{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6371/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6371","id":"gutenberg_6371","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6371","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Patrick, Saint, 373?-463? -- Drama"],"text":"Produced by Sue Asscher asschers@bigpond.com\n\n\n\n\n\nCALDERON'S DRAMAS.\n\n\n\nTHE PURGATORY OF ST. PATRICK.\n\n\n\nNOW FIRST TRANSLATED FULLY FROM THE SPANISH IN THE METRE\nOF THE ORIGINAL.\n\nBY\n\nDENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.\n\n\n\nLONDON:  HENRY S. KING & CO.,\n65 CORNHILL, AND 12, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n1873.\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nTwo of the dramas contained in this volume are the most celebrated of\nall Calderon's writings.  The first, \"La Vida es Sueno\", has been\ntranslated into many languages and performed with success on almost\nevery stage in Europe but that of England.  So late as the winter of\n1866-7, in a Russian version, it drew crowded houses to the great\ntheatre of Moscow; while a few years earlier, as if to give a signal\nproof of the reality of its title, and that Life was indeed a Dream,\nthe Queen of Sweden expired in the theatre of Stockholm during the\nperformance of \"La Vida es Sueno\".  In England the play has been much\nstudied for its literary value and the exceeding beauty and lyrical\nsweetness of some passages; but with the exception of a version by\nJohn Oxenford published in \"The Monthly Magazine\" for 1842, which\nbeing in blank verse does not represent the form of the original, no\ncomplete translation into English has been attempted.  Some scenes\ntranslated with considerable elegance in the metre of the original\nwere published by Archbishop Trench in 1856; but these comprised only\na portion of the graver division of the drama.  The present version\nof the entire play has been made with the advantages which the\nauthor's long experience in the study and interpretation of Calderon\nhas enabled him to apply to this master-piece of the great Spanish\npoet.  All the forms of verse have been preserved; while the\ncloseness of the translation may be inferred from the fact, that not\nonly the whole play but every speech and fragment of a speech are\nrepresented in English in the exact number of lines of the original,\nwithout the sacrifice, it is to be hoped, of one important idea.\n\nA note by Hartzenbusch in the last edition of the drama published at\nMadrid (1872), tells that \"La Vida es Sueno\", is founded on a story\nwhich turns out to be substantially the same as that with which\nEnglish students are familiar as the foundation of the famous\nInduction to the \"Taming of the Shrew\".  Calderon found it however in\na different work from that in which Shakespeare met with it, or\nrather his predecessor, the anonymous author of \"The Taming of a\nShrew\", whose work supplied to Shakespeare the materials of his own\ncomedy.\n\nOn this subject Malone thus writes.  \"The circumstance on which the\nInduction to the anonymous play, as well as to the present Comedy\n[Shakespeare's \"Taming of the Shrew\"], is founded, is related (as\nLangbaine has observed) by Heuterus, \"Rerum Burgund.\" lib. iv.  The\nearliest English original of this story in prose that I have met with\nis the following, which is found in Goulart's \"Admirable and\nMemorable Histories\", translated by E. Grimstone, quarto, 1607; but\nthis tale (which Goulart translated from Heuterus) had undoubtedly\nappeared in English, in some other shape, before 1594:\n\n\"Philip called the good Duke of Burgundy, in the memory of our\nancestors, being at Bruxelles with his Court, and walking one night\nafter supper through the streets, accompanied by some of his\nfavourites, he found lying upon the stones a certaine artisan that\nwas very dronke, and that slept soundly.  It pleased the prince in\nthis artisan to make trial of the vanity of our life, whereof he had\nbefore discoursed with his familiar friends.  He therefore caused\nthis sleeper to be taken up, and carried into his palace; he commands\nhim to be layed in one of the richest beds; a riche night cap to be\ngiven him; his foule shirt to be taken off, and to have another put\non him of fine holland.  When as this dronkard had digested his wine,\nand began to awake, behold there comes about his bed Pages and\nGroomes of the Duke's Chamber, who drawe the curteines, make many\ncourtesies, and being bare-headed, aske him if it please him to rise,\nand what apparell it would please him to put on that day.  They bring\nhim rich apparell.  This new Monsieur amazed at such courtesie, and\ndoubting whether he dreamt or waked, suffered himselfe to be drest,\nand led out of the chamber.  There came noblemen which saluted him\nwith all honour, and conduct him to the Masse, where with great\nceremonie they give him the booke of the Gospell, and the Pixe to\nkisse, as they did usually to the Duke.  From the Masse they bring\nhim back unto the pallace; he washes his hands, and sittes down at\nthe table well furnished.  After dinner, the Great Chamberlain\ncommands cards to be brought with a great summe of money.  This Duke\nin imagination playes with the chief of the Court.  Then they carry\nhim to walke in the gardein, and to hunt the hare, and to hawke.\nThey bring him back into the pallace, where he sups in state.\nCandles being light the musitions begin to play; and the tables taken\naway, the gentlemen and gentlewomen fell to dancing.  Then they\nplayed a pleasant comedie, after which followed a Banket, whereat\nthey had presently store of Ipocras and pretious wine, with all sorts\nof confitures, to this prince of the new impression; so as he was\ndronke, and fell soundlie asleepe.  Hereupon the Duke commanded that\nhe should be disrobed of all his riche attire.  He was put into his\nold ragges, and carried into the same place, where he had been found\nthe night before; where he spent that night.  Being awake in the\nmorning, he began to remember what had happened before; he knewe not\nwhether it were true indeede, or a dream that had troubled his\nbraine.  But in the end, after many discourses, he concludes that ALL\nWAS BUT A DREAME that had happened unto him; and so entertained his\nwife, his children, and his neighbours, without any other\napprehension.\"\n\nIt is curious to find that the same anecdote which formed the\nInduction to the original \"Taming of a Shrew\", and which, from a\ncomic point of view, Shakespeare so wonderfully developed in his own\ncomedy, Calderon invested with such solemn and sublime dignity in \"La\nVida es Sueno\".  He found it, as Senor Hartzenbusch points out in the\nedition of 1872 already quoted, in the very amusing \"Viage\nEntretenido\" of Augustin de Rojas, which was first published in 1603.\nHartzenbusch refers to the modern edition of Rojas, Madrid, 1793,\ntomo I, pp. 261, 262, 263, but in a copy of the Lerida edition of\n1615, in my own possession, I find the anecdote at folios 118, 119,\n120.  There are some slight differences between the version of Rojas\nand that of Goulart, but the incidents and the persons are the same.\nThe conclusion to which the artizan arrived at, in the version of\nGoulart, that all had been a dream, is expressed more strongly by the\nDuke himself in the story as told by Rojas.\n\n\"Y dijo entonces el Duque:  'veis aqui, amigos, \"Lo que es el Mundo:\nTodo es un Sueno\", pues esto verdaderamente ha pasado por este, como\nhabeis visto, y le parece que lo ha sonado.'\" --\n\nThe story in all probability came originally from the East.  Mr. Lane\nin his translation of the Thousand and One Nights gives a very\ninteresting narrative which he believes to be founded on an\nhistorical fact in which Haroun Al Raschid plays the part of the good\nDuke of Burgundy, and Abu-l-Hasan the original of Christopher Sly.\nThe gravity of the treatment and certain incidents in this Oriental\nstory recall more strongly Calderon's drama than the Induction to the\n\"Taming of the Shrew\".  \"La Vida es Sueno\" was first published either\nat the end of 1635 or beginning of 1636.\n\nThe \"Aprobacion\" for its publication along with eleven other dramas\n(not nine as Archbishop Trench has stated), was signed on the 6th of\nNovember in the former year by the official licenser, Juan Bautista\nde Sossa.  The volume was edited by the poet's brother, Don Joseph\nCalderon.  So scarce has this first authorised collection of any of\nCalderon's dramas become, that a Spanish writer Don Vicente Garcia de\nla Huerta, in his \"Teatro Espanol\" (Parte Segunda, tomo 3o), denies\nthe existence of this volume of 1635, and states that it did not\nappear until 1640.  As if to corroborate this view, Barrera in his\n\"Catalogo del Teatro antiguo Espanol\" gives the date 1640 to the\n\"Primera parte de comedias de Calderon\" edited by his brother Joseph.\n\nThere can be no doubt, however, that the volume appeared in 1635 or\n1636 as stated.  In 1637 Don Joseph Calderon published the \"Second\nPart\" of his brother's dramas containing like the former volume\ntwelve plays.*  In his dedication of this volume to D. Rodrigo de\nMendoza, Joseph Calderon expressly alludes to the First Part of his\nbrother's comedies which he had \"printed.\"  \"En la primera Parte,\nExcellentissimo Senor, de las comedias que imprimi de Don Pedro\nCalderon de La Barca, mi hermano,\" etc.  This of course settles the\nfact of the prior publication of the first Part.  It is singular,\nhowever, to find that the most famous of all Calderon's dramas should\nhave been frequently ascribed to Lope de Vega.  So late as 1857 it is\ngiven in an Italian version by Giovanni La Cecilia, under the title\nof \"La Vita e un Sogno\", as a drama of Lope de Vega, with the date\n1628.  This of course is a mistake, but Senor Hartzenbusch, who makes\nno allusion to this circumstance, admits that two dramas of Lope de\nVega, which it is presumed preceded the composition of Calderon's\nplay turn on very nearly the same incidents as those of \"La Vida es\nSueno\".  These are \"Lo que ha de ser\", and \"Barlan y Josafa\".  He\ngives a passage from each of these dramas which seem to be the germ\nof the fine lament of Sigismund, which the reader will find\ntranslated in the present volume.\n\n[footnote] *In the library of the British Museum there is a fine copy\nof this \"Segunda Parte de Comedias de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca\"\nMadrid, 1637.  Mr. Ticknor mentions (1863) that he too had a copy of\nthis interesting volume.\n\nSenor Hartzenbusch, in the edition of Calderon's \"La Vida es Sueno\",\nalready referred to (Madrid, 1872), prints the passages from Lope de\nVega's two dramas, but in neither of them, he justly remarks, can we\nfind anything that at all corresponds to this \"grandioso caracter de\nSegismundo.\"\n\nThe second drama in this volume, \"The Wonderful Magician\", is perhaps\nbetter known to poetical students in England than even the first,\nfrom the spirited fragment Shelley has left us in his \"Scenes from\nCalderon.\"  The preoccupation of a subject by a great master throws\nimmense difficulties in the way of any one who ventures to follow in\nthe same path:  but as Shelley allowed himself great licence in his\nversification, and either from carelessness or an imperfect knowledge\nof Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author,\nit may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the\nform as well as substance of the original may be some compensation\nfor the absence of those higher poetical harmonies to which many of\nmy readers will have been accustomed.\n\n\"El Magico Prodigioso\" appeared for the first time in the same volume\nas \"La Vida es Sueno\", prepared for publication in 1635 by Don Joseph\nCalderon.  The translation is comprised in the same number of lines\nas the original, and all the preceding remarks on \"Life is a Dream\",\nwhether in reference to the period of the first publication of the\ndrama in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting\nthis version may be applied to it.  As in the Case of \"Life is a\nDream\", \"The Wonderful Magician\" has previously been translated\nentire by an English writer, (\"Justina\", by J.H. 1848); but as\nArchbishop Trench truly observes, \"the writer did not possess that\ncommand of the resources of the English language, which none more\nthan Calderon requires.\"\n\nThe Legend on which Calderon founded \"El Magico Prodigioso\" will be\nfound in Surius, \"De probatis Sanctorum historiis\", t. V. (Col. Agr.\n1574), p. 351:  \"Vita et Martyrium SS. Cypriani et Justinae, autore\nSimeone Metaphraste\", and in Chapter cxlii, of the \"Legenda Aurea\" of\nJacobus de Voragine \"De Sancta Justina virgine\".\n\nThe martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their\nfestival is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of September.\n\nMr. Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature, 1863, volume ii. p.\n369, says that the Wonder-working Magician is founded on \"the same\nlegend on which Milman has founded his 'Martyr of Antioch.'\"  This is\na mistake of the learned writer.  \"The Martyr of Antioch\" is founded\nnot on the history of St. Justina but of Saint Margaret, as Milman\nhimself expressly states.  Chapter xciii., \"De Sancta Margareta\", in\nthe \"Legenda Aurea\" of Jacobus de Voragine contains her story.\n\nThe third translation in this volume is that of \"The Purgatory of St.\nPatrick\".  This, though perhaps not so famous as the two preceding\ndramas, is intended to be given by Don P. De la Escosura, in a\nselection of Calderon's finest \"comedias\", now being edited by him\nfor the Spanish Academy, as the representative piece of its class --\nnamely, the mystical drama founded on the lives of Saints.  Mr.\nTicknor prefers it to the more celebrated \"Devotion of the Cross,\"\nand says that it \"is commonly ranked among the best religious plays\nof the Spanish theatre in the seventeenth century.\"\n\nIn all that relates to the famous cave known through the middle ages\nas the \"Purgatory of Saint Patrick\", as well as the Story of Luis\nEnius -- the Owain Miles of Ancient English poetry -- Calderon was\nentirely indebted to the little volume published at Madrid, in 1627,\nby Juan Perez de Montalvan, entitled \"Vida y Purgatorio de San\nPatricio\".  This singular work met with immense success.  It went\nthrough innumerable editions, and continues to be reprinted in Spain\nas a chap-book, down to the present day.  I have the fifth impression\n\"improved and enlarged by the author himself,\" Madrid, 1628, the year\nafter its first appearance:  also a later edition, Madrid, 1664.  As\nearly as 1637 a French translation appeared at Brussels by \"F. A. S.\nChartreux, a Bruxelles.\"  In 1642 a second French translation was\npublished at Troyes, by \"R. P. Francois Bouillon, de l'Ordre de S.\nFrancois, et Bachelier de Theologie.\"  Mr. Thomas Wright in his\n\"Essay on St. Patrick's Purgatory,\" London, 1844, makes the singular\nmistake of supposing that Bouillon's \"Histoire de la Vie et\nPurgatoire de S. Patrice\" was founded on the drama of Calderon, it\nbeing simply a translation of Montalvan's \"Vida y Purgatorio,\" from\nwhich, like itself, Calderon's play was derived.  Among other\ntranslations of Montalvan's work may be mentioned one in Dutch\n(Brussels, 1668) and one in Portuguese (Lisbon, 1738).  It was also\ntranslated into German and Italian, but I find no mention of an\nEnglish version.  For this reason I have thought that a few extracts\nmight be interesting, as showing how closely Calderon adhered even to\nthe language of his predecessor.\n\nIn all that relates to the Purgatory, Montalvan's work is itself\nchiefly compiled from the \"Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum, seu vitae\net Actae sanctorum Hiberniae,\" Paris, 1624, fol.  This work, which\nhas now become scarce, was written by Thomas Messingham an Irish\npriest, the Superior of the Irish Seminary in Paris.  No complete\nEnglish version appears to have been made of it, but a small tract in\nEnglish containing everything in the original work that referred to\nSt. Patrick's Purgatory was published at Paris in 1718.  As this\ntract is perhaps more scarce than even the Florilegium itself, the\naccount of the Purgatory as given by Messingham from the MS. of Henry\nof Saltrey is reprinted in the notes to this drama in the quaint\nlanguage of the anonymous translator.  Of this tract, \"printed at\nParis in 1718\" without the name of author, publisher or printer, I\nhave not been able to trace another copy.  In other points of\ninterest connected with Calderon's drama, particularly to the\nclearing up of the difficulty hitherto felt as to the confused list\nof authorities at the end, the reader is also referred to the notes.\n\nThe present version of \"The Purgatory of Saint Patrick\" is, with the\nexception of a few unimportant lines, an entirely new translation.\nIt is made with the utmost care, imitating all the measures and\ncontained, like the two preceding dramas, in the exact number of\nlines of the original.  One passage of the translation which I\npublished in 1853 is retained in the notes, as a tribute of respect\nto the memory of the late John Rutter Chorley, it having been\nmentioned with praise by that eminent Spanish scholar in an elaborate\nreview of my earlier translations from Calderon, which appeared in\nthe \"Athenaeum\", Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1853.\n\nIt only remains to add that the text I have followed is that of\nHartzenbusch in his edition of Calderon's Comedias, Madrid, 1856\n(\"Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles\").  His arrangement of the scenes\nhas been followed throughout, thus enabling the reader in a moment to\nverify for himself the exactness of the translation by a reference to\nthe original, a crucial test which I rather invite than decline.\n\nCLAPHAM PARK, Easter, 1873.\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nPURGATORY OF ST. PATRICK.\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nAUBREY DE VERE,\n\nWHOSE\n\n\"LEGENDS OF ST. PATRICK\"\n\nARE AMONG THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ENGLISH POEMS,\n\nTHIS VERSION\n\nOF THE CELEBRATED LEGEND OF ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY,\n\nAS TOLD BY CALDERON,\n\nIS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY\n\nTHE AUTHOR.\n\n\n\n\nPERSONS.\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nEGERIUS, King of Ireland.\nPATRICK.\nLUIS ENIUS.\nA GOOD ANGEL.\nA BAD ANGEL.\nPHILIP.\nLEOGAIRE.\nA CAPTAIN.\nPOLONIA, Daughter of the King.\nLESBIA, her Sister.\nPAUL, a Peasant.\nLUCY, his Wife.\nTwo Canons Regular.\nTwo Peasants.\nAn Old Countryman.\nA Muffled Figure.\nAttendants, Friars, and others.\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\nThe Scene passes in Ireland, in the Court of King Egerius, and other parts.\n\n\n\nTHE PURGATORY OF SAINT PATRICK.\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nACT THE FIRST.\n\nTHE SEA-SHORE, WITH PRECIPITOUS CLIFFS.\n\nSCENE I.\n\nThe King EGERIUS, clad in skins, LEOGAIRE, POLONIA, LESBIA, and a Captain.\n\nKING [furious].  Here let me die.  Away!\n\nLEOGAIRE.  Oh, stop, my lord!\n\nCAPTAIN.      Consider . . .\n\nLESBIA.            Listen . . .\n\nPOLONIA.                  Stay . . .\n\nKING.  Yes, from this rocky height,\nNigh to the sun, that with one starry light\nIts rugged brow doth crown,\nHeadlong among the salt waves leaping down\nLet him descend who so much pain perceives;\nThere let him raging die who raging lives.\n\nLESBIA.  Why wildly seekest thou the sea?\n\nPOLONIA.  Thou wert asleep, my lord; what could it be?\n\nKING.  Every torment that doth dwell\nFor ever with the thirsty fiends of hell --\nDark brood of that dread mother,\nThe seven-necked snake, whose poisoned breath doth smother\nThe fourth celestial sphere;\nIn fine, its horror and its misery drear\nWithin me reach so far,\nThat I myself upon myself make war,\nWhen in the arms of sleep\nA living corse am I, for it doth keep\nSuch mastery o'er my life, that, as I dream,\nA pale foreshadowing threat of coming death I seem.\n\nPOLONIA.  How could a dream, my lord, provoke you so?\n\nKING.  Alas! my daughters, listen, you shall know.\nFrom out the lips of a most lovely youth\n(And though a miserable slave, in sooth\nI dare not hurt him, and I speak his praise),\nWell, from the mouth of a poor slave, a blaze\nOf lambent lustre came,\nWhich mildly burned in rays of gentlest flame;\nTill reaching you,\nThe living fire at once consumed ye two.\nI stood betwixt ye both, and though I sought\nTo stay its fury, the strange fire would not\nMolest or wound me, passing like the wind,\nSo that despairing, blind,\nI woke from out a deep abysm\nOf dream, a lethargy, a paroxysm;\nBut find my pains the same,\nFor still it seems to me I see that flame,\nAnd flying, at every turn\nSee you consumed; but now I also burn.*\n\n\n[footnote] *The Dream of Egerius, as given by Calderon, agrees\nsubstantially with Jocelin's description, and differs only in one\nslight particular (the number of the flames) from that in Montalvan's\n\"Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio\".  In the latter, the name of the\nIrish prince to whom Patrick was sold is not given; in Jocelin he is\ncalled \"Milcho.\"  Calderon was either ignorant of this, and gave the\nking a name that was purely imaginary, or, considering it less\nmusical than he would wish, gave him the more harmonious one of\nEgerio.  The following is Jocelin's version:  \"And Milcho beheld a\nvision in the night: and behold Patrick entered his palace as all on\nfire, and the flames, issuing from his mouth, and from his nose, and\nfrom his eyes, and from his ears, seemed to burn him; but Milcho\nrepelled from himself the flaming hair of the boy, nor did it prevail\nto touch him any nearer; but the flame, being spread, turned aside to\nthe right and catching on his two little daughters, who were lying in\none bed, burned them even to ashes: then the south wind blowing\nstrongly dispersed their ashes over many parts of Ireland.\" --\n\"Jocelin's Life of St. Patrick, translated by Swift\" (Dublin, 1804),\npp. 17, 18.\n\n\nLESBIA.  Light phantoms these,\nChimeras which an entrance find with ease\nInto the dreamer's brain.\n[A trumpet sounds.\nBut wherefore sounds this trumpet?\n\nCAPTAIN.      It is plain\nShips are approaching to our port below.\n\nPOLONIA.  Grant me thy leave, great lord, since thou dost know\nA trumpet in my ear\nSounds like a siren's voice, serene and clear;\nEver to war inclined,\nIn martial music my chief joy I find;\nIts clangour and its din\nLead my rapt senses on: for I may win\nThrough it my highest fame,\nWhen soaring to the sun on waves of flame,\nOr wings as swift, my proud name shall ascend,\nThere it may be with Pallas to contend.\n[Aside.\nA stronger motive urges me to go:\nIf it is Philip's ship I wish to know.\n[Exit.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  Descend, my lord, with me\nDown where the foam-curled head of the blue sea\nBows at the base of this majestic hill,\nWhose sands, like chains of gold, restrain its wilder will.\n\nCAPTAIN.  