And if the night deceived you, try anew
With morning; morning dreams they say come true.
SEGISMUND. Oh, rather pray for me a sleep so fast
As shall obliterate dream and waking too.
[Exit into the tower.]
CLOTALDO. So sleep; sleep fast: and sleep away those two
Night-potions, and the waking dream between
Which dream thou must believe; and, if to see
Again, poor Segismund! that dream must be.—
And yet, and yet, in these our ghostly lives,
Half night, half day, half sleeping, half awake,
How if our waking life, like that of sleep,
Be all a dream in that eternal life
To which we wake not till we sleep in death?
How if, I say, the senses we now trust
For date of sensible comparison,—
Ay, ev’n the Reason’s self that dates with them,
Should be in essence or intensity
Hereafter so transcended, and awake
To a perceptive subtlety so keen
As to confess themselves befool’d before,
In all that now they will avouch for most?
One man—like this—but only so much longer
As life is longer than a summer’s day,
Believed himself a king upon his throne,
And play’d at hazard with his fellows’ lives,
Who cheaply dream’d away their lives to him.
The sailor dream’d of tossing on the flood:
The soldier of his laurels grown in blood:
The lover of the beauty that he knew
Must yet dissolve to dusty residue:
The merchant and the miser of his bags
Of finger’d gold; the beggar of his rags:
And all this stage of earth on which we seem
Such busy actors, and the parts we play’d,
Substantial as the shadow of a shade,
And Dreaming but a dream within a dream!
FIFE. Was it not said, sir,
By some philosopher as yet unborn,
That any chimney-sweep who for twelve hours
Dreams himself king is happy as the king
Who dreams himself twelve hours a chimney-sweep?
CLOTALDO. A theme indeed for wiser heads than yours
To moralize upon—How came you here?—
FIFE. Not of my own will, I assure you, sir.
No matter for myself: but I would know
About my mistress—I mean, master—
CLOTALDO. Oh,
Now I remember—Well, your master-mistress
Is well, and deftly on its errand speeds,
As you shall—if you can but hold your tongue.
Can you?
FIFE. I’d rather be at home again.
CLOTALDO. Where you shall be the quicker if while here
You can keep silence.
FIFE. I may whistle, then?
Which by the virtue of my name I do,
And also as a reasonable test
Of waking sanity—
CLOTALDO. Well, whistle then;
And for another reason you forgot,
That while you whistle, you can chatter not.
Only remember—if you quit this pass—
FIFE. (His rhymes are out, or he had call’d it spot)—
CLOTALDO. A bullet brings you to.
I must forthwith to court to tell the King
The issue of this lamentable day,
That buries all his hope in night. (To Fife.) Farewell.
Remember.
FIFE. But a moment—but a word!
When shall I see my mis—mas—
CLOTALDO. Be content:
All in good time; and then, and not before,
Never to miss your master any more. [Exit.]
FIFE. Such talk of dreaming—dreaming—I begin
To doubt if I be dreaming I am Fife,
Who with a lad who call’d herself a boy
Because—I doubt there’s some confusion here—
He wore no petticoat, came on a time
Riding from Muscovy on half a horse,
Who must have dreamt she was a horse entire,
To cant me off upon my hinder face
Under this tower, wall-eyed and musket-tongued,
With sentinels a-pacing up and down,
Crying All’s well when all is far from well,
All the day long, and all the night, until
I dream—if what is dreaming be not waking—
Of bells a-tolling and processions rolling
With candles, crosses, banners, San-benitos,
Of which I wear the flamy-finingest,
Through streets and places throng’d with fiery faces
To some back platform—
Oh, I shall take a fire into my hand
With thinking of my own dear Muscovy—
Only just over that Sierra there,
By which we tumbled headlong into—No-land.
Now, if without a bullet after me,
I could but get a peep of my old home
Perhaps of my own mule to take me there—
All’s still—perhaps the gentlemen within
Are dreaming it is night behind their masks—
God send ‘em a good nightmare!—Now then—Hark!
Voices—and up the rocks—and armed men
Climbing like cats—Puss in the corner then. [He hides.]
[Enter SOLDIERS cautiously up the rocks]
CAPTAIN. This is the frontier pass, at any rate,
Where Poland ends and Muscovy begins.
SOLDIER. We must be close upon the tower, I know,
That half way up the mountain lies ensconced.
CAPTAIN. How know you that?
SOLDIER. He told me so—the Page
Who put us on the scent.
SOLDIER. 2. And, as I think,
Will soon be here to run it down with us.
CAPTAIN. Meantime, our horses on these ugly rocks
Useless, and worse than useless with their clatter—
Leave them behind, with one or two in charge,
And softly, softly, softly.
SOLDIERS.—There it is!
—There what?—
—The tower—the fortress—
—That the tower!—
—That mouse-trap! We could pitch it down the rocks
With our own hands.
