSAURA. Is there anyone who’s ever seen anything

So utterly extraordinary and strange?

And it could be my eyes are deceiving me

Or my imagination’s playing tricks on my fearful mind

But in the faint cold light of the dying day

I think I can see a building.

CLARIN. That’s what I want to see

And if it turns out not to be actually there

I’ll destroy the scenery.

ROSAURA. The mountains are so high

And the building is so low

It’s as if the sun’s hardly able to see it.

Its construction is so crude

It could be one of the rocks that surround it

Rocks casting such fierce shadows

It’s as if they hurt the sunlight.

CLARIN. Lady, I think we’re talking too much here,

Why don’t we get a little closer

So that the kind people who live round here

Can welcome us with food and wine

And let us sit by a roaring fire to warm ourselves?

ROSAURA. The door – no. I could put that better – this black mouth . . .

Its sinister jaws yawn open, and the dark night within

Engenders a deeper darkness.

Chains sound inside.

CLARIN. Good grief what’s that?

ROSAURA. I cannot move. I’m a block of fire and ice.

Burning with curiosity. Frozen with fear.

CLARIN. It’s just someone been to the loo

And is pulling at the chain.

SEGISMUNDO (within)

All I know of life is pain!

ROSAURA. What sadness in that voice. What desperation!

I’m left struggling with new grief and pain.

CLARIN. Me with new fear.

ROSAURA. Clarin!

CLARIN. My lady!

ROSAURA. Let’s run from the terrors

Of this evil and enchanted tower.

CLARIN. Lady, when it comes down to it,

I’m too petrified to even run.

ROSAURA. Is that a light, that feeble exhalation,

That pale and trembling star,

That pulse so weakly beating

In so obscure and dubious a dwelling

That, far from lightening,

Appears to darken it.

In its dim light I can barely see

A dark prison lit by a single flame

The burial place of a living corpse.

An...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Introduction
• A Note on the Translation
• For Further Reading
• Calderón: Key Dates
• Dedication
• Life is a Dream
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information