Let it divert thy care,\nThis snow-white monster fair,\nWhose waves of dazzling hue\nShape silver frames round mirrors sapphire blue.\n\nKING.  Nothing can give relief;\nNothing can now divert me from my grief;\nThat mystic fire will give my life no rest,--\nMy heart an Etna seems within my breast.\n\nLESBIA.  Is any sight more fair? can aught surpass\nThat of a vessel breaking through the glass\nOf crystal seas, and seeming there to be,\nAs with light share it cuts the azure mass,\nA fish of the wind, a swift bird of the sea,\nAnd being for two elements designed,\nFlies in the wave and swims upon the wind?\nBut now no witchery\nWere it to any eyes that sight to see;\nFor lo! the roused-up ocean,\nHeaving with all its mountain waves in motion,\nWrinkles its haughty brow,\nAnd suddenly awaking,\nNeptune, his trident shaking,\nRuffles the beauteous face so sweet and calm but now.\nWell may the sailor in his floating home\nExpect a storm, for, lo! in heaven's high vault\nRise pyramids of ice, mountains of salt,\nTurrets of snow, and palaces of foam.\n\nPOLONIA returns.\n\nPOLONIA.  O dire misfortune!\n\nKING.      What so suddenly\nHas chanced, Polonia?\n\nPOLONIA.      This inconstant sea,\nThis Babel of wild waves that seeks heaven's gate,\nSo great its fury, and its rage so great,\nDriven by a drought accursed,\n(Who would have thought that waves themselves could thirst?)\nHas swallowed in the depths of its dread womb,\nBut now, a numerous company, to whom\nIt consecrates below\nRed sepulchres of coral, tombs of snow,\nIn silver-shining caves;\nFor from their prison out o'er all the waves\nHas Aeolus the winds let loose, and they,\nWithout a law to guide them on their way,\nFell on that bark from which the trumpet rang,\nA swan whose own sad obsequies it sang.\nI from that cliff's stupendous height,\nWhich dares to intercept the great sun's light,\nLooked full of hope along that vessel's track,\nTo see if it was Philip who came back;\nPhilip whose flag had borne upon the breeze\nThy royal arms triumphant through the seas;\nWhen his sad wreck swept by,\nAnd every sound was buried in a sigh,\nHis ruin seemed not wrought by seas or skies,\nBut by my lips and eyes,\nBecause my cries, the tears that made me blind,\nIncreased still more the water and the wind.\n\nKING.  How! ye immortal deities,\nWould you still try by threatenings such as these\nWhat I can bear?\nIs it your wish that I should mount and tear\nThis azure palace down, as if the shape\nOf a new Nimrod* I assumed, to show\nHow on my shoulders might the world escape,\nNor as I gazed below\nFeel any fear, though all the abysses under\nWere rent with fire and flame, with lightning and with thunder.\n\n\n[footnote] *Nimrod is here used for Atlas.  \"Nimrod aber ist hier,\nwas den Profandichtern und auch dem Calderon oft Atlas ist.\" --\nSchmidt, 'Die Schauspiele Calderon's' etc.,' p. 426.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE II.\n\nPATRICK, and then LUIS ENIUS.\n\nPATRICK [within].  Ah me!\n\nLEOGAIRE.      Some mournful voice.\n\nKING.            What's this?\n\nCAPTAIN.                  The form,\nAs of a man who has escaped the storm,\nSwims yonder to the land.\n\nLESBIA.  And strives to give a life-sustaining hand\nUnto another wretch, when he\nAppeared about to sink in death's last agony.\n\nPOLONIA.  Poor traveller from afar,\nWhom evil fate and thy malignant star\nOn this far shore have cast,\nLet my voice guide thee, if amid the blast\nMy accents thou canst hear; since it is only\nTo rouse thy courage that I speak to thee.\nCome!\n\n[Enter PATRICK and LUIS ENIUS, clasping each other.\n\nPATRICK.      Oh, God save me!\n\nLUIS.            Oh, the devil save ME!\n\nLESBIA.  They move my pity, these unhappy two.\n\nKING.  Not mine, for what it is I never knew.\n\nPATRICK.  Oh, sirs, if wretchedness\nCan move most hearts to pity man's distress,\nI will not think that here\nA heart can be so cruel and severe\nAs to repel a wretch from out the wave.\nPity, for God's sake, at your feet I crave.\n\nLUIS.  I don't, for I disdain it.\nFrom God or man I never hope to gain it.\n\nKING.  Say who you are; we then shall know\nWhat hospitable care your needs we owe.\nBut first I will inform you of my name,\nLest ignorance of that perchance might claim\nExemption from respect, and words be said\nUnworthy of the deference and the dread\nThat here my subjects show me,\nOr wanting the due homage that you owe me.\nI am the King Egerius,\nThe worthy lord of this small realm, for thus\nI call it being mine;\nTill 'tis the world, my sword shall not resign\nIts valorous hope.  The dress,\nNot of a king, but of wild savageness\nI wear: to testify,\nThus seeming a wild beast, how wild am I.\nNo god my worship claims;\nI do not even know the deities' names:\nHere they no service nor respect receive;\nTo die and to be born is all that we believe.\nNow that you know how much you should revere\nMy royal state, say who you are.\n\nPATRICK.      Then hear:\nPatrick is my name, my country\nIreland, and an humble hamlet,*\nScarcely known to men, called Empthor,**\nIs my place of birth:  It standeth\nMidway 'twixt the north and west,\nOn a mountain which is guarded\nAs a prison by the sea,--\nIn the island which hereafter\nWill be called the Isle of Saints,\nTo its glory everlasting;\nSuch a crowd, great lord, therein\nWill give up their lives as martyrs\nIn religious attestation\nOf the faith, faith's highest marvel.\nOf an Irish cavalier,\nAnd of his chaste spouse and partner,\nA French lady, I was born,\nUnto whom I owe (oh, happy\nThat 'twas so!), beyond my birthright\nOf nobility, the vantage\nOf the Christian faith, the light\nOf Christ's true religion granted\nIn the sacred rite of baptism,\nWhich a mark indelibly stampeth\nOn the soul, heaven's gate, as it\nIs the sacrament first granted\nBy the Church.  My pious parents,\nHaving thus the debt exacted\nFrom all married people paid\nBy my birth, retired thereafter\nTo two separate convents, where\nIn the purity and calmness\nOf their chaste abodes they lived,\nTill the fatal line of darkness,\nEnding life, was reached, and they,\nFortified by every practice\nOf the Catholic faith, in peace\nYielded up their souls in gladness,\nUnto heaven their spirits giving,\nGiving unto earth their ashes.\nI, an orphan, then remained\nCarefully and kindly guarded\nBy a very holy matron,\nUnderneath whose rule I hardly\nHad completed one brief lustrum --\nFive short years had scarce departed --\nFive bright circles of the sun\nWheeling round on golden axles,\nTwelve high zodiac signs illuming\nAnd one earthly sphere, when happened\nThrough me an event that showed\nGod's omnipotence and marvels;\nSince of weakest instruments\nGod makes use of, to enhance his\nMajesty the more, to show\nThat for what men think the grandest\nAnd most strange effects, to Him\nShould alone the praise be granted.--\nIt so happened, and Heaven knoweth\nThat it is not pride, but rather\nPure religious zeal, that men\nShould know how the Lord hath acted,\nMakes me tell it, that one day\nTo my doors a blind man rambled,\nGormas was his name, who said,\n\"God who sends me here commands thee\nIn His name to give me sight;\"\nI, obedient to the mandate,\nMade at once the sign of the cross\nOn his sightless eyes, that started\nInto life and light once more\nFrom their state of utter darkness.\nAt another time when heaven,\nMuffled in the thickest, blackest\nClouds, made war upon the world,\nHurling at it lightning lances\nOf white snow, which fell so thickly\nOn a mountain, that soon after\nThey being melted by the sun,\nSo filled up our streets and alleys,\nSo inundated our houses,\nThat amid the wild waves stranded\nThey were ships of bricks and stones,\nBarks of cement and of plaster.\nWho before saw waves on mountains?\nWho 'mid woods saw ships at anchor?\nI the sign of the cross then made\nOn the waters, and in accents,\nIn a tone of grave emotion,\nIn God's name the waves commanded\nTo retire: they turned that moment\nAnd left dry the lands they ravaged.\nOh, great God! who will not praise Thee?\nWho will not confess Thee Master?--\nOther wonders I could tell you,\nBut my modesty throws shackles\nOn my tongue, makes mute my voice,\nAnd my lips seals up and fastens.\nI grew up, in fine, inclined\nLess to arms than to the marvels\nKnowledge can reveal: I gave me\nAlmost wholly up to master\nSacred Science, to the reading\nOf the Lives of Saints, a practice\nWhich doth teach us faith, hope, zeal,\nCharity and Christian manners.\nIn these studies thus immersed,\nI one day approached the margin\nOf the sea with some young friends,\nFellow-students and companions,\nWhen a bark drew nigh, from which\nSuddenly out-leaping landed\nArmed men, fierce pirates they,\nWho these seas, these islands, ravaged;\nWe at once were captives made,\nAnd in order not to hazard\nLosing us their prey, they sailed\nOut to sea with swelling canvas.\nOf this daring pirate boat\nPhilip de Roqui was the captain,\nIn whose breast, for his destruction,\nPride, the poisonous weed, was planted.\nHe the Irish seas and coast\nHaving thus for some days ravaged,\nTaking property and life,\nPillaging our homes and hamlets;\nBut myself alone reserved\nTo be offered as a vassal,\nAs a slave to thee, O king!\nIn thy presence as he fancied.\nOh! how ignorant is man,\nWhen of God's wise laws regardless,\nWhen, without consulting Him,\nHe his future projects planneth!\nPhilip well, at sea might say so;\nSince to-day, in sight of land here,\nHeaven the while being all serene,\nMild the air, the water tranquil,\nIn an instant, in a moment,\nHe beheld his proud hopes blasted.\nIn the hollow-breasted waves\nRoared the wind, the sea grew maddened,\nBillows upon billows rolled\nMountain high, and wildly dashed them\nWet against the sun, as if\nThey its light would quench and darken.\nThe poop-lantern of our ship\nSeemed a comet most erratic --\nSeemed a moving exhalation,\nOr a star from space outstarted;\nAt another time it touched\nThe profoundest deep sea-caverns,\nOr the treacherous sands whereon\nRan the stately ship and parted.\nThen the fatal waves became\nMonuments of alabaster,\nTombs of coral and of pearl.\nI (and why this boon was granted\nUnto me by Heaven I know not,\nBeing so useless), with expanded\nArms, struck out, but not alone\nMy own life to save, nay rather\nIn the attempt to save this brave\nYoung man here, that life to barter;\nFor I know not by what secret\nInstinct towards him I'm attracted;\nAnd I think he yet will pay me\nBack this debt with interest added.\nFinally, through Heaven's great pity\nWe at length have happily landed,\nWhere my misery may expect it,\nOr my better fate may grant it;\nSince we are your slaves and servants,\nThat being moved by our disasters,\nThat being softened by our weeping,\nOur sore plight may melt your hardness,\nOur affliction force your kindness,\nAnd our very pains command you.***\n\n\n[footnote] * The asonante in a -- e, or their vocal equivalents,\ncommences here, and is continued to the commencement of the speech of\nEnius, when it changes to the asonante in e -- e, which is kept up\nthrough the remainder of the Scene, and to the end of Scene III.\n\n[footnote] ** \"Empthor\" -- see note on this name.\n\n[footnote] *** See note for some extracts from Montalvan's \"Vida y\nPurgaterio de San Patricio\".\n\n\nKING.  Silence, miserable Christian,\nFor my very soul seems fastened\nOn thy words, compelling me,\nHow I know not, to regard thee\nWith strange reverence and fear,\nThinking thou must be that vassal --\nThat poor slave whom in my dream\nI beheld outbreathing flashes,\nSaw outflashing living fire,\nIn whose flame, so lithe and lambent,\nMy Polonia and my Lesbia\nLike poor moths were burned to ashes.\n\nPATRICK.  Know, the flame that from my mouth\nIssued, is the true Evangel,\nIs the doctrine of the Gospel:--\n'Tis the word which I'm commanded\nUnto thee to preach, O King!\nTo thy subjects and thy vassals,\nTo thy daughters, who shall be\nChristians through its means.\n\nKING.      Cease, fasten\nThy presumptuous lips, vile Christian,\nFor thy words insult and stab me.\n\nLESBIA.  Stay!\n\nPOLONIA.      And wilt thou in thy pity\nTry to save him from his anger?\n\nLESBIA.  Yes.\n\nPOLONIA.      Forbear, and let him die.\n\nLESBIA.  Thus to die by a king's hands here\nWere unjust.  [Aside.]  (It is my pity\nFor these Christians prompts my answer.)\n\nPOLONIA.  If this second Joseph then,\nLike the first one, would unravel,\nWould interpret the king's dreams,\nDo not dread the result, my father;\nFor if my being seen to burn\nIndicates in any manner\nI should ever be a Christian,\nAs impossible a marvel\nSuch would be, as if, being dead,\nI could rise and live thereafter.\nBut in order that your mind\nMay be turned from such just anger,\nLet us hear now who this other\nStranger is.\n\nLUIS.      Then be attentive,\nBeautiful divinity,\nFor my history thus commences:--\nGreat Egerius, King of Ireland,\nI by name am Luis Enius,\nAnd a Christian also, this\nBeing the sole point of resemblance\nBetwixt Patrick and myself,\nYet a difference presenting:\nFor although we two are Christians,\nSo distinct and so dissevered\nAre we, that not good from evil\nIs more opposite in its essence.\nYet for all that, in defence\nOf the faith I believe and reverence,\nI would lose a thousand lives\n(Such the esteem for it I cherish).\nYes, by God!  The oath alone\nShows how firmly I confess Him.\nI no pious tales or wonders,\nWorked in my behalf by Heaven,\nHave to speak of: no; dark crimes,\nRobberies, murders, sacrileges,\nTreasons, treacheries, betrayals,\nMust I tell instead, however\nVain it be in me to glory\nIn my having such effected.\nI in one of Ireland's many\nIsles was born; the planets seven,\nI suspect, in wild abnormal\nInterchange of influences,\nMust have at my hapless birth-time\nAll their various gifts presented.\nFickleness the Moon implanted\nIn my nature; subtle Hermes\nWith and genius ill-employed;\n(Better ne'er to have possessed them);\nWanton Venus gave me passions --\nAll the flatteries of the senses,\nAnd stern Mars a cruel mind\n(Mars and Venus both together\nWhat will they not give?); the Sun\nGave to me an easy temper,\nProne to spend, and when means failed me\nTheft and robbery were my helpers;\nJupiter presumptuous pride,\nThoughts fantastic and unfettered,\nGave me; Saturn, rage and anger,\nValour and a will determined\nOn its ends; and from such causes\nFollowed the due consequences.\nHere from Ireland being banished,\nBy a cause I do not mention\nThrough respect to him, my father\nCame to Perpignan, and settled\nIn that Spanish town, when I\nScarce my first ten years had ended,\nAnd when sixteen came, he died.\nMay God rest his soul in heaven!--\nOrphaned, I remained the prey\nOf my passions and my pleasures,\nO'er whose tempting plain I ran\nWithout rein or curb to check me.\nThe two poles of my existence,\nOn which all the rest depended\nFor support, were play and women.\nWhat a base on which to rest me!\nHere my tongue would not be able\nTo acquaint you 'in extenso'\nWith my actions: a brief abstract\nMay, however, be attempted.\nI, to outrage a young maiden,\nStabbed to death a noble elder,\nHer own father: for the sake\nOf his wife, a most respected\nCavalier I slew, as he\nLay beside her in the helpless\nState of sleep, his honour bathing\nIn his blood, the bed presenting\nA sad theatre of crimes,\nMurder and adultery blended.\nThus the father and the husband\nLife for honour's sake surrendered;\nFor even honour has its martyrs.\nMay God rest their souls in heaven!--\nDreading punishment for this,\nI fled hastily, and entered\nFrance, where my exploits, methinks,\nTime will cease not to remember;\nFor, assisting in the wars\nWhich at that time were contended\nBravely betwixt France and England,\nI took military service\nUnder Stephen, the French king,\nAnd a fight which chance presented\nShowed my courage to be such,\nThat the king himself, as guerdon\nOf my valour, gave to me\nThe commission of an ensign.\nHow that debt I soon repaid,\nI prefer not now to tell thee.\nBack to Perpignan, thus honoured,\nI returned, and having entered\nOnce a guard-house there to play,\nFor some trifle I lost temper,\nStruck a serjeant, killed a captain,\nAnd maimed others there assembled.\nAt the cries from every quarter\nSpeedily the watch collected,\nAnd in flying to a church,\nAs they hurried to prevent me,\nI a catch-pole killed.  ('Twas something\nOne good work to have effected\n'Mid so many that were bad.)\nMay God rest his soul in heaven!--\nFar I fled into the country,\nAnd asylum found and shelter\nIn a convent of religious,\nWhich was founded in that desert,\nWhere I lived retired and hidden,\nWell taken care of and attended.\nFor a lady there, a nun,\nWas my cousin, which connection\nGave to her the special burden\nOf this care.  My heart already\nBeing a basilisk which turned\nAll the honey into venom,\nPassing swiftly from mere liking\nTo desire -- that monster ever\nFeeding on the impossible --\nLiving fire that with intensest\nFury burns when most opposed --\nFlame the wind revives and strengthens,\nFalse, deceitful, treacherous foe\nWhich doth murder its possessor --\nIn a word, desire in him,\nWho nor God nor law respecteth,\nOf the horrible, of the shocking,\nThinks but only to attempt it.--\nYes, I dared . . . . But here disturbed,\nWhen, my lord, I this remember,\nMute the voice in horror fails,\nSad the accent faints and trembles,\nAnd as 'mid the night's dark shadows,\nThe hair stands on end through terror;\nThus confused, so full of doubt,\nSad remembrance so o'erwhelms me,\nThat the thing I dared to do\nI scarce dare in words to tell thee.\nFor, in fine, my crime is such,\nSo to be abhorred, detested,\nSo profane, so sacrilegious\n(Strange upon thee so to press it),\nThat for having such committed\nI at times feel some repentance.\nWell, in fine, I dared one night,\nWhen deep silence had erected\nSepulchres of fleeting sleep\nFor men's overwearied senses,\nWhen a dark and cloudy veil\nHeaven had o'er its face extended --\nMourning which the wind assumed\nFor the sun whose life had ended --\nIn whose obsequies the night-birds\nSwan-notes sang instead of verses,\nAnd when back from waves of sapphire,\nWhere their beauty was reflected,\nThe clear stars a second time\nTrembling lights to heaven presented:--\nWell, on such a night, by climbing\nO'er the garden wall, I entered\nWith the assistance of two friends\n(For when such things are attempted\nAn associate never fails),\nAnd in horror and in terror,\nSeeking in the dark my death,\nReached at length the cell (I tremble\nTo remember it) in which\nWas my cousin, whom respectful\nSilence bids me not to name,\nThough all self-respect has left me.\nFrightened at such nameless horror,\nOn the hard floor she fell senseless,\nWhen she passed into my arms,\nAnd ere she regained her senses,\nShe already was outside\nHer asylum, in a desert,\nWhen if heaven possessed the power,\nIt had not the will to help her.\nWomen, when they are persuaded\nThat the wildest of excesses\nAre the effects of love, forgive them\nEasily; and, therefore, pleasure\nFollowing tears, some consolation\nIn her miseries was effected;\nThough, in fact, they were so great,\nThat united in one person\nShe saw violence, violation,\nIncest, nay, adultery even,\nAgainst God who was her spouse,\nAnd a sacrilege most dreadful.\nFinally we left that place,\nBeing carried to Valencia\nBy two steeds that well might claim\nFrom the winds to be descended:\nFeigning that she was my wife,\nBut with little peace we dwelt there;\nFor I quickly having squandered\nWhatsoever little treasure\nI brought with me, without friends,\np 260\nWithout any hope of help there,\nIn my dire distress appealed\nTo the beauty still so perfect\nOf my poor pretended wife:\nIf for aught I did I ever\nCould feel shame, this act alone\nWould most surely overwhelm me;\nSince it is the lowest baseness\nThat the vilest breast descends to,\nTo put up to sale one's honour,\nAnd to trade in love's caresses.\nScarce with shameless front had I\nThis base plan to her suggested,\nWhen concealing her design\nShe gave seeming acquiescence;\nBut I scarce had turned my back,\nHardly had I left her presence,\nWhen she, flying from me, found\nGrace a convent's walls to enter.\nThere, a holy monk advising,\nShe a saving port and shelter\nFound against the world's wild storms,\nAnd there died, her sin, her penance,\nGiving all a great example;\nMay God rest her soul in heaven!--\nSeeing that the narrow world\nNow took note of my offences,\nAnd that soon the very land\nMight reject me, I determined\nTo re-seek my native country;\nFor at least I there expected\nTo be safer from my foes,\nIn a place so long my centre\nAnd my home.  The way I took\nAnd to Ireland came, which welcomed\nMe at first as would a mother,\nBut a step-mother resembled\nBefore long, for seeking a passage\nWhere a harbour lay protected\nBy a mole, I found that corsairs\nLay concealed within the shelter\nOf a little creek which his\nOut of view their well-armed vessel.\nAnd of these, their captain, Philip,\nTook me prisoner, after efforts\nMade in my defence so brave,\nThat in deference to the mettle\nI displayed, my life he spared.\nWhat ensured you know already,\nHow the wind in sudden anger\nRising into raging tempest,\nNow chastised us in its pride,\nNow our lives more cruelly threatened,\nMaking in the seas and mountains\nSuch wild ruin and resemblance,\nThat to mock the mountain's pride\nWaves still mightier forms presented,\nWhich with catapults of crystal\nMade the cliffs' foundations tremble,\nSo that neighbouring cities fell,\nAnd the sea, in scornful temper,\nGathering up from its abysses\nThe munition it collecteth,\nFired upon the land its pearls\nIn their shells, wherein engendered\nBy the swift breath of the morning\nIn its dew, they shine resplendent\nTears of ice and fire; in fine,\nNot in pictures so imperfect\nAll our time to waste, the crew\nWent to sup in the infernal\nHalls themselves; I, too, a guest\nWould have equally attended\nWith them, if this Patrick, here,\nWhom I know not why I reverence,\nLooking with respect and fear\nOn his beauteous countenance ever,\nHad not drawn me from the sea,\nWhere, exhausted, sinking, helpless,\nI drank death in every draught,\nAgony in each salt wave's venom.\nThis my history is, and now\nI wish neither life nor mercy,\nNeither that my pains should move thee,\nNor my asking should compel thee,\nSave in this, to give me death,\nThat thus may the life be ended\nOf a man who is so bad,\nThat he scarcely can be better.*\n\n\n[footnote] *See note as to Montalvan's invention of this story.\n\n\nKING.  Luis, though thou art a Christian,\nWhich by me is most detested,\nYet I so admire thy courage\nThat I wish, before all present,\nBetween thee and him to show\nHow my power can be exerted,\nHow it punishes as rewards,\nHow it elevates and depresses.\nAnd so thus my arms I give thee,\nThat within them thus extended\nThou may'st reach my heart; to thee\nThus beneath my feet to tread thee;\n[He throws PATRICK on the ground and places his foot upon him.\nThe two actions signifying\nHow the heavier scale descendeth.\nAnd that, Patrick, thou may'st see\nHow I value or give credit\nTo thy threats, thy life I spare.\nVomit forth the flame incessant\nOf the so-called word of God,\nThat by this thou may'st be certain\nI do not adore his Godship,\nNor his miracles have dread of.