—The rocks it hangs among
Dwarf its proportions and conceal its strength;
Larger and stronger than you think.
—No matter;
No place for Poland’s Prince to be shut up in.
At it at once!
CAPTAIN. No—no—I tell you wait—
Till those within give signal. For as yet
We know not who side with us, and the fort
Is strong in man and musket.
SOLDIER. Shame to wait
For odds with such a cause at stake.
CAPTAIN. Because
Of such a cause at stake we wait for odds—
For if not won at once, for ever lost:
For any long resistance on their part
Would bring Basilio’s force to succour them
Ere we had rescued him we come to rescue.
So softly, softly, softly, still—
A SOLDIER (discovering FIFE). Hilloa!
SOLDIERS.—Hilloa! Here’s some one skulking—
—Seize and gag him!
—Stab him at once, say I: the only way
To make all sure.
—Hold, every man of you!
And down upon your knees!—Why, ‘tis the Prince!
—The Prince!—
—Oh, I should know him anywhere,
And anyhow disguised.
—But the Prince is chain’d.
—And of a loftier presence—
—‘Tis he, I tell you;
Only bewilder’d as he was before.
God save your Royal Highness! On our knees
Beseech you answer us!
FIFE. Just as you please.
Well—‘tis this country’s custom, I suppose,
To take a poor man every now and then
And set him on the throne; just for the fun
Of tumbling him again into the dirt.
And now my turn is come. ‘Tis very pretty.
SOLDIER. His wits have been distemper’d with their drugs.
But do you ask him, Captain.
CAPTAIN. On my knees,
And in the name of all who kneel with me,
I do beseech your Highness answer to
Your royal title.
FIFE. Still, just as you please.
In my own poor opinion of myself—
But that may all be dreaming, which it seems
Is very much the fashion in this country
No Polish prince at all, but a poor lad
From Muscovy; where only help me back,
I promise never to contest the crown
Of Poland with whatever gentleman
You fancy to set up.
SOLDIERS.—From Muscovy?
—A spy then—
—Of Astolfo’s—
—Spy! a spy
—Hang him at once!
FIFE. No, pray don’t dream of that!
SOLDIER. How dared you then set yourself up for our Prince Segismund?
FIFE. I set up!—I like that
When ‘twas yourselves be-siegesmunded me.
CAPTAIN. No matter—Look!—The signal from the tower.
Prince Segismund!
SOLDIER. (from the tower). Prince Segismund!
CAPTAIN. All’s well.
Clotaldo safe secured?—
SOLDIER. (from the tower). No—by ill luck,
Instead of coming in, as we had look’d for,
He sprang on horse at once, and off at gallop.
CAPTAIN. To Court, no doubt—a blunder that—And yet
Perchance a blunder that may work as well
As better forethought. Having no suspicion
So will he carry none where his not going
Were of itself suspicious. But of those
Within, who side with us?
SOLDIER. Oh, one and all
To the last man, persuaded or compell’d.
CAPTAIN. Enough: whatever be to be retrieved
No moment to be lost. For though Clotaldo
Have no revolt to tell of in the tower,
The capital will soon awake to ours,
And the King’s force come blazing after us.
Where is the Prince?
SOLDIER. Within; so fast asleep
We woke him not ev’n striking off the chain
We had so cursedly help bind him with,
Not knowing what we did; but too ashamed
Not to undo ourselves what we had done.
CAPTAIN. No matter, nor by whosesoever hands,
Provided done. Come; we will bring him forth
Out of that stony darkness here abroad,
Where air and sunshine sooner shall disperse
The sleepy fume which they have drugg’d him with.
[They enter the tower, and thence bring out Segismund asleep on a pallet, and set him in the middle of the stage.]
CAPTAIN. Still, still so dead asleep, the very noise
And motion that we make in carrying him
Stirs not a leaf in all the living tree.
SOLDIERS. If living—But if by some inward blow
For ever and irrevocably fell’d
By what strikes deeper to the root than sleep?
—He’s dead! He’s dead! They’ve kill’d him—
—No—he breathes—
And the heart beats—and now he breathes again
Deeply, as one about to shake away
The load of sleep.
CAPTAIN. Come, let us all kneel round,
And with a blast of warlike instruments,
And acclamation of all loyal hearts,
Rouse and restore him to his royal right,
From which no royal wrong shall drive him more.
[They all kneel round his bed: trumpets, drums, etc.]
SOLDIERS.—Segismund! Segismund! Prince Segismund!
—King Segismund! Down with Basilio!
—Down with Astolfo! Segismund our King! etc.
—He stares upon us wildly. He cannot speak.
—I said so—driv’n him mad.
—Speak to him, Captain.
