Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Life is a Dream
    Life is a Dream
    Life is a Dream
    Ebook107 pages54 minutes

    Life is a Dream

    By Pedro Calderon de Barca

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Life is a Dream is a philosophical allegory regarding the human situation and the mystery of life. Focusing on Segismundo, Prince of Poland, the central argument is the conflict between free will and fate. The play remains one of Calderûn's best-known and most studied works.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Publishing LLC
    Release dateDec 28, 2012
    ISBN9781625584441
    Life is a Dream

    Related to Life is a Dream

    Titles in the series (100)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      “Where Did You Laugh?”

      Dec 14, 2019

      “Where Did You Laugh?”
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      We Laughed–until We Cried

      Feb 5, 2020

      We Laughed–until We Cried
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      My 21st-century Touchstone Play: Theatre Stars Share The Shows That Shook Them To The Core

      Feb 19, 2021

      Here at the Evening Standard, we recently tried to pull together the 21st-century’s greatest plays (read our list and see if you agree). But what about those plays that impact us more personally, that seem to speak to us directly and leave us getting

      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sarah Brightman My Amazing Life

      Mar 21, 2024

      Sarah Brightman My Amazing Life
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      An ‘Inheritance’ Deferred

      Oct 25, 2019

      An ‘Inheritance’ Deferred
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Harold Pinter: From Bad To Verse

      Jul 28, 2022

      Harold Pinter: From Bad To Verse
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks

      Nov 25, 2019

      Cathedrals Made of Bricks
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Adapting the Bard: On the Hogarth Shakespeare Project’s Diversity Problem

      Oct 5, 2017

      It is disappointing when a project aims to see “the Bard’s plays retold by acclaimed, bestselling novelists and brought to life for a contemporary readership,” yet the writers selected are not ultimately representative of all that contemporary societ

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      On Stage

      Apr 14, 2020

      On Stage
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Norwegian Wood

      Jul 25, 2019

      HENRIK IBSEN: THE MAN AND THE MASK By Ivo de Figueiredo, translated by Robert Ferguson. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2019. 704 pp., $40 cloth. HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND HENRIK IBSEN? Theatrically, he was the Master Builder himself, setting the

      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Refugees

      Mar 1, 2019

      Refugees
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Liev Forever

      Apr 5, 2019

      Liev Forever
      15 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Celebration and Enlightenment

      Dec 1, 2019

      Celebration and Enlightenment
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Lifelong Habit of Being

      Jun 1, 2020

      DAYS AFTER THE 9/11 attacks, Susan Sontag noted the frequency with which the hijackers were being charged with cowardice: “[W]hatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter,” she insisted in The New Yorker, “they were not cowards.” So

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Life is a Dream

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Life is a Dream - Pedro Calderon de Barca

      Act I

      Scene I—A pass of rocks, over which a storm is rolling away,

      and the sun setting: in the foreground, half-way down, a fortress

      (Enter first from the topmost rock Rosaura, as from horseback, in man’s attire; and, after her, Fife.)

      ROSAURA.

      There, four-footed Fury, blast

      Engender’d brute, without the wit

      Of brute, or mouth to match the bit

      Of man—art satisfied at last?

      Who, when thunder roll’d aloof,

      Tow’rd the spheres of fire your ears

      Pricking, and the granite kicking

      Into lightning with your hoof,

      Among the tempest-shatter’d crags

      Shattering your luckless rider

      Back into the tempest pass’d?

      There then lie to starve and die,

      Or find another Phaeton

      Mad-mettled as yourself; for I,

      Wearied, worried, and for-done,

      Alone will down the mountain try,

      That knits his brows against the sun.

      FIFE (as to his mule).

      There, thou mis-begotten thing,

      Long-ear’d lightning, tail’d tornado,

      Griffin-hoof-in hurricano,

      (I might swear till I were almost

      Hoarse with roaring Asonante)

      Who forsooth because our betters

      Would begin to kick and fling

      You forthwith your noble mind

      Must prove, and kick me off behind,

      Tow’rd the very centre whither

      Gravity was most inclined.