\nLive then; but in such a state\nOf poor, mean, and abject service,\nAs befits a useless hind\nIn the fields; and so as shepherd\nI would have thee guard my flocks,\nWhich are in these vales collected.\nLet us see, if for the purpose\nOf this mystic fire outspreading,\nBeing my slave, thy God will free thee\nFrom captivity and thy fetters.\n[Exit.\n\nLESBIA.  Patrick moves my heart to pity.\n[Exit.\n\nPOLONIA.  Not so mine, for none I cherish.\nHad I any, none would move me\nSooner than this Luis Enius.*\n[Exit.\n\n\n[footnote] *It is difficult to account for Calderon giving the name\nof \"Egerio\" to the King of Ireland, when he bestows the proper one --\n\"Leogaire\" -- on an inferior character.  The name of the King of\nMontalvan.  \"Era Rey de aquella, y de otras islas comarcanas\nLeogardo, hijo de Neil.\" -- Cap. I., p. 19, ed. 1628.  Calderon had\nto invent names for the king's daughters, as he did not find them in\nMontalvan.  In the Book of Armagh they are called \"Ethne the fair\"\nand \"Fedelm the ruddy.\" -- Todd, p. 451.  Miss Cusack gives the names\n\"Ethna\" and \"Fethlema.\" -- \"Life of St. Patrick\", p. 291.  Of their\nbaptism, the distinguished poet to whom this drama is dedicated, has\nthus sung:--\n\n\"They knelt: on their heads the wave he poured\nThrice, in the name of the Triune Lord:\nAnd their foreheads he signed with the Sign adored.\nOn Fedelm the 'Red Rose,' on Ethna 'The Fair,'\nGod's dew shone bright in that morning air.\"\n- AUBREY DE VERE'S \"Legends of St. Patrick\".\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE III.\n\nPATRICK and LUIS.\n\nPATRICK.  Luis, though a low position\nMine is here, and I observe thee\nRaised to fortune's highest summit,\nYet I feel more grief than envy\nAt thy rise.  Thou art a Christian;\nShow thyself one now in earnest.\n\nLUIS.  Patrick, let me now enjoy\nThe first favours fate has sent me\nAfter so much sad misfortune.\n\nPATRICK.  One word, then (if thou wilt let me\nSo presume), I ask of thee.\n\nLUIS.  What is that?\n\nPATRICK.      Upon this earth here,\nOnce again, alive or dead,\nThat we two shall meet together.\n\nLUIS.  Such a word dost ask me?\n\nPATRICK.      Yes.\n\nLUIS.  Then I give it.\n\nPATRICK.      I accept it.\n[Exeunt.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE IV.\n\nA HAMLET NEAR THE COURT OF EGERIUS.\n\nPHILIP and LUCY.\n\nLUCY.  Pardon, if I have not known\nHow to serve you as I ought.\n\nPHILIP.  For much more than you have thought\nMust you my forgiveness own.\nFor when I your kind face view,\nPain and pleasure being at war,\nI have much to thank you for,\nAnd have much to pardon too.\nThanks, with which my heart is rife,\nAre for life restored and breath;\nPardon, for you give me death,\nAs before you gave me life.\n\nLUCY.  For such flattering declarations\nRude and ignorant am I,\nSo my arms will give reply;\nWhich gets rid of explanations.\nLet their silent interfacing\nFigure what my words should be.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE V.\n\nPAUL. -- THE SAME.\n\nPAUL [aside].  Eh, sirs! what is this I see?\nSome one here my wife's embracing.\nWhat's to do?  I burn, I burst.\nKill her?  Yes.  'Twas fortune sent me.\nOne thing only doth prevent me,\nWhich is, she might kill me first.\n\nPHILIP.  For your hospitable care,\nBeauteous mountaineer, I would\nThat this ring's bright diamond could\nFar outshine a star of air.\n\nLUCY.  Think me not a woman who\nLives intent her gain to make;\nBut I take it for your sake.\n\nPAUL. [aside'.  What I wonder should I do?\nBut if I'm her husband, then,\nAs I saw him give the ring,\nSilence is the proper thing.\n\nLUCY.  In these arms I once again\nGive to you my soul, for I\nHave no other ring or chain.\n\nPHILIP.  Where I ever could remain:--\nFor such sweet captivity\nLures me from the miseries\nOf remembering my sad fate,\nCaused, as you have seen, so late,\nBy these crystalline blue seas.\n\nPAUL [aside[.  What! a new embrace!  Halloo!\nDon't you see, sir, Od's my life,\nThat this woman is my wife?\n\nPHILIP.  Here's your husband full in view;\nHe has seen us.  I must straight\nLeave you and return -- [Aside.}  Ah, me!\nCouldst thou this, Polonia, see,\nThou mightst mourn, perhaps, the state\nUnto which I see me doomed.\nAnd. O heaven-aspiring sea,\nSay in what vast depths can be\nAll the lives thou hast entombed?\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VI.\n\nPAUL and LUCY; afterwards PHILIP.\n\nPAUL [aside].  As he's gone, I'll louder speak.--\nThis time, Lucy mine, I've caught you,\nSo a present I have brought you:\nSee this window-bar, 'twill wreak\nMy revenge.\n\nLUCY.      Oh, how malicious!\nBless me, grumbler, what grimaces!\n\nPAUL.  Then to witness two embraces\nDoes not look at all suspicious?--\nWas it malice, then, in me,\nNot plain seeing?\n\nLUCY.      Malice merely:\nFor a husband, how so nearly\nHe may pry, should never see\nMore than half his wife doth do.\n\nPAUL.  Well, with that I'm quite content,\nTo that condition I assent,\nAnd since twice embraced by you\nHas that rascal soldier been,\nWhom the sea spewed out in spite,\nI will juggle with my sight,\nAnd pretend but once to have seen;\nAnd as I for two embraces\nMeant to give a hundred blows,\nI but fifty now propose\nFor one half of my disgraces.\nI have totted up the score;\nYou yourself the sentence gave;\nYes, by God I swear, you'll have\nFifty strokes and not one more.\n\nLUCY.  I've admitted far too much.\nFor a husband it would be\nQuite preposterous; he should see\nBut the quarter.\n\nPAUL.      Even as such\nI acknowledge the appeal.\nPatience, and your back prepare,\nFor the now admitted share,\nFive-and-twenty blows you'll feel.\n\nLUCY.  No, not so; you're still astray.\n\nPAUL.  Then say what?\n\nLUCY.      Between us two,\nYou're to trust not what you view,\nBut what I am pleased to say.\n\nPAUL.  Better far, I think, 'twould be,\nDaughter of the devil, that you\nHeld the stick and used it too,\nWith it well belabouring me;\nIs't agreed what I propose?\nYes; then let us both change places.\nGive to him the two embraces,\nAnd to me the hundred blows.\n\n[PHILIP returns.\n\nPHILIP [aside].  Has the peasant gone, I wonder?\n\nPAUL.  At the nick of time you're here,\nSo, Sir Soldier, lend an ear.\nObligation I am under\nFor the favours you have meant\nTo bestow so liberally\nOn my cot, my wife, and me;\nAnd although I'm well content\nWith you, yet as you're progressing\nDay by day and getting stronger,\nIt is best you stay no longer.\nTake the road, then, with God's blessing,\nLeave my house, for it would be\nSad in it to raise my hand,\nLeaving you dead flesh on land\nWho wert living fish at sea.\n\nPHILIP.  The suspicion that you show\nIs quite groundless, do not doubt it.\n\nPAUL.  Zounds! with reason or without it,\nAm I married, sir, or no?\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VII.\n\nLEOGAIRE, an Old Peasant, and PATRICK.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  So 'tis ordered, and that he\nServing here from day to day,\nIn the open field should stay.\n\nOLD MAN.  Yes; I say it so shall be.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  But who's this?  O happiness!\nSince 'tis Philip's form I greet.\nMighty lord, I kiss thy feet.\n\nPAUL.  Mighty lord does he call him?\n\nLUCY.      Yes.\nNow lay on the blows you owe.\nNow, friend Paul, the moment charms.\n\nPHILIP.  Give me, good Leogaire, your arms.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  Honour in them you bestow.\nIs it possible, once more\nThat alive I see thee?\n\nPHILIP.      Here,\nTrophy of a fate severe,\nThe sea flung me on this shore,\nWhere, their willing aid secured,\nI have lived these peasants' guest,\nTill I could repair with rest\nAll the sufferings I endured.\nAnd, besides, I thought with dread\nOn the angry disposition\nOf the king: for his ambition\nWhen has it or bowed the head,\nOr with patience heard related\nThe sad tragedies of fate?\nHopeless and disconsolate\nIn this solitude I've waited,\nTill some happy chance might rise\nWhen no longer I should grieve,\nAnd the king would give me leave\nTo appear before his eyes.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  That already has been given thee;\nFor so sad was he, believing\nThou wert dead, so deep his grieving,\nAll the past will be forgiven thee\nSince thou livest.  Come with me,\nFortune will once more embrace thee,--\nIn his favour to replace thee\nLet my happy privilege be.\n\nPAUL.  For that late unseemly brawl\nSee me humbly bending low;\nYou, my lord Prince Philip, know\nThat I am one Juan Paul.\nMy suspicion and abuse\nPray forgive, your majesty,\nThink that what I said to thee\nWas but cackled by a goose.\nAt your service, night and day,\nAre whatever goods I've got --\nLucy here, myself and cot;\nAnd God bless us all, I pray.\n\nPHILIP.  For your hospitality\nI am grateful, and I trust\nTo repay it.\n\nPAUL.      If you must,\nLet the first instalment be\nJust to take my wife away.\nThurs you will reward us two;\nShe'll be glad to go with you,\nI, without her, glad to stay.\n\n[Exeunt PHILIP and LEOGAIRE.\n\nLUCY [aside].  Was there ever love so vain\nAs is mine, a brief caress\nCradled in forgetfulness?\n\nOLD MAN.  Juan Paul, as we remain\nHere alone, 'twere well to greet\nAs a friend this labourer,\nNewly sent us.\n\nPATRICK.  Nay, good sir,\nI'm a slave, and I entreat\nThat as such you understand me;\nI, the lowest of the low,\nHither come to serve, and so\nI implore that you command me\nAs a slave, since I am one.\n\nOLD MAN.  Oh, what modesty!\n\nPAUL.      What humility!\n\nLUCY.  What good looks, too, and gentility!\nI, in truth, can't help being drawn\nBy his face.\n\nPAUL.      Came ever here\n(This is quite between us two)\nAny wandering stranger who\nDid not draw you so, my dear?\nEh, my Lucy?\n\nLUCY.      Boorish, base,\nIs your vile insinuation\n'Gains my innocent inclination\nFor the whole of the human race!\n[Exit.\n\nOLD MAN.  To your sharpness and good will,\nPaul, I trust a thing that may\nCost my life.\n\nPAUL.      Then don't delay.\nTell it, since you know my skill.\n\nOLD MAN.  This new slave that here you see,\nI suspect is not secure,\nAnd I hasten to procure\nMeans by which he more may be.\nFor the present I confide him\nTo your care, by day or night\nLet him not escape your sight,\nEver watchful keep beside him.\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\n\nPATRICK and PAUL.\n\nPAUL [aside].  I'm to keep what you discarded!\nGood in faith!-- [To PATRICK]  Behold in me\nYour strict guard; in you I see\nThe sole thing I ever guarded\nIn my life; with such a care\nI can neither sleep nor eat.\nIf you wish to use your feet\nYou can go, your road lies there.\nNay, in flying quickly hence\nYou to me a good will do,\nSince my care will fly with you.\nGo in peace.\n\nPATRICK.      With confidence\nYou may trust me, for I'm not,\nThough a slave, a fugitive.\nLord! how gladly do I live\nIn this solitary spot,\nWhere my soul in raptured prayer\nMay adore Thee, or in trance\nSee the living countenance\nOf Thy prodigies so rare!\nHuman wisdom, earlthly lore,\nSolitude reveals and reaches;\nWhat diviner wisdom teaches\nIn it, too, I would explore.\n\nPAUL.  Tell me, talking thus apart,\nWho it is on whom you call?\n\nPATRICK.  Great primeval cause of all,\nThou, O Lord, in all things art!\nThese blue heavens, these crystal skies\nFormed of dazzling depths of light,\nIn which sun, moon, stars unite,\nAre they not but draperies\nHung before Thy heavenly land?--\nThe discordant elements,\nWater, fire, earth, air immense,\nProve they not Thy master hand?\nOr in dark or brightsome hours,\nPraise they not Thy power and might?\nO'er the earth dost Thou not write\nIn the characters of flowers\nThy great goodness?  And the air,\nIn reverberating thunder,\nDoes it not in fear and wonder\nSay, O Lord, that Thou art there?\nAre not, too, Thy praises sung\nBy the fire and water -- each\nDowered for this divinest speech,\nWith tongue the wave, the flame with tongue?\nHere, then, in this lonely place\nI, O Lord, may better be,\nSince in all things I find Thee.\nThou hast given to me the grace\nOf Obedience, Faith, and Fear;\nAs a slave, then, let me stay,\nOr remove me where I may\nServe Thee truly, if not here.*\n\n[An Angel descends, holding in one hand a shield in which is a\nmirror, and in the other hand a letter.\n\n\n[footnote]  *For the earlier version of this prayer, see Note.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE IX.\n\nAn Angel. -- THE SAME.\n\nANGEL.  Patrick!\n\nPATRICK.      Ah! who calls me?\n\nPAUL.            Why,\nNo one calls.  [Aside.]  The man is daft,\nPoetry should be his craft.\n\nANGEL.  Patrick!\n\nPATRICK.      Ah! who calls me?\n\nANGEL.            I.\n\nPAUL [aside].  Who he speaks to, I can't see.\nWell, to stop his speech were hard,\nI'm not here his mouth to guard.\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE X.\n\nThe Angel and PATRICK.\n\nPATRICK.  Ah! it cannot be to me\nComes such glory!  For, behold!\nPearl and rosy dawn in one,\nShines a cloud, from which its sun\nBreaks in crimson and in gold!\nLiving stars its robe adorning,\nRose and jasmine sweetly blended,\nDazzling comes that vision splendid,\nScattering purple pomps of morning.\n\nANGEL.  PATRICK!\n\nPATRICK.      Sunlight strikes me blind!\nHeavenly Lord, who canst thou be?\n\nANGEL.  I am Victor, whom to thee\nGod thy angel-guard assigned:\nWith this scroll, to give it thee\n[Gives him the letter.\nI am sent.\n\nPATRICK.  Sweet messenger,\nParanymph of all things fair,\nWho amidst the hierarchy\nOf the highest hosts of heaven\nSingest in melodious tone --\n\"Glory unto Thee alone,\nHoly, Holy Lord, be given!\"\n\nANGEL.  Read the letter.\n\nPATRICK.      With amaze,\nI see here \"To Patrick\" Oh,\nCan a slave be honoured so?\n\nANGEL.  Open it.\n\nPATRICK.      It also says --\n\"Patrick!  Patrick! hither come,\nFree us from our slavery!\"--\nMore it means than I can see,\nSince I do not know by whom\nI am called.  Oh, faithful guide,\nSpeedily dispel my error!\n\nANGEL.  Look into this shining mirror.\n\nPATRICK.  Heavens!\n\nANGEL.      What seest thou inside?\n\nPATRICK.  Numerous people there seem thronging,\nOld men, children, women, who\nSeem to call me.\n\nANGEL.      Nor do you\nStay, but satisfy their longing.\nYou behold the Irish nation,\nWho expect to hear God's truth\nFrom your lips.  Oh, chosen youth,\nLeave your slavery.  The vocation\nGod has given thee is to sow\nFaith o'er all the Irish soil.\nThere as Legate thou shalt toil,\nIreland's great Apostle.  Go\nFirst to France, to German's home,\nThe good bishop: there thou'lt make\nThy profession: there thou'lt take\nThe monk's habit, and to Rome\nPass, where letters thou'lt procure\nFor that mighty work of thine,\nIn the bulls of Celestine:\nThou wilt visit, then, in Tours\nMartin, the great bishop there.\nNow upborne upon the wind\nCome with me, for thou wilt find\nGod has given with prescient care\nHis commands to all, that so\nFitly thy great work be done;\nBut 'tis time we should be gone:\nLet us on our journey go.\n[They disappear.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nACT THE SECOND.\n\nHALL OF A TOWER IN THE PALACE OF EGERIUS.\n\nSCENE I.\n\nLUIS and POLONIA\n\nLUIS.  Yes, Polonia, yes, for he\nWho betrays inconstancy\nHas no reason for complaining\nThat another love is gaining\nOn his own; that fault will be\nEver punished so.  For who\nProudly soars that doth not fall?\nTherefore 'tis that I forestall\nPhilip's love howe'er so true.\nHe is nobler to the view,\nAs one nobly born may be;\nBut in that nobility,\nWhich one's self can win and wear,\nI with justice may declare\nI am nobler far than he;\nI more honour have obtained\nThan on Philip's cradle rained:\nLet the fact excuse the boast,\nFor this land from coast to coast\nRings with victories I have gained.\nThree years is it since I came\nTo these isles (it seems a day);\nThree swift years have rolled away\nSince I made it my chief aim\nThee to serve -- my highest fame.\nTrophies numerous as the sand,\nMars might envy, has my hand\nWon for thy great sire and thee --\nBeing the wonder of the sea,\nAnd th' amazement of the land.\n\nPOLONIA.  Luis, yes, thy gallant bearing,\nOr inherited or acquired,\nHas within my breast inspired\nA strange fear, a certain daring,--\nAh, I know not if, declaring\nThis, 'tis love, for blushes rise\nAt perceiving with surprise\nThat at last hath come the hour,\nWhen my heart must own the power\nOf a deity I despise.\nThis alone I'll say, that here\nLong thy hope had been fruition,\nBut that I the disposition\nOf the king, my father, fear,\nBut still hope and persevere.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE II.\n\nPHILIP. -- THE SAME.\n\nPHILIP [aside].  If to find my death I come,\nWhy precipitate my doom?\nBut so patient who could be\nAs to not desire to see\nWhat impends, how dark its gloom?\n\nLUIS.  Then, what pledge may I demand\nOf your faith?\n\nPOLONIA.      This hand.\n\nPHILIP.            Not so,\nHow to hinder it I shall know;\nMore of this I must withstand.\n\nPOLONIA.  Woe is me!\n\nPHILIP.      Wilt give thy hand\nto this outcast of the wave?\nAnd, oh thou, to whom pride gave\nThe presumption to aspire\nTo a sun's celestial fire,\nKnowing that thou wert my slave,\nWhy thus dare to come between\nMe and mine?\n\nLUIS.      Because I dare\nBe what now I am, nor care\nMore to be what I have been.\nIt is true that I was seen\nOnce your slave: for who, indeed,\nCan the fickle wheel control?\nBut in nobleness of soul\nThe best blood of all your breed\nI can equal, nay, exceed.\n\nPHILIP.  Exceed ME?  Vile homicide!\nWretch . . . .\n\nLUIS.      In having thus replied\nYou have made a slight mistake.\n\nPHILIP.  No.\n\nLUIS.      If such you did not make,\nYou've done worse.\n\nPHILIP.      Say, what?\n\nLUIS.            You've lied!\n\nPHILIP.  Villain! traitor\n[Strikes him in the face.\n\nPOLONIA.      Oh, ye skies!\n\nLUIS.  For so many injuries\nWhy not instant vengeance take,\nWhen volcanic fires awake\nIn my breast, and hell-flames rise?\n[They draw their swords.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE III.\n\nEGERIUS and soldiers. -- THE SAME.\n\nKING.  What is this?\n\nLUIS.      A lasting woe,\nA misfortune, an abuse,\nA sharp pain, a fiend let loose\nFrom the infernal pit below.\nLet no one presume to go\n'Twixt me and revenge.  Reflect,\nFury breathes immortal breath,\nVengeance has no fear of death,\nNor for any man respect.\nI my honour must protect.\n\nKING.  Seize him.\n\nLUIS.      Let the man who sighs\nFor his death obey!  You'll see\nHow the boldest fares, for he,\nEven before your very eyes,\nShall be slain.\n\nKING.      That this should rise!--\nFollow him.\n\nLUIS.      In desperate mood,\nPlunging headlong in red blood,\nLike a sea both wide and deep,\nThus courageously I leap,\nSeeking Philip through the flood.\n\n[All enter fighting.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE IV.\n\nKING.  I but wanted this alone\nAfter what I've heard, that he\nWho escaped from slavery,\nAnd to distant Rome had flown,\nNow with purpose too well known,\nHas to Ireland come again,\nWhere proclaiming the new reign\nOf the faith, he has enticed\nMany to believe in Christ,\nRending all the world in twain.\nA magician he must be,\nSince condemned, so rumour saith,\nBy some other kings to death,\nHe though tied upon the tree\nIn an instant set him free,\nWith such prodigies of wonder\nThat the earth (within whose womb\nThe dead lie as in a tomb)\nTrembled, the air groaned in thunder,\nDark eclipse the sun lay under,\nDeigning not a single glance\nOf his radiant countenance\nTo the moon: from which I see\nThat this Patrick, for 'tis he,\nLords it over fate and chance;\nAwe-struck by the prodigy,\nFearing they may punished be,\nCrowds attend him on his way.\nAnd 'tis said that he to-day\nComes to try his spells on me.\nLet him come, and once for all\nWave in vain his conjuring rod!\nWe shall see who is this God,\nWhom their God the Christians call.\nBy my hand must Patrick fall,\nWere it but to see if he\nCan escape his destiny,\nOr my will subvert and master,\nHe this Bishop, he this Pastor,\nHe Pope's Legate, though he be.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE V.\n\nThe Captain, Soldiers, LUIS a prisoner, The King.\n\nCAPTAIN.  Luis, sire, without delay\nWe secured; but not before\nHe killed three, and wounded more,\nOf our company.\n\nKING.      Christian, say,\nWhy do you no fear display,\nSeeing now in angry mood\nMy hand raised to shed your blood?\nBut in vain do I deplore,\nSince he this deserves and more\nWho has done a Christian good.\nGifts, not chastisement, should be\nThine to-day, for it is plain\nIt is I should feel the pain\nFor conferring good on thee.\nTake him hence, and presently\nLet him die; and be it known\nWhy from him has mercy flown.\n'Tis not for his crimes or guilt\nThat this Christian's blood is spilt,\n'Tis for Christ's belief alone.\n[Exeunt.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\n      *  SCENE VI.\n\nLUIS.\n\nLUIS.  If for this I die, to me\nThou the happiest death allottest,\nSince he for his God will die,\nHe who dies to do Him honour.\nAnd a man whose life is here\nBut a round of cares and crosses,\nShould be grateful unto death\nAs the end of all his sorrows;\nSince it comes the tangled thread\nOf a wretched life to shorten,\nWhich to-day the evil Phoenix\nOf its works that now prove mortal\nWould revive amid the ashes\nOf my wrong and my dishonour.\nThen my life, my breath were poison,\nVenom would my breast but foster,\nUntil I had shed in Ireland\nBlood in such a copious torrent,\nThat though base it might wash out\nThe remembrance of my wronger.\nAh, my honour, low thou liest,\nBy a ruthless foot down trodden!--\nI will die with thee, united\nWe two will together conquer\nThese barbarians.  Then since little,\nBut a span at best, belongeth\nTo my life, a noble vengeance\nLet this dagger take upon me!--\nBut, good God! what evil impulse\nWith demoniac instinct prompteth\nThus my hand?  I am a Christian,\nI've a soul, and share the godly\nLight of faith: then were it right,\n'Mid a crowd of Gentile mockers,\nThus the Christian faith to tarnish\nBy an action so improper?\nWhat example would I give them\nBy a death so sad and shocking,\nSave that I thus gave the lie\nTo the works that Patrick worketh.\nSince they'd say, who worship only\nTheir own vices most immodest,\nWho deny unto the soul\nIts eternal joy or torment,\n\"Of what use is Patrick's preaching\nThat man's soul must be immortal,\nIf the Christian, Luis Enius,\nKills himself?  He can't acknowledge\nIts eternal life who'd lose it.\"--\nThus with actions so discordant,\nHe the light and I the shadow,\nWe would neutralize each other.\n'Tis enough to be so wicked\nAs even now to feel no sorrow,\nNo repentance for past sins,\nRather a desire for others.\nYes, by God! for if escape\nFortune now my life would offer,\nEurope, Africa, and Asia\nI would fill with fear and horror;\nFirst exacting here the debt\nOf a vengeance so enormous,\nThat these islands of Egerius\nWould not hold a single mortal\nWho should not appease the thirst,\nThe insatiable longing\nThat I have for blood.  