CAPTAIN. Oh Royal Segismund, our Prince and King,
Look on us—listen to us—answer us,
Your faithful soldiery and subjects, now
About you kneeling, but on fire to rise
And cleave a passage through your enemies,
Until we seat you on your lawful throne.
For though your father, King Basilio,
Now King of Poland, jealous of the stars
That prophesy his setting with your rise,
Here holds you ignominiously eclipsed,
And would Astolfo, Duke of Muscovy,
Mount to the throne of Poland after him;
So will not we, your loyal soldiery
And subjects; neither those of us now first
Apprised of your existence and your right:
Nor those that hitherto deluded by
Allegiance false, their vizors now fling down,
And craving pardon on their knees with us
For that unconscious disloyalty,
Offer with us the service of their blood;
Not only we and they; but at our heels
The heart, if not the bulk, of Poland follows
To join their voices and their arms with ours,
In vindicating with our lives our own
Prince Segismund to Poland and her throne.
SOLDIERS.—Segismund, Segismund, Prince Segismund!
—Our own King Segismund, etc. (They all rise.)
SEGISMUND. Again? So soon?—What, not yet done with me?
The sun is little higher up, I think,
Than when I last lay down,
To bury in the depth of your own sea
You that infest its shallows.
CAPTAIN. Sir!
SEGISMUND. And now,
Not in a palace, not in the fine clothes
We all were in; but here, in the old place,
And in our old accoutrement—
Only your vizors off, and lips unlock’d
To mock me with that idle title—
CAPTAIN. Nay,
Indeed no idle title, but your own,
Then, now, and now for ever. For, behold,
Ev’n as I speak, the mountain passes fill
And bristle with the advancing soldiery
That glitters in your rising glory, sir;
And, at our signal, echo to our cry,
‘Segismund, King of Poland!’ etc.
[Shouts, trumpets, etc.]
SEGISMUND. Oh, how cheap
The muster of a countless host of shadows,
As impotent to do with as to keep!
All this they said before—to softer music.
CAPTAIN. Soft music, sir, to what indeed were shadows,
That, following the sunshine of a Court,
Shall back be brought with it—if shadows still,
Yet to substantial reckoning.
SEGISMUND. They shall?
The white-hair’d and white-wanded chamberlain,
So busy with his wand too—the old King
That I was somewhat hard on—he had been
Hard upon me—and the fine feather’d Prince
Who crow’d so loud—my cousin,—and another,
Another cousin, we will not bear hard on—
And—But Clotaldo?
CAPTAIN. Fled, my lord, but close
Pursued; and then—
SEG
ISMUND. Then, as he fled before,
And after he had sworn it on his knees,
Came back to take me—where I am!—No more,
No more of this! Away with you! Begone!
Whether but visions of ambitious night
That morning ought to scatter, or grown out
Of night’s proportions you invade the day
To scare me from my little wits yet left,
Begone! I know I must be near awake,
Knowing I dream; or, if not at my voice,
Then vanish at the clapping of my hands,
Or take this foolish fellow for your sport:
Dressing me up in visionary glories,
Which the first air of waking consciousness
Scatters as fast as from the almander[3]—
That, waking one fine morning in full flower,
One rougher insurrection of the breeze
Of all her sudden honour disadorns
To the last blossom, and she stands again
The winter-naked scare-crow that she was!
CAPTAIN. I know not what to do, nor what to say,
With all this dreaming; I begin to doubt
They have driv’n him mad indeed, and he and we
Are lost together.
A SOLDIER (to CAPTAIN). Stay, stay; I remember—
Hark in your ear a moment. (Whispers.)
CAPTAIN. So—so—so?—
Oh, now indeed I do not wonder, sir,
Your senses dazzle under practices
Which treason, shrinking from its own device,
Would now persuade you only was a dream;
But waking was as absolute as this
You wake in now, as some who saw you then,
Prince as you were and are, can testify:
Not only saw, but under false allegiance
Laid hands upon—
SOLDIER 1. I, to my shame!
SOLDIER 2. And I!
CAPTAIN. Who, to wipe out that shame, have been the first
To stir and lead us—Hark! (Shouts, trumpets, etc.)
A SOLDIER. Our forces, sir,
Challenging King Basilio’s, now in sight,
And bearing down upon us.
CAPTAIN. Sir, you hear;
A little hesitation and delay,
And all is lost—your own right, and the lives
Of those who now maintain it at that cost;
With you all saved and won; without, all lost.
That former recognition of your right
Grant but a dream, if you will have it so;
Great things forecast themselves by shadows great:
Or will you have it, this like that dream too,
People, and place, and time itself, all dream
Yet, being in’t, and as the shadows come
Quicker and thicker than you can escape,
Adopt your visionary soldiery,
Who, having struck a solid chain away,
Now put an airy sword into your hand,
And harnessing you piece-meal till you stand
Life Is a Dream_Pedro Calderon De La Barca Page 6