      There where you have made your bed

      In it lie; for, wet or dry,

      Let what will for me betide you,

      Burning, blowing, freezing, hailing;

      Famine waste you: devil ride you:

      Tempest baste you black and blue:

      (To Rosaura.)

      There! I think in downright railing

      I can hold my own with you.

      ROS.

      Ah, my good Fife, whose merry loyal pipe,

      Come weal, come woe, is never out of tune

      What, you in the same plight too?

      FIFE.

      Ay; And madam—sir—hereby desire,

      When you your own adventures sing

      Another time in lofty rhyme,

      You don’t forget the trusty squire

      Who went with you Don-quixoting.

      ROS.

      Well, my good fellow—to leave Pegasus

      Who scarce can serve us than our horses worse—

      They say no one should rob another of

      The single satisfaction he has left

      Of singing his own sorrows; one so great,

      So says some great philosopher, that trouble

      Were worth encount’ring only for the sake

      Of weeping over—what perhaps you know

      Some poet calls the ‘luxury of woe.’

      FIFE.

      Had I the poet or philosopher

      In the place of her that kick’d me off to ride,

      I’d test his theory upon his hide.

      But no bones broken, madam—sir, I mean?—

      ROS.

      A scratch here that a handkerchief will heal—

      And you?—

      FIFE.

      A scratch in quiddity, or kind:

      But not in ‘quo’—my wounds are all behind.

      But, as you say, to stop this strain,

      Which, somehow, once one’s in the vein,

      Comes clattering after—there again!—

      What are we twain—deuce take’t!—we two,

      I mean, to do—drench’d through and through—

      Oh, I shall choke of rhymes, which I believe

      Are all that we shall have to live on here.

      ROS.

      What, is our victual gone too?—

      FIFE.

      Ay, that brute

      Has carried all we had away with her,

      Clothing, and cate, and all.

      ROS.

      And now the sun,

      Our only friend and guide, about to sink

      Under the stage of earth.

      FIFE.

      And enter Night,

      With Capa y Espada—and—pray heaven!

      With but her lanthorn also.

      ROS.

      Ah, I doubt

      To-night, if any, with a dark one—or

      Almost burnt out after a month’s consumption.

      Well! well or ill, on horseback or afoot,

      This is the gate that lets me into Poland;

      And, sorry welcome as she gives a guest

      Who writes his own arrival on her rocks

      In his own blood—

      Yet better on her stony threshold die,

      Than live on unrevenged in Muscovy.

      FIFE.

      Oh, what a soul some women have—I mean

      Some men—

      ROS.

      Oh, Fife, Fife, as you love me, Fife,

      Make yourself perfect in that little part,

      Or all will go to ruin!

      FIFE.

      Oh, I will,

      Please God we find some one to try it on.

      But, truly, would not any one believe

      Some fairy had exchanged us as we lay

      Two tiny foster-children in one cradle?

      ROS.

      Well, be that as it may, Fife, it reminds me

      Of what perhaps I should have thought before,

      But better late than never—You know I love you,

      As you, I know, love me, and loyally

      Have follow’d me thus far in my wild venture.

      Well! now then—having seen me safe thus far

      Safe if not wholly sound—over the rocks

      Into the country where my business lies

      Why should not you return the way we came,

      The storm all clear’d away, and, leaving me

      (Who now shall want you, though not thank you, less,

      Now that our horses gone) this side the ridge,

      Find your way back to dear old home again;

      While I—Come, come!—

      What, weeping my poor fellow?

      FIFE.

      Leave you here

      Alone—my Lady—Lord! I mean my Lord—

      In a strange country—among savages—

      Oh, now I know—you would be rid of me

      For fear my stumbling speech—

      ROS.

      Oh, no, no, no!—

      I want you with me for a thousand sakes

      To which that is as nothing—I myself

      More apt to let the secret out myself

      Without your help at all—Come, come, cheer up!

      And if you sing again, ‘Come weal, come woe,’

      Let it be that; for we will never part

      Until you give the signal.

      FIFE.

      ‘Tis a bargain.

      ROS.

      Now

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1