The lightning,\nWhen it bursts its prison portals,\nWarns us in a voice of thunder,\nAnd then 'twixt dark smoke and forked\nFires that take the shape of serpents,\nFills the trembling air with horror.\nI, too, gave that thunder voice,\nSo that all men heard the promise,\nBut the lightning bolt was wanting.\nYes, ah me! it proved abortive,\nAnd before it touched the earth\nWas by dallying winds made sport of.\nNo, it is not death that grieves me,\nEven a death of such dishonour,\n'Tis because at last are ended,\nIn my youth's fresh opening blossom,\nMy offences.  Life I wish for\nTo begin from this day forward\nGreater and more dread excesses.\nHeavens! 'tis for no other object.\n\n\n\n    *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VII.\n\nPOLONIA. -- LUIS.\n\nPOLONIA [aside]  (Now with mind made up I come.)\nLuis, an occasion offers\nEver as the test and touchstone\nOf true love.  By certain knowledge\nHave I learned the imminent danger\nOf thy life.  The wrath grows hotter\nOf my father, and his fury\nTo evade is most important.\nAll the guards that here are with thee\nHas my liberal hand suborned,\nSo that at the clink of gold\nHave their ears grown deaf and torpid.\nFly! and that thou mayest see\nHow a woman's heart can prompt her,\nHow her honour she can trample,\nHow her self-respect leave prostrate,\nWith thee I will go, since now\nIt is needful that henceforward\nI in life and death am thine,\nFor without thee life were worthless,\nThou who in my heart dost live.\nI bring with me gems and money\nQuite enough to the most distant\nParts of India to transport us,\nWhere the sun with beams and shadows\nScatters frost, or burning scorches.\nAt the door two steeds are standing,\nI should rather call these horses\nTwo swift lynxes, air-born creatures,\nThoughts by liveliest minds begotten;\nThey so rapid are, that though\nWe as fugitives fly on them,\nAn assurance of our safety\nWe shall feel.  At once resolve then.\nWhy thus ponder? what delays thee?\nTime is pressing, therefore shorten\nAll discourse; and that mischance,\nWhich disturbs love's plans so often,\nMay not offer an obstruction\nTo so well-prepared a project,\nFirst before thee I will go.\nIssue, while in specious converse\nI divert thy guards, and give\nTo thy coming forth a cover.\nEven the sun our project favours,\nWhich amid the west waves yonder,\nSinking, dips his golden curls\nTo refresh his glowing forehead.\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\n\nLUIS.\n\nLUIS.  A most opportune occasion\nTo my hands has fortune offered;\nSince Heaven knows that all the show\nOf apparent love and fondness\nWhich I proffered to Polonia\nWas assumed, it being my object\nShe should go with me, where I,\nSeizing on the gold and costly\nGems she carries, so might issue\nFrom this Babylonian bondage.\nFor although in my person\nWas esteemed and duly honoured,\nStill 'twas slavery after all,\nAnd my free wild life was longing\nFor that liberty, heaven's best gift,\nWhich I had enjoyed so often.\nBut a great embarrassment\nAnd a hindrance were a woman\nFor the end I have in view,\nSince in me is love a folly\nThat ne'er passes appetite,\nWhich being satisfied, no longer\nCare I for a woman's presence,\nHow so fair or so accomplished.\nAnd since thus my disposition\nIs so free, of what importance\nIs a murder more or less?\nAt my hands must die Polonia\nFor her loving at a time\nWhen there's no one loved or honoured.\nHad she loved as others love,\nThen she would have lived as others.\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE IX.\n\nThe Captain; then The King, PHILIP, and LEOGAIRE.\n\nCAPTAIN.  The sad sentence of his death\nHave I come, by the king's orders,\nHere to read to Luis Enius.--\nBut what's this?  The door lies open,\nAnd the tower deserted.  Ha!\nSoldiers!  No one answers.  Ho, there!\nGuards, come hither, treason! treason!\n\n[Enter The King, PHILIP, and LEOGAIRE.\n\nKING.  Why these outcries? this commotion?\nWhat is this?\n\nCAPTAIN.      That Luis Enius\nHas escaped, and from the fortress\nAll the guards have fled.\n\nLEOGAIRE.      My lord,\nI saw entering here Polonia.\n\nPHILIP.  Heavens! beyond all doubt 'twas she\nWho released him.  That her lover\nHe dared call him, you well know.\nJealousy and rage provoke me\nTo pursue them.  A new Troy\nWill to-day be Ireland's story.\n[Exit.\n\nKING.  Give me, too, a horse; in person\nI these fugitives will follow.\nAh, what Christians are these two\nWho with actions so discordant,\nOne deprives me of my rest,\nAnd the other robs my honour?\nBut the twain shall feel the weight\nOf my vengeful hands fall on them;\nFor not safe from me would be\nEven their sovereign Roman Pontiff.\n[Exeunt.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE X.\n\nA WOOD, AT WHOSE EXTREMITY IS PAUL'S CABIN.\n\nPOLONIA flying wounded, and LUIS with a naked dagger in his hand.\n\nPOLONIA.  Oh, hold thy bloody hand!\nThough love be dead, let Christian faith command.\nMy honour take; but, oh, my poor life spare,\nThat suppliant at thy feet pours out its humble prayer.\n\nLUIS.  Hapless Polonia, since creation's hour\nBeauty has ever one unvarying dower,\nIt brings misfortune with it, it is this\nMakes beauty rarely live long time with bliss.\nI, who less pity feel\nThan any headsman who e'er held death's steel,\nMay by thy death procure\nMy life, since with it I will go secure.\nIf thee I bring where fortune's hand may guide me\nI bring the witness of my woes beside me,\nBy whom they may pursue me,\nTrack me, discover me, in fact, undo me\nIf here I leave thee living,\nI leave thee angry, vengeful, unforgiving;\nLeave thee, in fact, to be\nOne enemy more (and what an enemy!);\nThus equally I grieve thee,\nThus evil do whether I take or leave thee;\nAnd so 'tis better thus,\nThat I a wretch, cruel and infamous,\nFalse, impious, fierce, abandoned, wicked, banned\nBy God and man, should slay thee by my hand,\nSince buried here,\nWithin the rustic entrails dark and drear\nOf this rude realm of stone,\nMy worst misfortune shall remain unknown.\nMy fury, too, shall gain\nA novel kind of vengeance when thou'rt slain,\nRemaining satisfied\nThat Philip, too, by the same stroke has died,\nIf in thy heart he lived; and then mine ire\nWill need no victim more except thy sire.\nThrough thee first came\nMy first disgrace, the cause of all my shame,\nAnd so the first of all\nOn thee my vengeful strokes shall furious fall.\n\nPOLONIA.  Ah me! my fate pursuing,\nI have but only worked my own undoing,\nLike to the worm that by its subtle art\nSpins its own grave.  Hast thou a human heart?\n\nLUIS.  I am a demon.  So to prove it, die.\nThus --\n\nPOLONIA.  God of Patrick, listen to my cry!\n\n[He stabs her several times, and she falls within.\n\nLUIS.  She fell on flowers, there sowing\nBoth lives and horrors in her blood outflowing.\nThus now with greater ease\nI can escape, and carry o'er the seas,\nIn many a gem and chain,\nTreasure enough to make me rich in Spain,\nUntil so changed by time,\nDisguised by wandering in a foreign clime,\nI may return to reap\nMy vengeance; for a wrong doth never sleep.\nBut whither do I stray,\nTreading the shades of death in this dark way?\nMy path is lost: I go\nWhither I do not know;\nPerchance escaping from my prison bands\nTo fall again into my tyrant's hands.\nIf the dark night doth not my sight deceive,\nYonder a rustic cabin I perceive.\nYes, I am right.  I'll knock; I can't much err,\nThey'll know the way.\n[He knocks.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XI.\n\nPAUL and LUCY. -- LUIS.\n\nLUCY [within].      Who's there?\n\nLUIS.            A traveller,\nBenighted, his way lost, confused, distressed,\nGood worthy husbandman, disturbs thy rest.\n\nLUCY [within].  Ho, Juan! how you snore!\nAwake! there's some one knocking at the door.\n\nPAUL [within].  Why, I am well enough here in my bed.\nHe knocks for you, so answer him instead.\n\nLUCY [within].  Who's there?\n\nLUIS.      A traveller, I say.\n\nPAUL [within].  A traveller?\n\nLUIS.      Yes.\n\nPAUL [within].      Then travel on, I pray.\nThis cabin is no inn, sir, not a bit.\n\nLUIS.  I'm getting weary of this fellow's wit.\nI'll try what kicking in the door will do.\n[Drives in the door.\nAy, there it goes.\n\nLUCY [within].      Why, Juan Paul, halloo!\nAwake, I say, for if I don't mistake,\nThe door's knocked in.\n\nPAUL [within].      Well, one eye is awake,\nBut underneath its lid the other's laid.--\nCome with me, Lucy, for I'm sore afraid.\n\n[Enter PAUL and LUCY.\nWho's there?\n\nLUIS.  Be silent, peasants, and attend\nIf you would not that now your lives should end.\nLost in this woodland waste\nI sought your door; and so, my friend, make haste\nTo tell me the best way\nFrom this to the port, where I by break of day\nMay from the coast get clear.\n\nPAUL.  Go right ahead: first take the pathway here,\nThey left, then right again,\nRise where there's hill, descend where there's a plain,\nAnd going thus, in short,\nThe port you'll reach when you have reached the port.\n\nLUIS.  'Tis better that you come\nAlong with me, or by the heavens o'erhead,\nYour blood shall stain the ground on which you tread.\n\nLUCY.  Were it not better, cavalier,\nTo pass the night here till the dawn appear?\n\nPAUL.  How very kind you are when least expected!\nAre you already to this knight infected?\n\nLUIS.  Choose now, at once, I say,\nTo die or guide me.\n\nPAUL.      Don't be vexed, I pray;\nIf I without more haggling or vain clack\nSelect to go, and carry you on my back,\nIf so you chose, 'tis not that death I fear,\nBut just to disappoint my Lucy here.\n\nLUIS [aside].  That he may not betray\nWhither I go, to those who track my way,\nHim from some cliff I'll throw\nHeadlong amid the icy waves below.--\n[To LUCY.\nYou with this consolation here remain\nYour husband will be with you soon again.\n[Exeunt the two at one side, and she at the other.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XII.\n\nThe King EGERIUS, LESBIA, LEOGAIRE, The Captain;\nafterwards PHILIP.\n\nLESBIA.  Not a trace of them is found;\nAll the mountain, hill and valley,\nLeaf by leaf has been explored,\nBough by bough has been examined,\nRock by rock has been searched through,\nStill no clue wherewith to track them\nCan we light on.\n\nKING.      Without doubt,\nTo preserve them from my anger,\nHas the earth engulphed the two;\nFor not heaven itself could guard them\nFrom my wrath if still they lived.\n\nLESBIA.  See the sun his disentangled\nGolden tresses far extends\nOver mountains, groves and gardens,\nShowing that the day hath come.\n\n[Enter PHILIP.\nPHILIP.  Deign, your majesty, to hearken\nTo a tragedy more dreadful,\nTo a crime more unexampled\nThan has time or fortune ever\nYet recorded in earth's annals.\nSeeking traces of Polonia\nThrough these savage woods distracted\nRoamed I restless all the night-time,\nTill at length and amid the darkness\nHalf awakened rose the dawn;\nNot in veils of gold and amber\nWas she dressed, a robe of mourning\nFormed of clouds composed her mantle,\nAnd with discontented light\nHidden were the stars and planets,\nThough for this one time alone\nThey were happy in their absence.\nSearching there in every part,\nWe approached where blood was spattered\nOn the tender dewy flower,\nAnd upon the ground some fragments of a woman's dress were strewn.\nBy these signs at once attracted,\nWe went on, 'till at the foot\nOf a great rock overhanging,\nIn a fragrant tomb of roses\nLay Polonia, dead and stabbed there.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XIII.\n\nPOLONIA dead; and afterwards PATRICK. -- THE SAME.\n\nPHILIP.  Turn your eyes, and here you see\nThe young tree of beauty blasted,\nPale and sad the opening flower,\nThe bright flame abruptly darkened;\nSee here loveliness laid prostrate,\nSee warm life here turned to marble,\nSee, alas! Polonia dead.\n\nKING.  Philip, cease! proceed no farther!\nFor I have not resignation\nTo bear up with any calmness\n'Gainst so many forms of wrong,\n'Gainst so many shapes of sadness,\n'Gainst such manifold misfortunes.\nAh, my daughter! Ah, thou hapless\nTreasure fatally found for me!\n\nLESBIA.  Grief my feeling so o'ermasters\nThat I have not breath to mourn.\nAh! of all thy woes the partner\nLet thy wretched sister be!\n\nKING.  What rude hand in ruffian anger\nRaised its bloody steel against\nBeauty so divinely fashioned?\nSorrow, sorrow ends my life.\n\nPATRICK [within].  Woe to thee, sin-stained Irlanda!\nWoe to thee, unhappy people!\nIf with tears thou dost not water\nThe hard earth, and night and day\nWeeping in thy bitter anguish,\nOpe the golden gates of heaven\nWhich thy disobedience fastened.\nWoe to thee, unhappy people!\nWoe to thee, sin-stained Irlanda!\n\nKING.  Heavens! what mournful tones are these?\nWhat are these sad solemn accents\nThat transpierce my very heart,\nThat cut through me like a dagger?\nLearn who thus disturbs the flowing\nOf my grief's most tender channels.\nWho but I should so lament?\nWho but I should wail thus sadly?\n\nLEOGAIRE.  This, my lord, is Patrick, who\nHaving as you know, departed\nFrom this country went to Rome,\nWhere the Pontiff, the great father,\nMade him bishop, and a post\nOf pre-eminence imparted\nTo him here; through all the islands\nHe proceedeth in this manner.\n\n[PATRICK enters.\n\nPATRICK.  Woe to thee, unhappy people!\nWoe to thee, sin-stained Irlanda!\n\nKING.  Patrick, thou who thus my grief\nInterrupted, and my sadness\nDoubled with thy golden words,\nHiding false and poisonous matter,\nWhy thus persecute me?  Wherefore\nThus disturb the hills and valleys\nOf my kingdom with deceptions\nAnd new-fangled laws and maxims?\nHere we know but this alone,\nWe are born and die.  Our fathers\nLeft us this, the simple doctrine\nTaught by nature, and no farther\nHave we sought to learn.  What God\nCan be this, of whom such marvels\nYou relate, who life eternal\nGives when temporal life departeth?\nCan the soul, when it is severed\nFrom the body, be so active\nAs to have another life,\nOr of bale or bliss, hereafter?\n\nPATRICK.  Being loosened from the body,\nAnd the human portion having\nGiven to nature, it being only\nBut a little dust and ashes,\nThen the spirit upward rises,\nTo the higher sphere attracted,\nWhere its labours find their centre,\nIf it dies in grace, which baptism\nFirst confers upon the soul,\nAnd then penance ever after.\n\nKING.  Then this beauteous one, that here\nLies in her own blood bedabbled,\nThere, is living at this moment?\n\nPATRICK.  Yes.\n\nKING.      A sign, a proof, then, grant me\nOf this truth.\n\nPATRICK [aside].  Almighty Lord!\nFor Thy glory deign to hearken!\nIt behoveth Thee to show\nHere Thy power by an example.\n\nKING.  What! you do not answer?\n\nPATRICK.      Heaven\nWishes for itself to answer.--\nIn the name of God, O corse,\n[He extends his hands over the dead body of POLONIA.\nLying stiff here, I command thee\nTo arise and live, resuming\nThine own soul, and thus make patent\nThis great truth, before us preaching\nThe true doctrine and evangel.\n\nPOLONIA [arising].  Woe is me!  Oh, save me, heaven!\nAh, what secrets are imparted\nTo the soul!  O Lord!  O Lord!\nStay the red hand of Thy anger,\nOf Thy justice.  Do not threaten,\n'Gainst a woman weak and abject,\nThe dread thunders of Thy rigour,\nOf Thy power the lightning's flashes.\nWhere, oh, where shall I conceal me\nFrom Thy countenance, if haply\nThou art wroth?  Ye rocks, he mountains,\nFall upon and overcast me.\nHating mine own self, to-day\nWould that to my prayer 'twas granted\nIn the centre of the earth\nFrom Thy sight to hide and mask me!\nAh, but why? if wheresoever\nMy unhappy fate might cast me\nThere I brought with me my sin?\nSee ye, see ye not this Atlas\nBack recede, and this huge mountain\nTremble to its base?  The axes\nOf the firmament are loosened,\nAnd its perfect fabric hangeth\nThreatening ruin o'er my head,\nWith terrific pride and grandeur.\nDarker grows the air around me,\nChained, my feet proceed no farther,\nEven the seas retire before me.\nWhat, here fly me not nor startle,\nAre the wild beasts, which to rend me\nBit by bit come on to attack me.\nMercy, mighty Lord, oh, mercy!\nPardon, gracious Lord, oh, pardon!\nHoly baptism I implore,\nThat in grace I may depart hence.\nMortals, hear, oh, mortals hear,\nChrist is living, Christ is master,\nChrist is god, the one true God!\nPenance, penance, penance practice!\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XIV.\n\nTHE SAME, with the exception of POLONIA.\n\nPHILIP.  How prodigious!\n\nCAPTAIN.      How stupendous!\n\nLESBIA.  What a miracle!\n\nLEOGAIRE.      What a marvel!\n\nKING.  What enchantment! what bewitchment!\nWho can bear this? who can grant this?\n\nALL.  Christ is God, the one true God.\n\nKING.  What a bold deceit is practised\nHere, blind people, to deceive you,\nIn the making of these marvels,\nWhich you have not sense to see\nAre in outward show but acted\nAnd within are fraud!  However,\nThat the truth be now established,\nI will own myself convinced,\nIf in argument shall Patrick\nProve his case: and so attend\nAs the grave dispute advances.\nIf the soul was made immortal\nIt could never be inactive\nEven for a single moment.\n\nPATRICK.  Yes; and every dream that passes\nProves this truth; because the dreams\nThat engender numerous phantoms\nAre discourses of the soul\nThat ne'er sleeps, and as these shadows\nSimulate the imperfect actions\nOf the senses, a strange language\nAnd imperfect is produced;\nAnd 'tis thus that in their trances\nMen dream things that are at once\nInconsistent and fantastic.\n\nKING.  Well, then, this being so, I ask\nWas Polonia when this happened\nDead or not?  For if but only\nIn a swoon, what mighty marvel,\nThen, was done?  But this I pass.\nIf she really had departed,\nThen to one of the two places,\nHeaven or hell, so named, O Patrick,\nBy yourself, it must have gone.\nIf it was in heaven, 'twas hardly\nMerciful in God to send it\nBack into this world, to hazard\nA new chance of condemnation,\nWhen 'twas once in grace and happy.\nThis is surely true.  If, likewise,\nIt had been in hell, 'tis adverse\nTo strict justice, since it were not\nJust that that which by its badness\nOnce had earned such punishment,\nShould again be given the chances\nOf regaining grace.  It must,\nI presume, be taken as granted\nThat God's justice and His mercy\nCannot possibly be parted.\nWhere, I ask then, was her soul?\n\nPATRICK.  Hear, Egerius, the answer.\nI concede that for the soul,\nSanctified by holy baptism,\nHeaven or hell must be its goal,\nOut of which, by God's commandment,\nSpeaking of His usual power,\nIt can never more be absent.\nBut if of His absolute power\nThere is question, God could drag it\nEven from hell itself; but this\nIs not what we have to argue.\nThat the soul doth go to either\nOf those places, must be granted\nWhen 'tis severed from the body\nOnce for all by mortal absence\nTo return to it no more;\nBut when otherwise commanded\nTo it to return, it waiteth\nIn a certain state of passage,\nAnd remains as 'twere suspended\nIn the universe, not having\nAny special place allotted.\nFor the Almighty mind forecasting\nAll things, when from out His essence,\nAs th' exemplar, the fair pattern\nOf His thought, this glorious fabric\nHe brought forth to light and gladness,\nSaw this very incident,\nAnd well knowing what would happen,\nThat this soul would here return,\nKept it for awhile inactive,\nSeemingly unfixed, yet fixed.\nThis is the authentic answer\nThat theology, that sacred\nScience, gives to what you have asked me.\nBut another point remaineth:\nThere are other places, mark me,\nBoth of glory and of pain,\nThan you think; and of these latter\nOne is called the Purgatory,\nWhere the soul of him who haply\nDies in grace, is purged from stains,\nSinful stains which it contracted\nIn the world: for into heaven\nNone can pass till these are cancelled.\nAnd thus, there 'tis purified,\nCleansed by fire from all that tarnished,\nTill to God's divinest presence\nPure and clean at length it passes.\n\nKING.  So you say, and I have nothing\nTo confirm what you advance here\nBut your word.  Some proof now give me,\nGive me something I can handle,\nSomething tangible to convince me\nOf this truth, that I may grasp it,\nAnd know what it is.  And since\nSo much power and influence have you\nWith your God, implore His grace,\nThat I may believe the faster,\nSome material fact to give me,\nSomething that we all can grapple,\nNot mere creatures of the mind.\nAnd remember that at farthest\nBut an hour remains in which\nYou must give me sure and ample\nSigns of punishment and glory,\nOr you die.  These mighty marvels\nOf your God here let them come,\nWhere the truth we can examine\nFor ourselves.  And if we neither\nHeaven or hell deserve to have here,\nShow us, then, this Purgatory,\nWhich is different from the latter,\nSo that here we all may know\nHis omnipotence and grandeur.\nMind, God's honour rests upon you,\nTell Him to defend and guard it.\n[Exeunt all but PATRICK.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XV.\n\nPATRICK.\n\nPATRICK.  Here, mighty Lord, dart down thy searching glance,\nArm'd with the dreadful lightnings of Thine ire,\nWing'd with Thy vengeance, as the bolt with fire,\nAnd rout the squadrons of fell ignorance:\nCome not in pity to the hostile band,\nTreat not as friends Thy enemies abhorr'd,\nBut since they ask for portents, mighty Lord,\nCome with the blood-red lightnings in Thy hand.\nOf old Elias asked with burning sighs\nFor chastisement, and Moses did display\nWonders and portents; in the self-same way\nListen, O Lord, to my beseeching cries,\nAnd though I be not great or good as they,\nStill let my accents pierce the listening skies!\nPortents and chastisement, both day and night\nI ask, O Lord, may from Thy hand be given,\nThat Purgatory, Hell and Heaven,\nMay be revealed unto these mortals' sight.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XVI.\n\nA Good Angel at one side, and on the other a Bad Angel. -- PATRICK.\n\nBAD ANGEL [to himself].  Fearful that the favouring skies\nMay accede to Patrick's prayer,\nAnd discover to him where\nEarth's most wondrous treasure lies,\nLike a minister of light,\nFull of scorn, I hither fly\nIt to chill and nullify.\nCovering with my poison blight\nHis petition.\n\nGOOD ANGEL.  Then give o'er,\nCruel monster; for in me\nHis protecting angel see.\nBut be silent, speak no more.--\n[to him.\nPatrick, God has heard Thy prayer,\nHe has listen'd to thy vows,\nAnd, as thou hast asked, allows\nEarth's great secrets to lie bare.\nSeek along this island ground\nFor a vast and darksome cave,\nWhich restrains the lake's dark wave.\nAnd supports the mountains round;\nHe who dares to go therein,\nHaving first contritely told\nAll his faults, shall there behold\nWhere the soul is purged from sin.\nHe shall see, with mortal eyes,\nHell itself, where those who die\nIn their sins for ever lie\nIn the fire that never dies.\nHe shall see, in blest fruition,\nWhere the happy spirits dwell.\nBut of this be sure as well --\nHe who without due contrition\nEnters there to idly try\nWhat the cave may be, doth go\nTo his death; he'll suffer woe,\nWhile the Lord doth reign on high,\nWho thy soul this day shall free\nFrom this poor world's weariness.\nIt is thus that God doth bless\nThose who love His name like thee.\nHe shall grant to thee in pity,\nBliss undreamed by mortal men,\nMaking thee a denizen\nOf His own celestial city.\nHe shall to the world proclaim\nHis omnipotence and glory,\nBy the wondrous Purgatory\nWhich shall bear thy sainted name.\nLest thou think the promise vain\nOf this miracle divine,\nI will take this shape malign,\nWhich came hither to profane\nThy devotion, and within\nThis dark cavern's dark abyss\nFling it,-- there to howl and hiss\nIn the everlasting din.\n[They disappear.\n\nPATRICK.  Glory, glory unto Thee,\nMighty Lord; the heavens proclaim,\nMiracles attest Thy name,\nWonders show that Thou must be.--\n[Calling.\nKing!\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XVII.\n\nThe King, PHILIP, LESBIA, LEOGAIRE, The Captain, People. -- PATRICK.\n\nKING.  What would'st thou?\n\nPATRICK.      Come with me\nThrough this mountain woodland drear,\nThou and all thy followers here,\nThou and they shall see therein\nThe dark place reserved for sin,\nAnd rewards delightful sphere.\nThey shall have a passing view\nOf a sight no tongue can tell,\nAn unending miracle,\nTo whose greatness shall be due\nTheir amazement ever new\nWho its secrets shall unveil.\nYes, a perfect image pale\nIn the wonders guarded here,\nShall they see with awe and fear,\nOf the realms of bliss and bale.\n[Exit, followed by all.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XVIII.\n\nA REMOTE PART OF THE MOUNTAIN WITH THE MOUTH OF A HORRIBLE CAVE.\n\nTHE SAME.\n\nKING.  Look, O Patrick, for you go\nTurning towards a part forbidden,\nWhere the light of the sun is hidden\nEven in the noon-tide's glow.\nThrough this wilderness of woe\nEven the hunter in pursuit\nOf his prey ne'er placed a foot\nOn its trackless wild walks green,\nSince for ages it has been\nShunned alike by man and brute.\n\nPHILIP.  We for many and many a year,\nWho have lived here from our youth,\nNever dared to learn the truth\nOf the secrets hidden here;\nFor the entrance did appear\nIn itself enough to make\nEven the bravest heart to quake.\nNo one yet has dared to brave\nThe wild rocks that guard this cave,\nOr the waters of this lake.\n\nKING.  And for auguries we heard,\nBorne the troubled wind along,\nOft the sad funereal song\nOf some lone nocturnal bird.\n\nPHILIP.  Be the rash attempt deferred.\n\nPATRICK.  Let not causeless fear arise;\nFor a treasure of the skies\nHere is hidden.\n\nKING.  What is fear?\nCould it ever me come near\nIn an earthquake's agonies?\nNo; for though the flames should break\nAs from some sulphureous lake,\nAnd the mountains' sides run red\nFrom the molten fires outshed,\nThey could ne'er my courage shake,\nNever make me fear.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE XIX.\n\nPOLONIA. -- THE SAME.\n\nPOLONIA.      Oh, stay,\nWandering from the path astray,\nHapless crowd, rash, indiscreet,\nTurn away your erring feet,\nFor misfortune lies that way.\n\nHere from myself with hurried footsteps flying,\nI dared to treat this wilderness profound,\nBeneath the mountain whose proud top defying\nThe pure bright sunbeam is with huge rocks crowned,\nHoping that here, as in its dark grave lying,\nNever my sin could on the earth be found,\nAnd I myself might find a port of peace\nWhere all the tempests of the world might cease.\n\nNo polar star had hostile fate decreed me,\nAs on my perilous path I dared to stray,\nSo great its pride, no hand presumed to lead me,\nAnd guide my silent footstep on its way.\nNot yet the aspect of the place has freed me\nFrom the dread terror, anguish and dismay,\nWhich were awakened by this mountain's gloom,\nAnd all the hidden wonders of its womb.\n\nSee ye not here this rock some power secureth,\nThat grasps with awful toil the hill-side brown,\nAnd with the very anguish it endureth\nAge after age seems slowly coming down?\nSuspended there with effort, it obscureth\nA mighty cave beneath, which it doth crown;--\nAn open mouth the horrid cavern shapes,\nWherewith the melancholy mountain gapes.*\n\n\n[footnote] *      \"But I remember,\nTwo miles on this side of the fort, the road\nCrosses a deep ravine; 'tis rough and narrow,\nAnd winds with short turns down the precipice;\nAnd in its depth there is a mighty rock\nWhich has from unimaginable years,\nSustained itself with terror and with toil\nOver the gulf, and with the agony\nWith which it clings seems slowly coming down;\nEven as a wretched soul hour after hour\nClings to the mass of life: yet, clinging, leans;\nAnd leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss\nIn which it fears to fall.  Beneath this crag,\nHuge as despair, as if in weariness\nThe melancholy mountain yawns.\"--THE CENCI.\n\nShelly says, \"An idea in this speech was suggested by a most sublime\npassage in 'El Purgatorio de San Patricio' of Calderon.\"  The same\nidea is to be found in \"Amor despues de la Muerte,\" \"Los dos amantes\ndel Cielo,\" and other dramas of Calderon.\n[end of footnote]\n\n\nThis, then, by mournful cypress trees surrounded,\nBetween the lips of rocks at either side,\nReveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded,\nWhose tangled hair is scantily supplied\nBy the wild herbs that there the wind hath grounded,\nA gloom whose depths no sun has ever tried,\nA space, a void, the gladsome day's affright,\nThe fatal refuge of the frozen night.\n\nI wished to enter there, to make my dwelling\nWithin the cave; but here my accents fail,\nMy troubled voice, against my will rebelling.\nDoth interrupt so terrible a tale.--\nWhat novel horror, all the past excelling,\nMust I relate to you, with cheeks all pale,\nWithout cold terror on my bosom seizing,\nAnd even my voice, my breath, my pulses freezing?\n\nI scarcely had o'ercome my hesitation,\nAnd gone within the cavern's vault profound,\nWhen I heard wails of hopeless lamentation,\nDespairing shrieks that shook the walls around,\nCurses, and blasphemy, and desperation,\nDark crimes avowed that would even hell astound,\nWhich heaven, I think, in order not to hear,\nHad hid within this prison dark and drear.\n\nLet him come here who doubts what I am telling,\nLet him here bravely enter who denies,\nSoon shall he hear the sounds of dreadful yelling,\nSoon shall the horrors gleam before his eyes.\nFor me, my voice is hushed, my bosom swelling,\nPants now with terror, now with strange surprise.\nNor is it right that human tongue should dare\nHigh heaven's mysterious secrets to lay bare.\n\nPATRICK.  This cave, O king, which here you see, concealeth\nThe mysteries of life as well as death:\nNot, I should say, for him whose bosom feeleth\nNo true repentance, or no real faith;\nBut he who boldly enters, who revealeth\nHis sins, confessing them with penitent breath,\nShall see them all forgiven, his conscience clear,\nAnd have alive his Purgatory here.\n\nKING.  And dost thou think, O Patrick, that I owe\nMy blood so little, as to yield to dread,\nAnd trembling fear like a weak woman show?\nSay, who shall be the first this cave to tread?\nWhat silent!  Philip?\n\nPHILIP.      Sire, I dare not go.\n\nKING.  Then, Captain, thou?\n\nCAPTAIN.      Enough to strike me dead\nIs even the thought.\n\nKING.      Leogaire, thou'lt surely dare?\n\nLEOGAIRE.  The heavens, my lord, themselves exclaim forbear!\n\nKING.  O cowards, lost to every sense of shame,\nUnfit to gird the warrior's sword around\nYour shrinking loins!  Men are ye but in name.\nWell, I myself shall be the first to sound\nThe depths of this enchantment, and proclaim\nUnto this Christian that my heart unawed\nNor dreads his incantations nor his God!\n[Egerius advances to the cave, and on entering sinks into it with\nmuch noise, flames rise from below, and many voices are heard.\n\nPOLONIA.  How terrible!\n\nLEOGAIRE.      How awful!\n\nPHILIP.            What a wonder!\n\nCAPTAIN.  The earth is breathing out its central fire.\n[Exit.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  The axes of the sky are burst asunder.\n[Exit.\n\nPOLONIA.  The heavens are loosening their collected ire.\n{Exit.\n\nLESBIA.  The earth doth quake, and peals the sullen thunder.\n[Exit.\n\nPATRICK.  O, mighty Lord, who will not now admire\nThy wondrous works?\n[Exit.\n\nPHILIP.      Oh! who that's not insane\nWill enter Patrick's Purgatory again?\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nACT THE THIRD.\n\nA STREET.  IT IS NIGHT.\n\nSCENE I.\n\nJUAN PAUL, dressed ridiculously as a soldier, and LUIS ENIUS, very pensive.\n\nPAUL.  Yes, the day would come I knew,\nAfter long procrastination,\nWhen a word of explanation\nI should ask to have with you.\n\"Come with me,\" you said.  Though dark,\nOff I trudged with heavy heart\nTo point out to you the part\nWhere at morn you could embark;\nThen again, with thundering voice,\nThus you spoke, \"Where I must fly\nChoose to come with me, or die.\"\nAnd, since you allowed a choice,\nOf two ills I chose the worst,\nWhich, sir, was to go with you.\nAs your shadow then I flew\n'Cross the sea to England first,\nThen to Scotland, then to France\nthen to Italy and Spain,\nRound the world and back again,\nAs in some fantastic dance.\nNot a country great or small\nCould escape you, 'till, good lack!\nHere we are in Ireland back:--\nNow, sir, I, plain Juan Paul,\nBeing perplexed to know what draws\nYou here now, with beard and hair\nGrown so long, your speech, your air,\nChanged so much, would ask the cause\nWhy you these disguises wear?\nYou by day ne'er leave the inn,\nBut when cold night doth begin\nYou a thousand follies dare,\nWithout bearing this in mind,\nThat we now are in a land\nWholly changed from strand to strand,\nWhere, in fact, we nothing find\nAs we left it.  The old king\nDied despairing, and his heir,\nLesbia, now the crown doth wear,\nFor her sister, hapless thing!\nPoor Polonia . . . .\n\nLUIS.      Oh, that name\nDo not mention!  do not kill me\nBy repeating what doth thrill me\nTo the centre of my frame\nAs with lightning.  Yes, I know\nThat at length Polonia died.\n\nPAUL.  Yes; our host was at her side\n(He himself has told me so)\nWhen they found her dead, and . . . .\n\nLUIS.      Cease!\nOf her death, oh! speak no more,\n'Tis sufficient to deplore,\nAnd to pray that she's at peace.\n\nPAUL.  Leaving heathen sin and crime,\nAll the people far and near\nAre become good Christians here.\nFor one Patrick, who some time\nNow is dead . . . .\n\nLUIS.      Is Patrick dead?\n\nPAUL.  So I from our host have heard.\n\nLUIS [aside].  Badly have I kept my word!--\nBut proceed.\n\nPAUL.      The teaching spread\nOf the faith of Christ, and gave,\nAs a proof complete and whole\nOf the eternity of the soul,\nThe discovery of a cave.--\nOh! it's the very name doth send\nTerror through me.\n\nLUIS.      Yes, I have heard\nOf that cave, and every word\nMade my hair to stand on end.\nThose who in the neighbourhood\nDwell, see wonders every day.\n\nPAUL.  Since, 'mid terror and dismay,\nIn your melancholy mood\nYou will no one hear or see,\nEver locked within your room,\nIt is plain you have not come\nAught to learn, how strange they be,\nOf these things.  It doth appear\nOther work you are about.\nSatisfy my foolish doubt,\nAnd say why we have come here.\n\nLUIS.  to your questions thus I yield:\nYes, I forced you, as you mention,\nFrom your house, and my intention\nWas to kill you in the field;\nBut I thought it best instead\nYou to make my steps attend\nAs my comrade and my friend,\nShaking off the mortal dread\nWhich forbad me to endure\nAny stranger, and in fine,\nThat your arms being joined with mine,\nI might feel the more secure.\nMany a land, both far and near,\nPassing through you fared right well;\nAnd now answering I will tell\nWhy it is that we come here.\nAnd 'tis this: I come to slay\nHere a man who did me wrong,\n'Tis for this I pass along,\nMuffled in this curious way,\nHiding country, dress, and name;\nAnd the night suits best for me,\nFor my powerful enemy\nCan the first position claim\nIn the land.  Since I avow\nWhy I hither have been led,\nListen now how I have sped\nIn my project until now.\nI three days ago was brought\nTo this city in disguise,\nFor two nights, beneath the skies,\nI my enemy have sought\nIn his street and at his door;\nTwice a muffled figure came\nAnd disturbed me in my aim,\nTwice he called and stalked before\nHim I followed in the street;\nBut when I the figure neared,\nSuddenly he disappeared\nAs if wings were on his feet.\nI this third night have brought you,\nThat should this mysterious shape\nCome again, he sha'nt escape,\nBeing caught between us two;\nWho he is we then can see.\n\nPAUL.  Two? who are they?\n\nLUIS.      You and I.\n\nPAUL.  I'm not one.\n\nLUIS.      Not one?  How?  Why?\n\nPAUL.  No, sir, no.  I cannot be\nOne, nor half a one.  These stories\nFaith! would frighten fifty Hectors;\nWhat know I of Lady Spectres,\nOr of Lord Don Purgatories?\nAll through life I've kept aloof\nFrom the other world's affairs,\nShunning much superfluous cares;\nBut, my courage put to proof,\nBid me face a thousand men,\nAnd if I don't cut and run\nFrom the thousand, nay, from one,\nNever trust to me again.\nFor I think it quite a case\nFit for Bedlam, if so high,\nThat a man would rather die,\nThan just take a little race.\nSuch a trifle!  Sir, to me\nLife is precious; leave me here,\nWhere you'd find me, never fear.\n\nLUIS.  Here's the house; to-night I'll be,\nPhilip, your predestined fate.\nNow we'll see if heaven pretends\nTo defend him, and defends.--\nWatch here, you, beside the gate.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE II.\n\nA Muffled Figure. -- LUIS and PAUL.\n\nPAUL.  There's no need to watch, for hither\nSome one comes.\n\nLUIS.      A lucky mortal\nAm I, if the hour draws nigh\nThat will two revenges offer.*\nSince this night there then will be\nNaught to interrupt my project,\nSlaying first this muffled figure\nAnd then Philip.  Slow and solemn\nComes this man again.  I know him\nBy his gait.  But whence this horror\nThat comes o'er me as I see him,\nThis strange awe that chills, that shocks me?\n\n\n[footnote]  *Asonante in o -- e to the end of Scene VIII.\n\n\nTHE FIGURE.  Luis Enius!\n\nLUIS.      Sir, I've seen you\nHere the last two nights; your object?\nIf you call me, wherefore fly thus?\nIf 'tis me you seek, why mock me\nBy retiring?\n\nTHE FIGURE.      Follow me,\nThen you'll know my name.\n\nLUIS.      I'm stopped here\nIn this street by a little business.--\nTo be quite alone imports me.--\nWherefore first by killing you\nI'll be free to kill another\n[He draws his sword, but merely cuts the air.\nDraw, then, draw your sword or not,\nThus the needful path I shorten\nTo two acts of vengeance.  Heavens!\nI but strike the air, cut nothing,\nSever nothing else.  Quick!  Paul,\nStop him as he stalks off yonder,\nNear to you.\n\nPAUL.      I'm bad at stopping.\n\nLUIS.  Then your footsteps I will follow\nEverywhere, until I learn\nWho you are.  [Aside.]  (In vain his body\nDo I strive to pierce.  Oh, heavens!\nLightnings flash from off my sword here;\nBut in no way can I touch him,\nAs if sword and arm were shortened.)\n[Exit following the figure, striking at it without touching it.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE III.\n\nPHILIP. -- PAUL.\n\nPAUL [aside].  God be with you both!  But scarce\nHas one vanished, when another\nComes to haunt me.  Why, I'm tempted\nBy strange phantoms and hobgoblins\nLike another San Antonio:--\nIn this doorway I'll ensconce me,\nTill my friend here kindly passes.\n\nPHILIP.  Love, ambitious, bold, deep-plotted,\nWith the favours of a kingdom\nMe thou mak'st a prosperous lover.\nTo the desert fled Polonia,\nWhere, mid savage rocks and forests,\nCitizen of mighty mountains,\nIslander of lonely grottoes,\nShe doth dwell, to Lesbia leaving\nCrown and kingdom; through a stronger\nGreed than love I Lesbia court,--\nFor a queen is worth my homage.\nFrom her trellis I have come,\nFrom a sweet and pleasant converse.\nBut, what's this?  Each night I stumble\nOn a man here at my doorstep.\nWho is there?\n\nPAUL [aside].      To me he's coming.\nWhy on earth should every goblin\nPounce on me?\n\nPHILIP.      Sir, Caballero.\n\nPAUL.  These are names I don't acknowledge;\nHe can't speak to ME.\n\nPHILIP.      This house\nIs my home.\n\nPAUL.      Which I don't covet;\nMay you for an age enjoy it,\nWithout billets.\n\nPHILIP.      If important\nBusiness in this street detains you\n(Not a word whereon I offer),\nGive me room that I may pass.\n\nPAUL [aside].  Somewhat timid, though quite proper,\nGoblins can be cowards too.--\nYes, sir, for a certain office\nI am here; go in, and welcome;\nI no gentleman would stop here\nBound for bed, nor is it right.\n\nPHILIP.  The condition I acknowledge.--\n[Aside.\nWell, fine spectres, to be sure,\nHaunt this street: each night I notice\nThat a man here comes before me,\nBut when I approach him softly,\nHereabouts on my own threshold,\nI, as now, have always lost him.\nBut what matters this to me?\n[Exit.\n\n[PAUL draws his sword and makes several flourishes.\nPAUL.  As he's gone, the right and proper\nThing is this:-- Stay, stay, cold shadow,\nWhether you're a ghost or ghostess,\nI can't reach it.  Why, by heaven!\nAir alone I cut and chop here.\nBut if this is he we wait for\nIn the night-time like two blockheads\nFaith! he is a lucky fellow\nTo have got to bed so promptly.\nBut another noise I hear\nSounding from that dark street yonder.\n'Tis of swords and angry voices:--\nThere I run to reconnoitre.\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE IV.\n\nANOTHER STREET.\n\nThe Muffled Figure and LUIS.\n\nLUIS.  Sir, already we have issued\nFrom that street; if aught there stopped us,\nWe are here alone, and may\nHand to hand resume the combat.\nAnd since powerless is my sword\nThee to wound, I throw me on thee\nTo know who thou art.  Declare,\nArt thou demon, man, or monster?\nWhat! no answer?  Then I thus\nDare myself to solve the problem,\n[He tears the cloak from the Figure, and finds beneath it a skeleton.\nAnd find out . . . . Oh, save me, heaven!\nGod! what's this I see?  what horrid\nSpectacle!  What frightful vision!\nWhat death-threatening fearful portent!\nStiff and stony corse, who art thou?\nThat of dust and ashes formed\nNow dost live?\n\nTHE FIGURE.      Not know thyself?\nThis is thy most faithful portrait;\nI, alas! am Luis Enius.\n[Disappears.*\n\n\n[footnote]  *The interview between Luis Enius and the Skeleton, says\na recent writer, \"is a scene truly Calderonic -- the hour, the place,\nthe intended assassin, and the sudden reflection of himself, with his\nguilty conscience impersonate before him; it reminds us of that wild\nfable of Jeremy Taylor or Fuller, about the bird with a human face,\nthat feeds on human flesh until it chances to see its reflection in a\nstream, and then it pines away for grief that it has killed its\nfellow.\" -- WESTMINSTER REVIEW, vol. liv. p. 306.\n\n\nLUIS.  Save me, heaven! what words of horror!\nSave me, heaven! what sight of woe!\nPrey of shadows and misfortunes.\nAh, I die.\n[He falls on the ground.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE V.\n\nPAUL. -- LUIS.\n\nPAUL.      It is the voice\nOf my master.  Succour cometh\nOpportunely now in me.\nSir!\n\nLUIS.  Ah! why return, dread monster?\nI am overwhelmed, I faint here\nAt your voice.\n\nPAUL [aside].      God help his noddle!\nHe's gone mad! -- Dread monster?  No,\n[Aloud.\nI am Juan Paul, that donkey\nWho, not knowing why or wherefore,\nIs your servant.\n\nLUIS.      Ah! good, honest\nPaul, I knew you not, so frightened\nAm I.  But at that why wonder,\nIf myself I do not know?\nDid you see a fearful corse here,\nA dead body with a soul,\nAn apparent man supported\nBy his skeleton alone,\nBones from which the flesh had rotted,\nFingers rigid, gaunt, and cold,\nNaked trunk, uncouth, abhorrent,\nVacant spaces whence the eyes,\nHaving fallen, left bare the sockets?--\nWhither has he gone?\n\nPAUL.      If I\nSaw that ghost, upon my honour,\nI could never say I saw it;\nFor more dead than that dead body\nI had fallen on the other side\nAt the moment.\n\nLUIS.      And no wonder;\nFor my voice was mute, my breath\nChoked, my heart's warm beat forgotten,\nClothed with ice were all my senses,\nShod with lead my feet, my forehead\nCold with sweat, I saw suspended\nHeaven's two mighty poles upon me,\nThe brief Atlases sustaining\nSuch a burden being my shoulders.\nIt appeared as if there started\nRocks from every tender blossom,\nGiants from each opening rose;\nFor the earth's disrupted hollows\nWished from out their graves to cast\nForth the dead who lay there rotten;\nAh, among them I beheld\nLuis Enius!  Heaven be softened!\nHide me, hide me, from myself!\nBury me in some deep corner\nOf earth's centre!  Let me never\nSee myself, since no self-knowledge\nHave I had!  But now I have it;\nNow I know I am that monster\nOf rebellion, who defied,\nIn my madness, pride, and folly,\nGod Himself; the same, whose crimes\nAre so numerous and so horrid,\nThat it were slight punishment,\nIf the whole wrath of the Godhead\nWas outpoured on me, and whilst\nGod was God, eternal torments\nI should have to bear in hell.\nBut I have this further knowledge,\nThey were done against a God\nSo divine, that He has promised\nTo grant pardon, if my sins\nI with penitent tears acknowledge.\nSuch I shed; and, Lord, to prove\nThat to-day to be another\nI begin, being born anew,\nTo Thy hands my soul I offer.\nNot as a strict judge then judge me,\nFor the attributes of the Godhead\nAre His justice and His mercy;\nWith the latter, not the former,\nJudge me, then, and fix what penance\nI shall do to gain that object.\nWhat will be the satisfaction\nOf my life?\n\n[Music (within).  The Purgatory.\n\nLUIS.  Bless me, heaven! what's this I hear?\nA sweet strain divine and solemn;\nIt appears a revelation\nFrom on high, since heaven doth often\nHelp mysteriously the sinner.\nAnd since I herein acknowledge\nA divine interposition,\nI will go into the Purgatory,\nCalled, of Patrick, and fulfil,\nHumbly, faithfully, the promise\nWhich I gave him long ago,\nIf it is my happy fortune\nTo see Patrick.  If the attempt\nIs, as rumour hath informed me,\nMost terrific, since no human\nStrength avails against the horrors\nOf the place, or resolution\nTo endure the demons' torments,\nStill my sins I must remember\nWere as dreadful.  Skilful doctors\nGive for dangerous diseases\nDangerous remedies to stop them.--\nCome, then, with me, Paul, and see\nHow here penitent and prostrate\nAt the bishop's feet I'll kneel,\nAnd confess, for greater wonder,\nAll my awful sins aloud.\n\nPAUL.  Go alone, then, for that project,\nSince so brave a man as you are\nHas no need of an accomplice;\nAnd there's no one I have heard of\nWho e'er went to hell escorted\nBy his servant.  I'll go home,\nAnd live pleasantly in my cottage\nWithout care.  If ghosts there be,\nI'm content with matrimony.\n[Exit.\n\nLUIS.  Public were my sins, and so\nPublic penance I will offer\nIn atonement.  Like one crazed,\nCrying in the crowded cross-ways,\nI'll confess aloud my crimes.\nMen, wild beasts, rude mountains, forests,\nGlobes celestial, flinty rocks,\nTender plants, dry elms, thick coppice,\nKnow that I am Luis Enius,\nTremble at my name, that monster\nOnce of pride, as now I am\nOf humility the wonder.\nI have faith and certain hope\nOf great happiness before me,\nIf in God's great name shall Patrick\nAid me in the Purgatory.\n[Exit.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VI.\n\nA WOOD, IN THE CENTRE OF WHICH IS SEEN A MOUNTAIN, FROM WHICH POLONIA DESCENDS.\n\nPOLONIA.\n\nPOLONIA.  To Thee, O Lord, my spirit climbs,\nTo Thee from every lonely hill\nI burn to sacrifice my will\nA thousand and a thousand times.\nAnd such my boundless love to Thee\nI wish each will of mine a living soul could be.\n\nWould that my love I could have shown,\nBy leaving for Thy sake, instead\nOf that poor crown that press'd my head,\nSome proud, imperial crown and throne --\nSome empire which the sun surveys\nThrough all its daily course and gilds with constant rays.\n\nThis lowly grot, 'neath rocks uphurled,\nIn which I dwell, though poor and small,\nA spur of that stupendous wall,\nThe eighth great wonder of the world,\nDoth in its little space excel\nThe grandest palace where a king doth dwell.\n\nFar better on some natural lawn\nTo see the morn its gems bestrew,\nOr watch it weeping pearls of dew\nWithin the white arms of the dawn;\nOr view, before the sun, the stars\nDrive o'er the brightening plain their swiftly-fading cars.\n\nFar better in the mighty main,\nAs night comes on, and clouds grow grey,\nTo see the golden coach of day\nDrive down amid the waves of Spain.\nBut be it dark, or be it bright,\nO Lord!  I praise Thy name by day and night.\n\nThan to endure the inner strife,\nThe specious glare, but real weight\nOf pomp, and power, and pride, and state,\nAnd all the vanities of life;\nHow would we shudder could we deem\nThat life itself, in truth, is but a fleeting dream.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VII.\n\nLUIS. -- POLONIA.\n\nLUIS [aside].  True to my purpose on I go,\nWith footsteps firm and bosom brave,\nSeeking for that mysterious cave\nWherein the pitying heavens will show\nHow I salvation there may gain,\nBy bearing in this life the Purgatorial pain.\n[To POLONIA.\nTell me, O holy woman! thou\nWho in these wilds a home hast found,\nA dweller in this mountain ground\nObedient to some sacred vow,\nWhich is the road to Patrick's cave,\nWhere penitential man his soul in life may save?\n\nPOLONIA.  O, happy traveller! who here\nHast come so far in storm and shine,\nWithin this treasury divine\nTo feel and find salvation near,\nWell can I guide thee on thy way,\nSince 'tis for this alone amid these wilds I stray.\n\nSeest thou this mountain?\n\nLUIS.      Ah! I see\nMy death in it.\n\nPOLONIA [aside].  My heart grows cold.\nAh! who is this that I behold?\n\nLUIS [aside].  I cannot think it.  Is it she?\n\nPOLONIA [aside].      'Tis Luis, now I know.\n\nLUIS [aside].  Perhaps illusion it may be\nTo baffle my intent, and lead\nMy erring feet astray. -- [to POLONIA}.  Proceed.\n\nPOLONIA [aside].  Say, can it be to conquer me\nThe common enemy doth send\nThis spectre here?\n\nLUIS.      You do not speak.\n\nPOLONIA.            Attend.\nThis mighty mountain, rock bestrown,\nFull well the dreaded secret knows;\nBut no one to its centre goes\nBy any path o'er land alone:\nHe who would see this wondrous cave\nMust in a bark put forth and tempt the lake's dark wave.\n\n[Aside.]  I struggle with a wish to wreak\nRevenge, which pity doth subdue.\n\nLUIS [aside].  It doth my happiness renew\nOnce more to see and hear her speak.\n\nPOLONIA [aside].  Within me opposite thoughts contend.\n\nLUIS [aside].  Ah, me!  I die. -- You do not speak.\n\nPOLONIA.      Attend.\nThis darksome lake doth all surround\nThe lofty mountain's rugged base,\nAnd so to reach the awful place\nAn easy passage may be found:\nA sacred convent in the island stands,\nMidway between the mountain and the sands.\n\nSome pious priests inhabit there,\nAnd for this task alone they live,\nWith loving zeal to freely give\nThe helping hand, the strengthening prayer --\nConfession, and the Holy Mass,\nAnd every needful help to all who thither pass.\n\nTelling them what they first must do,\nBefore they dare presume to go,\nAlive, within the realm of woe.--\n[Aside.]  Let not this enemy subdue\nMy soul, O Lord!\n\nLUIS [aside].      My hopes are fair.\nLet me not feel, O Lord! the anguish of despair,\n\nSeeing before my startled sight\nMy greatest, deepest crime arise;\nLet not the fiend my soul that tries,\nSubdue me in this dreadful fight.\n\nPOLONIA [aside].  'Gainst what a powerful foe must I defend\nMyself to-day!\n\nLUIS.      You do not speak.\n\nPOLONIA.            Attend.\n\nLUIS.  With quicker speed your story tell,\nFor well I know my soul hath need\nThat I should go with swifter speed!\n\nPOLONIA.  And me it doth import as well\nThat you should go away.\n\nLUIS.      Agreed.\nNow, woman, point the way to where my path doth lead.\n\nPOLONIA.  No one accompanied can brave\nThe terrors of this gloomy lake;\nAnd so a skiff you needs must take,\nAnd try alone the icy wave;\nBeing in that most trying strait\nThe absolute master of your acts and fate.\n\nCome where within a secret cave\nBeside the shore the boat doth lie,\nAnd trusting in the Lord on high,\nEmbark upon the crystal wave\nOf this remote lone inland sea.\n\nLUIS.  My life and all I have I place, O Lord! in Thee.\nAnd so I trust me to the bark;\nBut, O my soul! what sight is here,\nA coffin doth the bark appear;\nAnd I upon the waters dark\nAlone must cross the icy tide.\n[He enters.\n\nPOLONIA.  Oh! turn not back, but follow and confide\n\nLUIS  [within].  I've conquered! sweet Polonia's shade,\nSince sight of thee has not undone\nMy shuddering soul.\n\nPOLONIA.      And I have won,\nHere in this Babylon delayed,\nO'er wrath and rage the victory.\n\nLUIS [within].  Thy feigned resemblance does not frighten me,\nThough thou dost take a form\nMight tempt my steps astray\nAnd make me turn despairing from my way.\n\nPOLONIA.  Thy fear doth badly thee inform,\nPoor to be brave and rich to be afraid,\nFor I Polonia am, and not her shade,\nThe same that thou didst slay,\nBut who by God's decree\nRestored to life, even in this misery,\nIs happier far to-day.\n\nLUIS [within].  Since I my sinful state\nConfess, and feel too well its fearful weight,\nThy wrong, oh, pardon too!\n\nPOLONIA.  I give it, and approve of thy design.\n\nLUIS [within].  My faith, at least, I never will resign.\n\nPOLONIA.  That grace will be thy safeguard.\n\nLUIS [within].      Then, adieu!\n\nPOLONIA.  Adieu!\n\nLUIS [within].      May God in pity save.\n\nPOLONIA.  And bring thee back victorious from the cave.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\n\nTHE ENTRANCE OF A CONVENT -- AT THE END THE CAVE OF PATRICK.\n\nTwo Canons Regular; afterwards Luis.\n\nFIRST CANON.  See, the waters of the lake\nMove although no breeze doth blow:*\nWithout doubt to-day some pilgrim\nRoweth to this island shore.\n\n\n[footnote] *Single asonante in the long accented o, which is kept up\nto the end of the Scene.\n\n\nSECOND CANON.  Come unto the strand to see\nWho can be so brave and bold\nAs to seek our gloomy dwelling,\nCrossing the dark waters o'er.\n\n[Enter LUIS.\nLUIS.  Here my boat, my coffin, rather,\nOn the billows I bestow.\nWho his sepulchre has ever\nSteered, as I, through fire and snow?\nWhat a pleasant spot is this!\nHere has Spring, methinks, invoked\nFlowers of high and low degree\nTo assemble at her court.\nBut this dismal mountain here,\nHow unlike the plain below!\nYet they are the better friends\nBy the contrasts that they show.\nthere the mournful birds of prey\nHoarsely croak, presaging woe,\nHere the warblers in their joy\nCharm us with their tuneful notes.\nThere the torrents leaping headlong\nFright us with their frenzied roar,\nHere the crystal streamlets gliding\nMirror back the sun's bright gold.\nHalf way 'twixt that ugliness\nAnd this beauty, I behold\nA plain building whose grave front\nFear and love at once provokes.\n\nFIRST CANON.  Happy wanderer, who here\nHast arrived with heart so bold,\nCome unto my arms.\n\nLUIS.      The ground\nThat you tread on suits me more.\nOh, for charity conduct me\nTo the Prior of your fold,\nTo the Abbot of this convent.\n\nFIRST CANON.  Though unworthy, you behold\nHim in me.  Speak.  What's your wish?\n\nLUIS.  Father, if my name I told,\nI'm afraid that swiftly flying,\nWith a terror uncontrolled,\nYou would leave me: for my works\nAre so shocking to unfold,\nThat to see them not, the sun\nWraps him round in mourning robes.\nI am an abyss of crimes,\nA wild sea that has no shore;\nI am a broad map of guilt,\nAnd the greatest sinner known.\nYes, in me, to tell it briefly\nIn one comprehensive word\n(Here my breath doth almost fail me),\nLuis Enius behold!\nI come here this cave to enter,\nIf for sins so manifold\nAught can ever satisfy,\nLet my penance thus atone\nTo the Bishop of Hibernia\nI've confessed, and am absolved,\nWho informed of my intention\nWith a gracious love consoled\nAll my fears, and unto thee\nSent these letters I unfold.\n\nFIRST CANON.  Do not in a single day\nTake, my son, a step so bold,\nFor these things require precaution\nMore than can at once be told.\nStay here as our guest some days,\nThen at leisure we can both\nSee about it and decide.\n\nLUIS.  No, my father, no, oh, no!\nNever from the ground I'll rise,\nWhere here prostrate I am thrown,\nTill you grant to me this good.\nIt was God that touched my soul,\nAnd inspired me to come here;\nNot a vain desire to know,\nNot ambition to find out\nSecrets God, perchance, withholds.\nDo not baffle this intention,\nFor the call is heaven's alone.\nOh, my father! yield in pity,\nWith me in my griefs condole,\nGive my sorrows consolation,\nHeal the anguish of my soul.\n\nFIRST CANON.  Luis, you have not considered\nwhat you ask of me; you know\nNothing of the infernal torments\nYou must bear: to undergo\nThese your strength is insufficient.\nMany are there, more the woe!\nWho go in, but few, alas!\nWho return.\n\nLUIS.      Your threats forebode\nMuch; but still they fright not me;\nFor I do protest, I go\nBut to purge away my sins,\nWhich if numbered are much more\nThan the atoms of the sun\nAnd the sands upon the shore.\nI will ever have my hope\nFirmly fixed upon the Lord,\nAt whose holy name even hell\nIs subdued.\n\nFIRST CANON.      The fervid glow\nOf your words compels me now\nTo unlock the awful doors.\nLuis, you behold the cave:\nSee!\n[He opens the mouth of the cave.\n\nLUIS.  Oh, save me, gracious God!\n\nFIRST CANON.  What! dismayed?\n\nLUIS.      No, not dismayed;\nStill it scared me to behold.\n\nFIRST CANON.  I admonish you again,\nFor no lesser cause to go,\nThan a firm belief that there\nFor your sins you may atone.\n\nLUIS.  Father, I am in the cave:\nListen to my voice once more,\nMen and wild beasts, skies and mountains,\nDay and night, and sun and moon,\nTo you all I here protest,\nAy, a thousand times make known,\nThat I enter here to suffer\nTorments for my sins untold;\nFor so great, so dread a penance\nIs but little to atone\nFor such sins as mine, believing\nThat the cave salvation holds.\n\nFIRST CANON.  Enter then, and in your mouth,\nAs within your heart's deep core,\nBe the name of Jesus.\n\nLUIS.      Be\nWith me, Lord, O gracious Lord,\nFor here, armed but with Thy faith,\nI am pitted 'gainst my foe\nIn the open field.  That name\nWill my enemy o'erthrow.\nCrossing myself many times\nI advance.  Oh, save me, God!\n[He enters the cave which they close.\n\nFIRST CANON.  Of the many who have entered\nNone has equal courage shown.\nOh, enable him, just Jesus,\nTo resist the demon host\nAnd their wiles, relying ever\nUpon Thee, divinest Lord.\n[Exeunt.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE IX.\n\nLESBIA, PHILIP, LEOGAIRE, The Captain, and POLONIA.\n\nLESBIA.  Before we reach the place,\nWhither you wish to lead us, for a space\nLet us say why we came\nTo see you here to-day: a definite aim\nAll of us here has brought.\n\nPOLONIA.  Speak as we go whatever be your thought,\nStill following where I lead,\nFor I a sight that doth all sights exceed\nWill bring you here to see.\n\nLESBIA.  What, then, our wishes were you hear from me.\nPolonia, you desired\nIn this wild mountain waste to live retired,\nMaking of me the heir,\nWhile living, of your kingdom.  I would share\nWith you in turn my plans, however small,\nAnd so I hither come to tell you all.\nMy will is in your hands;\nI ask not counsel, sister, but commands.\nA single woman scarce can ever be\nStrong through advice, and of necessity\nShe must be married.\n\nPOLONIA.      Yes; and if your choice\nHas fallen on Philip I may well rejoice,\nFor then to me you'll owe\nBoth crown and husband.\n\nPHILIP.      May you live whilst glow\nThe sun's bright beams, that orb which dies at night,\nAnd Phoenix of its rays is born with morning's light.\n\nPOLONIA.  Then since you thus have gained\nYour wish, ye two, now free and unconstrained,\nListen to what I tell,\nAnd all who hear me listen too, as well.\nWith all the outward show\nOf fervour came a man, whom we all know,\nSeeking for Patrick's cave,\nTo enter there, and so his soul to save.\nHe entered it, and cometh forth today,\nAnd 'tis because my terror and dismay\nAre balanced by my wonder, that with me\nI bring you to behold this holy prodigy.\nI do not tell you who he is lest fear\nShould so my heart make craven, that I ne'er\nCould reach the end I sought:--\n'Tis for this object that you here are brought.\n\nLESBIA.  It is but only right\nThat I should mingle terror with delight.\n\nPOLONIA.  If strength from him hath fled,\nAnd he extended in the cave lies dead,\nAt least 'twill show\nHis punishment; and if he comes, we'll know\nThe mystery that is here;\nIf safe he comes, who cometh forth, through fear\nPerchance he may not speak,\nBut, flying men, some solitude may seek\nTo live and die alone.\n\nLEOGAIRE.  What mighty mysteries lie here unknown.\n\nCAPTAIN.  The time is opportune that we come here,\nFor the religious whom we see draw near,\nAll bathed in tears, now go\nTo the cave's mouth in solemn, silent row\nTo throw the gates aside.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nSCENE X.\n\nThe procession advances to the cave; the gates are opened by the\nPrior and his assistants.  LUIS ENIUS comes forth, astonished.-- THE\nSAME.\n\nPRIOR.  And those of heaven, O Lord, keep open wide\nTo penitent tears and sighs.\nMay this poor sinner from these dungeons rise,\nThis dark and dismal place,\nWhere never shines the radiance of Thy face.\n\nPOLONIA.  The gate is opened.\n\nPRIOR.      Oh, what happiness!\n\nPHILIP.  'Tis Luis!\n\nLUIS.      Bless me, heaven! in pity bless!\nAh! is it possible that I am here\nAgain on earth after so many a year,\nAnd that once more I see\nThe light of the sun?\n\nCAPTAIN.      How rapt!\n\nLEOGAIRE.      How dazed is he!\n\nPRIOR.  Embrace us all, my son.\n\nLUIS.  My arms were prison chains to every one.\nPolonia, since thou'rt here,\nThy pity I may claim without a fear.\nAnd thou, O Philip, know\nThat thrice an angel saved thee from the blow\nOf my sharp sword: two nights I watched for thee\nTo slay thee; may my error pardoned be.\nNow flying from myself, oh, let me hide,\nAnd in some wilderness abide --\nFar from the world in solitude and pain,\nFor he who saw what I have seen would feign,\nSo suffering live, so die.\n\nPRIOR.  Then on the part of God, O Enius! I\nCommand thee what thou hast seen at once to say.\n\nLUIS.  So sacred a command I must obey:--\nAnd that the startled world may now begin\nA better course, and man from mortal sin\nMy words may waken like some midnight wail,\nListen, O grave assembly to my tale.\nAfter all the preparations,\nFit and solemn were effected,*\nWhich in such a perilous case\nMight be needed and expected,\nAnd when I from all around me,\nFirm in faith, with courage strengthened,\nTenderly farewell had taken\nThis dark cavern here to enter,\nI my trust reposed in God,\nAnd my lips repeating ever\nThose mysterious, mystic words,\nAt which even the demons tremble,\nI then placed me on the threshold,\nWhere, until, as I expected,\nThey would close the gate, I stood.\nIt was closed, and I remember\nThen I found me in black night,\nWhence the light was so ejected,\nThat I closed on it mine eyes.\n(A strange way it seems, but certain\nTo see better in the dark.)\nWith my lids thus closed together\nOn I went, and felt a wall\nWhich in front of me extended;\nAnd by following it, and groping\nFor about the length of twenty\nPaces, came upon some rocks,\nAnd perceived through a small crevice\nOf this rugged mountain wall\nThat a doubtful glimmer entered\nOf a light that was not light,\nAs when the day the dark disperses,\nIf 'tis morning, or not morning,\nOft the twilight is uncertain.\nWith light steps a path pursuing,\nBy the left-hand side I entered,\nWhen I felt a strange commotion;\nThe firm earth began to tremble,\nAnd upheaving 'neath my feet,\nRuin and convulsion threatened.\nStupified I stopped there, when\nWith a voice which woke my senses\nFrom forgetfulness and fainting,\nLoud a thunder-clap re-echoed,\nAnd the ground on which I stood\nBursting open in the centre,\nIt appeared as if I fell\nTo a depth where I lay buried\nIn the loosened stones and earth\nWhich had after me descended.\nThen I found me in a hall\nBuilt of jasper, where the presence\nOf the chisel was made known\nBy its ornate architecture.\nThrough a door of bronze twelve men\nThen advanced and came directly\nWhere I stood, who, clothed alike\nIn unspotted snow-white dresses,\nWith a courteous air received me,\nAnd too humbly did me reverence.\nOne, who seemed to be among them\nThe superior, said: \"Remember\nThat in God you place your faith,\nAnd that you be not dejected\nIn your battle with the demons;\nFor if moved by what they threaten,\nOr may promise, you turn back,\nYou will have to dwell for ever\nIn the lowest depths of hell\nAmid torments most excessive.\"\nAngels were these men for me,\nAnd so greatly was I strengthened\nBy their counsel and advice\nThat revived I once more felt me.\nOn a sudden then the whole\nHall unto mine eyes presented\nNothing but infernal visions,\nFallen angels, the first rebels,\nAnd in forms so horrible,\nSo disgusting, that resemblance\nIt would be in vain to look for;\nAnd one said to me: \"Demented\nReckless fool, who here hast wished\nPrematurely to present thee\nTo thy destined punishment,\nAnd the pains that thou deservest;\nIf thy sins are so immense,\nThat thyself must needs condemn them,\nSince thou in the eye of God\nNever can have hope of mercy,\nWhy has thou come here thyself\nTo endure them?  Back to earth, then,\nGo, oh! go, and end thy life;\nAnd as thou hast lived, so perish.\nThen again thou'lt come to see us;\nFor hath hell prepared already\nThat dread seat in which thou must\nSit for ever and for ever.\"--\nI did answer not a word;\nAnd then giving me some heavy\nBlows, my hands and feet they bound,\nTieing them with thongs together,\nAnd then caught and wounded me\nWith sharp hooks of burning metal,\nDragging me through all the cloisters,\nWhere they lit a fire and left me\nHeadlong plunged amid the flames.\nI but cried, \"O Jesus! help me.\"\nAt the words the demons fled,\nAnd the fire went out and ended\nThen they brought me to a plain\nWhere the blackened earth presented\nFruits of thistles and of thorns,\n'Stead of pink and rose sweet scented.\nHere a biting wind passed by,\nWhich with subtle sharpness entered\nEven my bones, whose faintest breath\nLike the keenest sword-edge cleft me.\nHere in the profoundest depths\nSadly, mournfully lamented\nMyriad souls, their parents cursing\nFrom whose loins they had descended.\nSuch despairing shrieks and cries,\nSuch blaspheming screams were blended,\nSuch atrocious oaths and curses\nSo repeated and incessant,\nThat the very demons shuddered.\nI passed on, and in a meadow\nFound me next, whose plants and grasses\nWere all flames, which waved and bent them,\nAs when in the burning August\nWave the gold ears all together.\nSo immense it was, the sight\nNever could make out where ended\nThis red field, and in it lay\nAn uncountable assemblage\nAll recumbent in the fire;\nThrough their bodies and their members\nBurning spikes and nails were driven;\nThese with feet and hands extended\nWere held nailed upon the ground,\nVipers of red fire the entrails\nGnawed of some; while others lying,\nWith their teeth in maniac frenzy\nBit the earth; and some there were\nPiecemeal who themselves dismembered,\nAnd who seemed to die, but only\nTo revive and die for ever.\nThere the ministers of death\nFlung me from them bound and helpless,\nBut at the sweet name of Jesus\nAll their fury fled and left me.\nI passed on, and found me where\nSome were cured, by a strange method,\nOf their cruel wounds and torments;\nLead and burning pitch were melted,\nAnd being poured upon their sores\nMade a cautery most dreadful.\nWho that hears me will not mourn?\nWho that hears this awful lesson\nWill not sigh and will not weep,\nWill not fear and will not tremble?\nThen I saw a certain building,\nOut of which bright rays extended\nFrom the windows and the doors,\nAs when conflagration settles\nOn a house, the flame bursts forth\nWhere an opening is presented.\n\"This,\" they told me, \"is the villa\nOf delights, the bath of pleasures,\nThe abode of the luxurious,\nWhere are punished all those women\nWho were in the other life,\nFrom frivolity excessive,\nToo much given to scented waters,\nUnguents, rouges, baths, and perfumes.\"--\nI went in, and there beheld,\nIn a tank of cold snow melted,\nMany lovely women bathing,\nWith an upturned look of terror;\nUnderneath the water they\nWere the prey of snakes and serpents,\nFor the fishes and the sirens\nOf this sea they represented;\nIn the clear transparent crystal\nStiff and frozen were their members,\nIcy hard their hair was lifted,\nChattering struck their teeth together.\nPassing out, the demons brought me\nTo a mountain so tremendous\nIn its height, that as it rose\nThrough the sky its peak dissevered,\nIf it did not tear and rend,\nThe vast azure veil celestial;\nIn the middle of this peak\nA volcano stood, which, belching\nFlames, appeared as if to spit them\nIn the very face of heaven.\nFrom this burning cone, this crater,\nFire at intervals ascended\nIn which issued many souls,\nWho again its womb re-entered,\nOft repeating and renewing\nThis ascending and descending.\nAt this time a scorching wind\nCaught me when I least expected,\nBlowing me from where I stood,\nSo that instantly it set me\nIn the depths of that abyss.\nI too was shot up: a second\nWind-gust came, that with it brought\nMyriad legions, who impelled me\nRudely to another part,\nWhere it seemed I saw assembled\nAll the other souls I had seen,\nBut who here were all collected;\nAnd though this was the abode\nWhere the pains were most excessive,\nI remarked that all therein\nFaces bore of glad expression,\nCountenances calm and sweet,\nNo impatience in their gestures\nOr their words; but with their eyes\nFixed on heaven, as if thus set there\nTo ask mercy, ever weeping\nTears of tenderness and penance.\nThat it was the Purgatory\nI at once by this detected,\nWhere the happy souls are purged from\nTheir more venial offences.\nI was not subdued even here,\nThough the demons stormed and threatened\nMe the more:  I rather felt\nBy the sight renewed and strengthened.\nThen they, seeing that they could not\nShake my constancy, presented\nTo my eyes their greatest torments,\nThat which is in an especial\nSense called hell; and so they brought me\nTo a river, all the herbage\nOf whose banks was flowers of fire,\nAnd whose stream was sulphur melted;\nThe dread monsters of its tide\nWere the hydras and the serpents;\nIt was very wide, and o'er it\nWas a narrow bridge suspended,\nWhich but seemed a line, no more,\nAnd so delicate and slender\nThat in my opinion no one\nWithout breaking it could ever\nPass across.  \"Look here,\" they said,\n\"By this narrow way 'tis destined\nThou must cross; see thou the means.\nAnd for thy o'erwhelming terror\nSee how those have fared who tried\nBefore thee.\"  and then directly\nI saw those who tried to pass\nFall into the stream, where serpents\nTore them in a thousand pieces\nWith their claws and teeth's sharp edges.\nI invoked the name of God,\nAnd could dare with it to venture\nTo the other side to pass,\nWithout yielding to the terror\nOf the winds and of the waves,\nThough they fearfully beset me.\nYes I passed, and in a wood,\nSo delightful and so fertile,\nFound me, that in it I could,\nAfter what had passed, refresh me.\nOn my way as I advanced,\nCedars, palms, their boughs extended,\nTrees of paradise indeed,\nAs I may with strictness term them;\nAll the ground being covered over\nWith the rose and pink together\nFormed a carpet, in whose hues\nWhite and green and red were blended.\nThere the amorous song-birds sang\nTenderly their sweet distresses,\nKeeping, with the thousand fountains\nOf the streams, due time and measure.\nThen upon my vision broke\nA great city, proud and splendid,\nWhich had even the sun itself\nFor its towers' and turrets' endings;\nAll the gates were of pure gold,\nInto which had been inserted\nExquisitely, diamonds, rubies,\nTopaz, chrysolite, and emerald.\nEre I reached the gates they opened,\nAnd the saints in long procession\nSolemnly advanced to meet me,\nMen and women, youths and elders,\nBoys and girls and children came,\nAll so joyful and contented.\nThen the seraphim and angels,\nIn a thousand choirs advancing,\nTo their golden instruments\nSang the symphonies of heaven;\nAfter them at last approached\nThe most glorious and resplendent\nPatrick, the great patriarch,\nWho his gratulations telling\nThat I had fulfilled my word\nEre I died, as he expected,\nHe embraced me; all displaying\nJoy and gladness in my welfare.\nThus encouraged he dismissed me,\nTelling me no mortal ever,\nWhile in life, that glorious city\nOf the saints could hope to enter;\nThat once more unto the world\nI should go my days to end there.\nFinally my way retracing,\nI came back, quite unmolested\nBy the dark infernal spirits,\nAnd at last the gate of entrance\nHaving reached, you all came forward\nTo receive me and attend me.\nAnd since I from so much danger\nHave escaped, oh! deign to let me,\nPious fathers, here remain\nTill my life is happily ended.**\n\n[footnote] *Asonante in e--e, which is kept up to the end.\n\n\n[footnote] **For the account of St. Patrick's Purgatory, as given by\nMessingham, see Notes.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nFor with this the history closes,\nAs it is to us presented\nBy Dionysius the Carthusian,\nWith Henricus Salteriensis,\nMatthew Paris, Ranulph Higden,\nAnd Caesarius Heisterbacensis,\nMarcus Marulus, Mombritius,\nDavid Rothe, the prudent prelate,\nAnd Vice-Primate of all Ireland,\nBelarminus, Dimas Serpi,\nBede, Jacobus, and Solinus,\nMessingham, and to express it\nIn a word, the Christian faith\nAnd true piety that defend it.\nFor the play is ended where\nIts applause, I hope, commences.*\n\n\n[footnote] *For an explanation of this list of names, now for the\nfirst time correctly printed, see Note on \"The authorities for the\nLegend, as given by Calderon.\"\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nNOTES.\n\n\n\nACT THE FIRST.\n\nSCENE II., p. 247.\n\n\"Patrick is my name, my country\nIreland, and an humble hamlet\nScarcely known to men, called 'Empthor',\nIs my place of birth.\"\n\nThe passage in the original is as follows:--\n\"Mi propio nombre es Patricio,\nMi patria Irland o Hibernia,\nMi pueblo 'es Tax.'\"\n           'Hartzenbusch', t. I, p. 150.\n\nThis is the reading of all the editions, and has been adopted in the\nGerman translation of the drama by Al. Jeitteles (Brunn, 1824).\n\"Tax\" looks very unlike the name of a village, and it appears to me\nto be simply a misprint.  The whole of this speech of St. Patrick is\ntaken from the 'Vida y Purgatorio' of Juan Perez de Montalvan.  The\ndescription of St. Patrick's birth-place, as given by Montalvan, is\nas follows:-- \"En cuya jurisdicion ay un Pueblo, de pocos moradores,\nIlamado \"Emptor\".  Aqui nacio un moco,\" etc. (edition of 1664, f. I.)\nIt is quite plain that \"es Tax\" in Calderon's play is an easily\nunderstood misprint for the \"Emptor\" of Montalvan.\n\n\"Mi patria Irlanda o Hibernia,\nMi pueblo Emptor,\"\n\neven metrically, is a better reading than --\n\"Mi patria Irlanda o Hibernia,\nMi pueblo es Tax.\"\n\nIn the hymn of St. Fiacc, a contemporary of the Apostle, the\nbirthplace of St. Patrick is said to have been at \"Empthor,\" or\n\"Nemthur,\" as it is sometimes printed.  The same locality is assigned\nto it in the \"Tripartite Life of Saint Patrick\", but considerable\ncontroversy has arisen as to the exact position of the place.  See\n\"The Life of Saint Patrick\", by P. Lynch, Dublin, 1828: \"St. Patrick,\nApostle of Ireland\", by J. H. Todd, D.D. (1864); and \"The Life of St.\nPatrick\", by M. F. Cusack, Kenmare, Co. Kerry (1869), a most\nelaborate and very beautiful work.\n\n\nSCENE II., p. 252.\n\nThis long address of Patrick is founded on the following passages of\nthe story as originally told in Montalvan's \"Vida y Purgatorio de San\nPatricio\", Madrid, 1627.  The translation is made as literal as\npossible, to show how closely Calderon followed even the language of\nMontalvan.\n\nChapter I. -- \"Between the north and west is situated the Island of\nHibernia, or Ireland, as it is at present more usually called.  It\nwas once known as the Island of Saints, because its inhabitants were\never ready to shed their blood in the lists of martyrdom, which is\nthe highest proof of courage which the Faithful can give; since life\nbeing so dear to us, it is a most heroic act for the sake of religion\nto offer it to the sacrilegious hands of a tyrant that only lives in\nseeing others die.\n\n\"In this island there was a village with a few inhabitants, called\nEmptor, which the sea, like a cincture of snow, not only encircled\nbut appeared to bind.  Here was born a youth of such virtuous\ndispositions that he seemed to belie the promise of his years, since\nvirtue and adolescence are not easily reconciled.  He gave himself\nmuch to the reading of the Lives of the Saints, of whose exercises he\nwas a great imitator, very fearful of those snares which lie in the\nway of youth, and which, though he escaped, he was not without a\ndisposition to fall into.\" . . . .\n\n[This youth was St. Patrick's father, who married Conchessa, a French\nlady, as mentioned by Calderon, who, in the older Lives of St.\nPatrick, is said to have been the sister of St. Martin of Tours.\nAfter the birth of Patrick, St. Conchessa, his mother, retired to a\nconvent, and his father became a priest.  The story then continues.]\n\n\"Patrick remained in his early years under the tutelage of his aunt,\nand God was so desirous of showing to the world the favours with\nwhich He had pre-determined to honour that pure soul, that He did not\nwait for the time when Patrick would be of an age to ask for them;\nsince before he could speak the words God declared Himself his\nfriend.  For a blind man, Gormas (a neighbour of his in that\nvillage), heard one day a voice in the air which said to him, that ifhe\nwent to Patrick (a child recently baptised), who would with his right\nhand make the sign of the cross upon his eyes, he would be restored\nto sight.  He did so, and saw: God no doubt to foreshadow by this the\ngreat things that he would eventually work through this His servant.\nAnd this predestination, as it were, He made more remarkable by\nanother miracle, which, if it was not greater, was more acknowledged\nand more widely known from the number of persons who were astonished\nat beholding it.  In a certain year, it happened that such a quantity\nof snow had fallen from heaven, so great was the extent of the thaw\nwhen the sun melted it, that the water covered all the ground, and\ngrew to the dimensions of a lake, which, spreading into the village,\ninundated all the houses, putting even that of Patrick in the\ngreatest danger.  But he, being then only ten years old, with a\nlively and courageous faith made the sign of the cross upon the\nwaters, and in the sight of all compelled them to retire into the bed\nof the sea, the land remaining as dry and as free from snow as in the\nheight of summer. . . . .\n\n\"One morning, being about the age of sixteen years, as he stood by\nthe shore of the sea, reciting the Psalter with some of his\ncompanions, certain pirates made a sudden descent upon the coast, and\nhaving seized them, re-embarked immediately through fear of being\nbaulked of their prize.  Patrick was brought to a remote extremity of\nIreland, and, like another Joseph, was sold to a prince of that\nisland, who, thinking him fit for nothing else, gave to him the care\nof his sheep.  This was an occupation very agreeable to Patrick, for\nas love can avow itself more openly in solitude, he spent all the\nnight and all the day in loving and conversing with God, making\naltars of the rocks and of the flowers, on which to make to Him the\nentire sacrifice of his heart.\n\n\"The astonishing increase of the flock, which multiplied every day\nbeneath his charge, soon became known to his master, who, being one\nnight asleep, saw among the obscure visions of his dreams his slave\nPatrick rejoicing and surrounded by a great light, from whose mouth\nissued a beautiful and resplendent flame, which touching his two\ndaughters, who he thought were by his side, burned them and reduced\nthem to ashes, leaving himself alone untouched by that sweet and\namorous flame.  Frightened at such an astonishing vision, scarcely\nhad the day come, when he sent for his slave and related to him what\nhad occurred, asking him to explain the mystery of that terrible\ndream.  To which Patrick replied, with great tranquillity, that the\nflame which he had seen come from his mouth could only be the Faith\nof the most Holy Trinity, which for a long time he had desired to\npreach to him and his daughters.  And further, that it was because\nthis doctrine would make no impression on his soul the flame refused\nto touch him, he dying blind in his infidelity.  But because his\ndaughters would eventually be convinced of the truth, God permitted\nthem to be burned by the flame of His Faith and His Love, so as to\nfulfil the end for which they were created.  With this Patrick took\nleave of his master and returned to his flock, leaving him so\nconfused that he did not know whether he should punish him for what\nhe had announced; all which happened in the manner the saint had\npredicted.\n\n\"In this way he lived some years, and our Lord, seeing that the\nsolitude in which His servant passed his life in the fields was very\ngreat, sent to him as a companion his guardian angel, Victor, to whom\nhe could communicate his thoughts, and from whom he would receive\nconsolation in his slavery.  But one night, being engaged in prayer,\nand yielding his spirit to a divine ecstasy and rapture, he saw as in\na mirror a man of dignified appearance, whose dress gave him to\nunderstand that he was of the same country as himself.  This\npersonage seemed to be the bearer of a letter, the superscription of\nwhich Patrick approaching to read, he saw these words: -- 'The voice\nof the Irish people'.  And as he hastened to open the letter to see\nits contents, it seemed that within it were all the inhabitants of\nIreland, men, women, and children, even the little infants, all\ncrying out to him and saying, \"Patrick, Patrick, we implore that you\nwill come to us and free us from this slavery.\"  The Saint upon this\nawoke, and consulting his angel, asked him to be released from his\ncaptivity, since he had a great desire to return to his country and\nassist those who had such need of him.\" -- 'Vida y Purgatorio de S.\nPatricio', per el Doctor Juan Perez de Montalvan.  Madrid, 1628, and\nMadrid, 1664.\n\n[The visit to St. Germain in France is then described: his residence\nwith St. Martin of Tours, the journey to Rome, and all the other\nevents follow in detail, which Montalvan collected from Messingham,\nMessingham's chief authority being the Life of St. Patrick, by\nJocelin.  These are all briefly epitomised in the address of the\nAngel Victor, as given by Calderon at the end of the first act.]\n\n\nSCENE II., p. 262.\n\n\nThe story of Luis Enius, as given by Calderon in this long address,\nseems to be entirely the invention of Montalvan.  It is told in the\nsixth chapter of his \"Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio\", and in the\nedition of 1628 fills over forty pages.  Calderon follows the\nnarrative very closely, but in one noticeable incident he greatly\nimproves upon his predecessor.  This is in the celebrated skeleton\nscene of the third act.  The corresponding scene in Montalvan's story\nis puerile enough.  In Montalvan Luis Enius has no interview with the\nskeleton, so powerfully described by Calderon.  His conversion is\neffected by a floating piece of paper which had eluded his grasp for\ntwo nights, but which he seized on the third, and examined by a\nmysterious light at the foot of a cross.  On the paper he perceived\nthe representation of a skull, under which is written, \"I am Luis\nEnius\".  How utterly ineffective and commonplace this is compared\nwith the fine scene in Calderon need not be pointed out.\n\nThe story of the vision of himself at Lerici, as recorded in some of\nthe lives of the poet Shelley, which is almost identical with that in\nCalderon, was evidently suggested by this scene.  Shelley's reference\nto the \"Purgatorio de San Patricio\" in a note to \"The Cenci\" shows\nthe attention with which he read this drama.  The \"Embozado\" which\nCaptain Medwin and others supposed to be the name of one of\nCalderon's dramas, and which, as might be expected, Washington Irving\nvainly looked for in Spain, was the \"Hombre embozado,\" the \"Muffled\nFigure\" of Calderon's \"Purgatorio de San Patricio\", act 3, scene i.\n\nA vivid description of this scene by Shelley to one of his friends\nmay have been mistaken for a circumstance that had actually happened\nto the poet himself.\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\n\nThe \"Athenaeum\", in its elaborate review of the earlier translation\nof this drama, thus writes:--\n\n\"With the prayer of St. Patrick considerable licence has been taken;\nbut its spirit is well preserved, and the translator's poetry must be\nadmired.\n\n\"PATRICK.  Thou art of all created things,\nO Lord, the essence and the cause --\nThe source and centre of all bliss;\nWhat are those veils of woven light,\nWhere sun and moon and stars unite --\nThe purple morn, the spangled night --\nBut curtains which thy mercy draws\nBetween the heavenly world and this?\nThe terrors of the sea and land --\nWhen all the elements conspire,\nThe earth and water, storm and fire --\nAre but the shadows of thy hand;\nDo they not all in countless ways --\nThe lightning's flash -- the howling storm --\nThe dread volcano's awful blaze --\nProclaim thy glory and thy praise?\nBeneath the sunny summer showers\nThy love assumes a milder form,\nAnd writes its angel name in flowers;\nThe wind that flies with winged feet\nAround the grassy gladdened earth,\nSeems but commissioned to repeat\nIn echo's accents -- silvery sweet --\nThat thou, O Lord, didst give it birth.\nThere is a tongue in every flame --\nThere is a tongue in every wave --\nTo these the bounteous Godhead gave\nThese organs but to praise his name!\nO mighty Lord of boundless space,\nHere canst thou be both sought and found --\nFor here in everything around,\nThy presence and thy power I trace.\nWith Faith my guide and my defence,\nI burn to serve in love and fear;\nIf as a slave, Oh, leave me here!\nIf not, O Lord, remove me hence!\"\n             The \"Athenaeum\", Oct. 26, 1853.\n\n\n\nACT THE THIRD.\n\nSCENE X.\n\nThe account of St. Patrick's Purgatory given by Luis Enius in this\nlong narrative is taken immediately from the seventh, eighth, and\nninth chapters of Montalvan's \"Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio\",\nwhich, as already stated, are themselves a translation from the\n\"Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum\" of Messingham.  The following\nextracts are taken from the tract referred to in the Introduction,\nthe full title of which is as follows:--\n\n\"A BRIEF HISTORY OF SAINT PATRICK'S PURGATORY, AND ITS PILGRIMAGE.\nCollected out of Ancient Historians.  Written in Latin by the\nReverend MR. THOMAS MESSINGHAM, formerly Superior of the Irish\nSeminary in Paris.  [Paris, 1624.]\n\n\"And now made English in favour of those who are curious to know the\nParticulars of that Famous Place and Pilgrimage so much celebrated by\nAntiquity.\n             \"Printed at Paris, 1718.\"\n\n\n\"CHAPTER IV.\n\n\"Of the Penitent Soldier, his going into this Purgatory, and of the\nMessengers sent from God unto him.\n\n\"There was a certain Soldier called Owen, who had for many years\nserved in King Stephen's Army.  This Man, having obtained Licence\nfrom the King, came to the North of Ireland, his Native Country, to\nvisit his Parents; and when he had continued there for some time, he\nbegan to reflect upon the wickedness of the Life he had led from his\nInfancy; upon his Plundering and Burning in the Army; and (which\ngrieved him more) upon the many sacrileges he had been guilty of in\nRobbing and Spoiling Churches; together with many other Enormous\nhidden Sins.  Being then interiorly moved to repentance, he went to a\ncertain Bishop in that country, and Confess'd all his Sins unto him.\nThe Bishop severely reproved him, and let him know how grievously he\nhad provoked God's indignation.  The Soldier hereupon being\nexceedingly sorrowful, resolved to do penance suitable to the\ngreatness of [his] Sins.  For the People of that country have this\nNaturally, that as they are more prone to evil thro' Ignorance than\nMen of other Countries,* so are they more ready and willing to do\npenance, when they are made sensible of the Enormity of their Sins.\nWhen the Bishop wou'd then enjoin him such penance as he thought\nreasonable, the Soldier answered: \"Since you say that I have offended\nGod so grievously, I will undergo a penance more grievous than any\nother whatsoever.  I will go into St. Patrick's Purgatory\".  The\nBishop, to diswade him from so bold an attempt, related unto him, how\nmany had perished in that Place; but the Soldier, who never feared\nany danger, wou'd not be diswaded.  The Bishop advised him to take\nthe Habit of the Canon Regulars, or that of the Monks; and the\nSoldier declared he wou'd do neither till he had first gone into the\nsaid Purgatory.  Whereupon the Bishop, perceiving he was inflexible\nand Truely penitent, wrote by him to the Prior of the place and\ncharged him to deal with the Soldier, as was usually done with those,\nwho desire to enter this Purgatory.  The Prior, upon perusal of the\nBishop's Letter, after that he had observed all the other Formalities\nrequired, conducted the Soldier into the Church, where he passed the\naccustomed time of fifteen days in Fast and Prayer.  Then the Prior\nhaving celebrated\nMass gave him the Sacrament, called together his own Brethern, and\nthe Neighbouring Clergy, conducted him to the door of the Cave,\nsprinkled him with Holy-water, and made him this speech.-- \"Behold\nthou shalt now enter in here, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ,\nand shalt walk thro' the Hollow of this Cave, till thou comest to a\nField, where thou shalt find a Hall artificially wrought; into which\nwhen thou hast enter'd thou shalt find Messengers sent from God, who\nshall tell thee in Order what thou art to do, and to suffer.  When\nthese are gone and thou alone in the Hall, Evil Spirits will\nimmediately come to tempt thee; For so it happen'd to other that went\nin here before thee, but be thou of Manly courage, and Stedfast in\nthe Faith of Jesus Christ.\"\n\n\n[footnote] *It should be mentioned that this unfavourable opinion of\nthe Irish people is quoted by Messingham from the MS. of Henry of\nSaltrey, an English monk, who appears never to have been in Ireland.\n\n\n\"The Soldier, who fear'd no Colours, was no way frighten'd at what\nhappen'd to others, having often before, Arm'd with Steel, fought\nagainst Men, now arm'd with Faith, Hope and Charity, and confiding in\nGod's Mercy, went on boldly to fight against Devils; so recommending\nhimself to all their Prayers, and making the Sign of the Cross on his\nForehead, courageously enter'd the Door, which the Prior Locked on\nthe outside and Return'd in Procession with his Clergy to the Church.\n\n\"The Soldier, being desirous to War a new and an unusual Warfare,\nmarched on boldly through the Cave, tho' alone, where the Darkness\nthickening upon him, he lost all manner of Light.  Soon after a\nlittle glimmering light appear'd thro' the Cave, which led him to the\nField and Hall aforesaid.  Now there was no more light in this Hall\nthan we usually have in winter after Sun-set.  The hall had no Walls,\nbut was supported by Pillars and Arches on every Side, after the\nManner of the Cloyster of a Monastry.  Walking awhile in this Hall,\nand admiring the Beauty of its Structure, he saw the Inclosure, whose\nStructure he also admired as being more Beautiful.  Wherefore having\ngone into it he sat down, and Casting his Eyes about him to take a\nfull View, he observed fifteen Men clad in white Garments, shorn and\ndress'd like Monks, coming in, who saluted him in the name of the\nLord, and sat down.  Then after a short pause, he that seem'd to be\ntheir Prior and Chief, spoke to him after this Manner:  'Blessed be\nthe Omnipotent God, who put the good purpose into thy Heart of coming\ninto this Purgatory for the cleansing of thy sins:  But if thou doest\nnot behave thyself Manly, thou shalt perish both Body and Soul.  For\nimmediately after we leave this House there will come a multitude of\nunclean Spirits, who shall inflict great Torments upon thee, and\nthreaten thee with greater:  They will promise to lead thee to the\nDoor, by which thou hast enter'd in here, to see if by this means\nthey might deceive thee, and get thee to go out.  And if thou be\novercome by the violence of their Torments, or frightened by their\nThreats, or deceiv'd by their Promise, and consent to their Demands,\nthou shalt be destroy'd both Body and Soul.  But if thou be strong in\nFaith, and trust in the Lord, so as not to yield to their Torments,\nor Threats, or Promise; but despise them with a generous Heart, thou\nshalt not only be purged of all thy Sins, but shall also see the\nTorments which Sinners endure, and the Place of Rest and Bliss which\nthe Just enjoy.  Have God then always before thine Eyes, and as often\nas they Torment thee, call upon our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the\nInvocation of His Name, thou shalt be deliver'd from whatever Torment\nthou art in.  Lay all these Things up in thy Mind quickly; for we can\nstay here no longer, but recommend thee to Almighty God.'\n\n\"So having given the Soldier their Blessing, they departed.\"\n\n\n\n\"CHAPTER V.\n\n\"Of the Coming of the Devils, and of the first Torment which the\nSoldier endured.\n\n\"The Soldier being thus left alone by the Holy Men, began to exercise\nhimself for a new kind of Warfare, and having put on the Armour of\nChrist, stoutly waited for him, among the Devils, who shou'd first\nprovoke him to Battle.  He put on the Coat of Mail of Justice, girt\nhis Mind, as he wou'd his Head, with the Helmet of the Hope of\nVictory and of eternal Salvation, cover'd his Breast with the Shield\nof Faith, and armed his Hand with the Sword of the Spirit, which is\nthe Word of God, devoutly calling upon Jesus Christ, that being\ndefended by this Royal Fortress, his insulting Enemies might not\nconquer him.  Nor did Divine Providence, which always protects those\nwho trust in it, fail him.  Being then, as aforesaid, sitting alone\nin the Inclosure, and with an undaunted Courage waiting for a Battle\nwith the Devils, he heard all of a sudden so great a Noise as if all\nthe Earth had been turn'd upside down:  And indeed, if all the Men,\nand all the living creatures on Earth, in the Sea, and Air, had\nbellowed out together, it seemed to him, they cou'd not make a\ngreater Noise: so that, had he not been protected by Divine Virtue,\nand happily instructed by the aforesaid Holy man, he wou'd infallibly\nhave lost his Senses.  But Lo, after this horrid Sound, there\nfollowed a sight of Devils more horrid; for there appear'd an\ninnumerable multitude of Devils, in ugly frightful shapes; who\nsaluted him in a fleering manner and said:  'Other Men who serve us,\ndo not come to our Habitation till after Death; but thou art pleased\nto Honour our Company so much, as that thou wouldst not, like others\nwait for Death; but hast alive delivered both Body and Soul unto us:\nThou has done this, that thou mayst receive the greater Reward from\nus:  Thou shalt then be abundantly rewarded as thou hast deserv'd.\nThou art come hither to be tortur'd for thy Sins; thou shalt then\nhave what thou seekest, that is, Pressures and Grief.  Yet for as\nmuch as thou hast hitherto served us, if thou wilt follow our\nCounsel, and return from whence thou camest, we will for thy reward\nlead thee safe to the Door by which thou hast enter'd in here; that\nthou mayest live joyfully in the World, and not lose the sweet things\nwhich thy Body is capable to enjoy.'\n\n\"All these things they said with an intent to deceive him, either\nwith Terror or Flattery.  But the stout Soldier of Jesus Christ was\nnot shaken by Terror, nor seduced by Flattery; and therefore\ncontemned with an equal Mind, as well those that wou'd terrifie, as\nthose that wou'd flatter him, in making them no Answer.\n\n\"The Devils, perceiving they had been despised by the Soldier, cast\nup a prodigious flame; and having tyed him Head and Foot, cast him\ninto the Fire, and with Iron Crooks dragg'd him to and fro, making a\nmost hideous Noise.  Then the Soldier having on the Armour of God,\nand remembering the Documents given him by the Holy Men, neither\nforgetting the Arms of his Spiritual Warfare, called upon the Name of\nhis pious Redeemer, saying:  Jesus Christ have pity upon me.\nWhereupon he was so fully deliver'd from the said Flames, that the\nleast spark of all that great Fire did not appear.  The Soldier\nperceiving this mighty delivery, became more bold, and resolv'd to\nfear no more those whom he saw so easily overcome by calling for the\nAssistance of Jesus Christ.\"\n\n\n\"CHAPTER VI.\n\n\"Of the Four Penal Fields to which the Soldier was Dragged.\n\n\"Then the Devils leaving this Hall with an hideous Cry, and an horrid\nTumult separated themselves.  Some of them dragged the Soldier thro'\na vast Region, that was so dark and obscure, that he cou'd see\nnothing but the Devils.  There blew a burning Wind in it, which cou'd\nscarce be heard, but yet so dry that it seemed to Pierce his Body.\n From thence they dragged him towards those bounds of the Earth where\nthe Sun rises at Midsummer, and being come thither, as unto the end\nof the World, they turn'd to the right Hand and extended themselves\nover a large Valley towards that part of the Earth where the Sun\nrises in the Middle of Winter.  Here the Soldier began to hear, at a\ndistance, the most lamentable Groans and Sighs of a vast Number of\nPeople; and the nearer he drew, the more he heard their doleful\nLamentations.  Being brought at last by the Devils to an exceeding\nlong and large Field, whose bounds were out of sight, he there\ndiscover'd an infinite Number of Men and Women lying naked, flat on\ntheir Bellies, with great Iron Spikes red hot fastening their Hands\nand Feet to the Ground, and Miserably torturing them.  Nay and\nobserved them now and then, biteing the Earth for Rage and Pain,\ncrying and bawling out; \"Spare, spare; Pity, pity: when there was\nnone by, who wou'd Spare or Pity.  On the contrary, the Devils ran\nover them with great Scourges in their Hands lashing the Wretches,\nand saying to the Soldier: \"Thus shalt thou be tortur'd if thou dost\nnot agree to go back to the Door from when thou camest, and to which\nwe will conduct thee in Peace.\"  But the Soldier calling to mind how\nGod had before delivered him, despised their Menaces:  Then the\nDevils cast him down on the Ground, and began to torture him.  But\nupon his invocating the Lord Jesus, they failed in their attempt.\n\n\"Leaving then this Field, they drag him to another that was full of\ngreat Misery; for between this and the former, there was this\ndifference, that whereas in the former the wretched People lay flat\non their Bellies, here they sat only on their Buttocks, some whereof\nwere surrounded with fiery Dragons, gnawing and biteing them after a\nlamentable manner.  Others had fiery Serpents twisted about their\nHeads and Necks, fixing their Stings in their Hearts.  Others in fine\nhad monstrous big Vultures perching upon their shoulders, and\nsticking their horrid Bills in their Breasts as if they wou'd pull\nout their Hearts.  Besides all this, the Devils went running over\nthem with dreadful Scourges lashing and tormenting them, so as that\nthe poor wretches never ceas'd Crying and Lamenting.  All these\nTorments (say the Devils to the Soldier) shalt thou suffer, except\nthou consent to return from whence thou camest.  The Soldier despised\ntheir Threats, and disabled them to do him any harm, by calling upon\nthe Name of Jesus.\n\n\"Quitting then this place, they led the Soldier to the third Penal\nField.  This was also full of People of both Sexes, who lay fastened\nto the ground with so many Iron Spikes on Fire, fix'd thro' them, and\nso thick set in their Bodies, that from Head to Foot there was scarce\nany where, the Breadth of a Finger, which had not been pierc'd.\nThese Wretches cou'd indeed form a voice to cry; but it was such as\nMen in the Point of death usually do:  They were naked also, like the\nrest, and were tortur'd over and above with a cold and burning Wind,\nbesides what they suffer'd by the Scourges of the Devils.  Now when\nthe Devils wou'd torture the Soldier after this manner, by calling\nupon the Name of Jesus he escaped untouched.\n\n\"They drag him along to the fourth penal Field, which was full of\ngreat Fires, in which all manner of Torments were to be seen.  Some\nwere here hung up in the Air by the Hands with red hot Iron Chains;\nothers by the Hair; some by the Arms; others by the Legs with their\nHeads downwards, and dipped into boiling Sulphur.  Some hung by their\nNails, with Iron Crooks fixt in their Eyes, in their Ears, in their\nJaws in their Nostrils, in their Breasts, and in other parts of their\nBodies; others were fry'd in Pans; and others roasted by the Fire on\nred hot Spits, which some of the Devils turned, while others basted\nthem with various melted Metals:  Nor was the cruel scourging of the\nDevils wanting, even among the dreadful Cries and Lamentations of\nthese wretched Souls.  Here the Soldier saw many of his own\ncompanions and knew them; yea, and saw all manner of Torments that\ncan be imagin'd, neither cou'd any Tongue express the various Cries\nand Lamentations which he heard.  The Devils having then expos'd all\nthese to the Soldier's view, said unto him:  These, and a great many\nmore torments shalt thou endure, except thou go back out of the Cave.\nBut the Soldier despised their Threats, called upon the Name of\nJesus, when the Torments began, and so escaped.\"\n\n\n\"CHAPTER VII.\n\n\"Of the Fiery-Wheel, Smokey-House, High Mountain, and Cold River to\nwhich the Devils dragged the Soldier.\n\n\"Then the Devils carry'd away the Soldier to an Iron Wheel, that was\nred hot, and of a prodigious bigness.  The Spokes and Stakes of this\nWheel were tarnished all round with Iron Crooks set on Fire, and on\nthem hung Men fixed.  One half of the Wheel stood above, and the\nother under ground:  the horrid sulphurous Flame which issued from\nthe Earth and surrounded this Wheel, did exceedingly torment the Men\nthat hung on it.  The same (say the Devils to the Soldier) that these\nsuffer if thou will not return, shalt thou endure, nay and even see\nfirst what it is.  Then they fasten'd Iron Bars to the Spokes of the\nWheel, and turn'd it about with such Celerity, that not one Man of\nthose that hung upon it cou'd be discern'd from another; for the\nwhole Wheel appear'd like a Circle of Fire:  And when they had\nfasten'd the Soldier to it and, by turning it about, lift him up in\nthe Air, he called upon the Name of Jesus, and came down unhurt.\n\n\"From hence they dragged him towards a Certain House of an\nextraordinary breadth, and so long that the End of it was out of\nsight.  When they drew near this House the Soldier stood still, being\nafraid to go forward in the excessive Heat that came out of it.  Then\nthe Devils said unto him:  What thou seest are Baths, and whether\nthou wilt or no, thou shalt Bath in them, as others do that are there\nnow.  Immediately after, there were heard the most dismal Cries and\nLamentations imaginable proceeding from thence; and being brought in,\nhe saw a cruel and horrid sight.  The Floor of this House was full of\nround Pits join'd so close together, that no Man cou'd walk between\nthem: and each of these Pits was full of boiling Liquors made of\nvarious Mettals, in which were plunged an infinite Number of both\nSexes, and of Divers Ages.  Some were dipped down over Head; some to\nthe Eyes only; Others to the Lips; Some to the Neck; Others to the\nBreast; Some to the Navel; Others to the Thighs; Some to the Knees;\nOthers to half the Leg; Some had one Leg only in; Others both the\nHands:  And thus were all these boiling Pits or Cauldrons filled with\nwretched Sinners, who set forth such dismal Groans and Lamentations\nas were sufficient to chill the Blood of the most hard-hearted Man.\nHere (say the Devils to the Soldier) shalt thou Bath, and with that\nthey lifted him up and endeavour'd to cast him into one of the\nCauldrons, but upon hearing the Name of Jesus they cou'd not prevail.\nWhereupon they quit this House, and Carry the Soldier to an exceeding\nhigh Mountain, where they show him a Number of Men and Women far\nbeyond any of the former.  These Wretches sat Stark Naked with their\nToes bent, and look'd towards the North, as if they expected every\nminute to expire that way.  And while the Soldier stood wondering\nwhat they waited for, one of the Devils said unto him:  Possibly thou\nwondrest what these People expect with so much trembling and fear,\nbut if thou agree not to go back, thou shalt soon know to thy cost\nthe cause of their Fear.  The Devil had scarce made an end of these\nWords, when a Whirlwind from the North rushed upon them, and blew\naway the Devils, the Soldier, and all the People, and cast them over\nthe other side of the Mount into a River, that stunk, and was\nintolerably cold: and as often as any of these wretched people\nattempted to raise themselves over the Water, the Devils immediately\nplunged them down.  But the Soldier, who had always in mind his\nDivine Assistant, called upon his Redeemer Jesus Christ, and so found\nhimself ashore on the Other Side of the River.\"\n\n\n\"CHAPTER VIII.\n\n\"Of the Pit that cast up Flames, and of the High Bridge to which the\nDevils led the Soldier.\n\n\"The Devils were not as yet satisfied with all the injuries they had\noffer'd to the Soldier of Jesus Christ, and therefore dragged him\ntowards the South, where he saw before him a dreadful Flame of\nSulphurous Matter rising out of a Deep Pit, and vomiting up Men red\nhot like Sparks of Fire, and as the force of the Flames abated,\nfalling down again into the Pit.  When they came near this Pit, the\nDevils said to the Soldier:  'This is the entrance to Hell; this is\nour Habitation: and for as much as thou hast hitherto carefully\nserved us, here thou shalt for ever continue with us; for all those\nwho serve us dwell here everlastingly.  And when thou shalt once go\nin, thou shalt eternally perish both Body and Soul.  Notwithstanding,\nif thou wilt obey now, and return to the Door of the Cave into which\nthou didst enter, thou may'st go safe home to thine own Dwelling.'\nThe Soldier, who had so often experienced God's Assistance before,\ndespised both their Threats and Promises.  whereupon the Devils,\nenraged to see themselves so often contemned, cast themselves\nheadlong into the Pit, and thrust the Soldier down before them.  Who\nthe further he descended the larger he observed the Pit to grow, and\nthe more sensibly he felt the pain of the Fire:  Here the poor Man\nwas put to the extent of his patience; for the pain was so\nintolerably acute, that for a while he had quite lost his Senses, and\nwas not able to pronounce the Name of Jesus! but Almighty God taking\npity of him enabled him at last to utter in some manner that Divine\nName: Whereupon the Flame shot him up so as that he fell upon the\nBrink of the Pit: but so disordered, that for awhile he knew not\nwhere he was, neither cou'd he tell whither to turn himself.  Then a\nnew and unknown Legion of devils rushing out of the Pit surrounded\nhim, and asked what he did there? 'Our Companions (say they) told\nthee this was the Gate of Hell; but they told thee a lye, and thou\nshalt know it is so; for we are always accustomed to tell lyes, that\nwe may deceive those we cannot by telling the Truth.  This is not the\nHell, but now we will bring thee to it.'  And having so said, they\ndragged the Soldier along to a great and spacious River, that was\ncover'd all over with a stinking sulphurous Flame, and filled up with\nDevils and damned Souls.  Know thou (say they unto him) that under\nthis River lyeth Hell.  Now there was a great and lofty Bridge over\nthis River, in which three things appear'd very formidable, and\nalmost impossible to be overcome by those who were to pass over it.\nThe First, that the Surface of the Bridge was so slippery that it was\nimpossible for any Man to fix his feet upon it; the Second, that the\npassage was so straight and narrow, that no Man cou'd stand or walk\non it.  The Third, that the Bridge was so high up over the River, as\nto create a Horror in any that shou'd look down.  Thou must (added\nthe Devils) go over this Bridge, and we will raise a mighty Wind\nwhich shall cast thee down into the River, where our Fellows that are\nthere shall take thee and drown thee in Hell:  For we are resolv'd to\ntry how safe thou shalt think it for thee to attempt so dangerous a\nThing:  However, if thou wilt consent to go back to the Door of the\nDave, thou shalt escape this Danger, and return safe home to thine\nown Country.\n\n\"The faithful Soldier reflecting within himself, upon the great and\nmany Dangers from which his Pious advocate Jesus Christ had deliver'd\nhim, and calling often upon his Name boldly stepped in upon the\nBridge, and began to walk forward, feeling nothing slippery under his\nFoot, but all firm and steady; because he firmly confided in God and\nsteadily adhered to his Promise:  Nay the Higher he went up the\nBridge the broader he found the Passage; so as that in a short space\nthe way was equal to a Road where several carts may meet and pass.\nNow the Devils who led the soldier by the Hands to the Bridge, not\nbeing able to walk with him thereon, stood at the Bridge Foot,\nexpecting to see him fall down, but perceiving that he walked on\nwithout any Danger, they raised a Cry and Noise so dreadful that it\nput him into a greater fright than any of the Torments before had\ndone.  Yet when he found that the Devils stood still, and did not\nfollow him, he went on securely, relying on the Assistance of his\nDivine Protector.  The Devils also that were in the River under the\nBridge, seeing him go on over their heads, ran about the Bridge, and\ncast their fiery crooks and Darts at him; but being protected by the\nShield of Faith, he felt no harm, and so got clear of all their\nAmbushes.\"\n\n\n\"CHAPTER IX.\n\n\"Of the Celestial Glory and Terrestrial Paradise shewn to the\nSoldier, and of his Conference with the Bishops thereon.\n\n\"The invincible Soldier being now deliver'd from the Snares of the\nunclean Spirits, saw before his Eyes an High Wall raised to the\nSkies, the Beauty and Structure whereof was beyond Estimation.  Its\nGate was adorn'd with costly Jewels, and divers precious Mettals,\nthat afforded a most agreeable Prospect.  Having approached, as it\nwere within Half a Mile to it, the Gate seem'd to open, and sent\nforth so sweet a smell, that, as it seem'd to him, if all the Earth\nhad been turn'd into Spice, it could hardly afford so agreeable a\nperfume, which so refresh'd his tired Limbs and Spirits, that he\nbelieved he could with ease undergo again all the Torments he had\nendured.  And looking in at the Gates, he discover'd a Door which\nexcelled the brightness of the Sun.  As he stood then at a little\ndistance from the Gate, there came out to meet him so beautiful, so\ngreat, and so orderly a Procession, as was never to be parallel'd to\nhis thinking in this World, with Crosses, Wax Tapers, Banners, and\nGolden Palm Branches in the Hands of the Men that led this\nProcession.  After these follow'd Men of all Degrees and Orders, some\nArchbishops, some Bishops, Abbots, Monks, Chanons, Priests, and\nClerks of every Degree, all cloathed in the sacred Apparel proper to\ntheir Respective Degrees and Orders; and like in Shape and Colour to\nthose they wore, when they serv'd God here on Earth.  Being come up\nto the Soldier, they all embraced him with unspeakable joy, and\nconducted him into the Gate with a concert of so Melodious an\nHarmony, as could not be equalled by any in this World.\n\n\"When the Musick ceased, and the Procession ended, two Archbishops\ntook the Soldier apart, in order, as was thought to shew him this new\nWorld and the Glory of it, but first they blessed God, who had\nstrengthen'd his soul with so much constancy, in all the Torments\nthro' which he passed, and which he so resolutely bore.\n\n\"They then conducted him over all the pleasant places of this new\nWorld, where his Eyes were so charmed, and all his Senses so ravished\nthat, in his opinion, neither the Tongues of the ablest Orators cou'd\nexplain, nor the Pens of the Nimblest Scriveners indite the Glory and\nSplendor of the Things which he had seen and heard.  So great was the\nlight of this happy Region, that as the light of a candle is Eclipsed\nby that of the Sun, so was the light of the Sun by the brightness of\nthis.  The Night doth never overshade this Land, for the light of a\nPure and Serene Sky keeps it constantly bright.  All the Land was\nlike a pleasant Green Meadow diversified by various sorts of Flowers,\nFruits, Trees and Herbs; whose very perfumes, saith the Soldier,\nwou'd keep him alive, were he allowed to dwell always there.  The\nBounds of the Country he did not see for the greatness of its Extent,\nonly of that part by which he enter'd it; but discover'd in it so\ngreat a multitude of both Sexes as he believes no Man ever saw in his\nLife, or ever was together in any Age; of whom some dwelt apart in\none Community, and some in another; yet so as they passed from one\nsociety to another, as they pleased.  And by this means, it came to\npass, that they all enjoy'd one another's company; and choirs joyn'd\nwith choirs to sing God's Praise:  And as one Star differs from\nanother in brightness; so was there an agreeable and harmonious\nvariety and difference in the Habits and Countenances of those thrice\nhappy People.  For some of them seem'd to be clothed in Golden Vests;\nothers, in Purple, some in Scarlet; others in Blew; some in Green,\nand others in White.  And the Shape and Fashion of each habit was the\nsame as that which they wore in the World; so that the Soldier cou'd\neasily discern of what Dignity, Order, and Degree, each of them had\nbeen.  Some wore Crowns like Kings, others carry'd Golden Palms in\ntheir Hands.  Glorious then and agreeable to the Eye, was the sight\nof the inexpressible Harmony of their Melody, in Singing the Praises\nof their Lord and Maker.  Each of them rejoiced at his own Happiness,\nand at that of every other.  And all of them, who saw the Soldier,\nPraised God upon his coming among them, and rejoiced at his\nDeliverance from the Devils.  Here was neither Heat nor Cold, nor\nanything else that cou'd incommode or molest; but all things\npeaceable, quiet, still, agreeable.  Many more things did the\nSoldier, see and hear in this happy Region than any Tongue or Pen\ncou'd express.\n\n\"When he had then satiated his Eyes and Ears, the Bishops spoke to\nhim after this manner.\"\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\"After this discourse the venerable Prelates took the Soldier up to\nthe Top of a Mountain, commanded him to look up and tell them what\ncolour the Sky over his head appear'd to him to be of.  The Soldier\nanswer'd that it appear'd to him to be of the colour of Gold in a\nfiery Furnace.  'That (say they) which thou see'st is the Gate of\nParadise.  By this Gate those that are taken up from us go into\nHeaven.  And you are to know further, that while we continue here, we\nare constantly fed once a day with Food from Heaven, but that you may\nknow what sort of Food, and how pleasant it is, you shall, God\nwilling, Feel and Taste it with us.'\n\n\"These words were no sooner pronounced, when Certain Rays like flames\nof Fire cover'd the whole Region, and after a while dividing into\nsmaller Rays sat upon the Heads of every one in the Land, and at last\nenter'd into them.  And among the rest, sat upon the Soldier's Head\nalso, and enter'd into him.  The Soldier was wrapt up in such extasie\nat the Sweetness of this Food, that he cou'd not tell whether he was\ndead or alive, but this soon passed over.  This is the Food (added\nthey) with which God feeds us once a day; but they that are carryed\nhence from us enjoy it without End.  The Soldier wou'd willingly stay\nthere if he were allowed to enjoy the deliciousness of that Food.\nBut instead of so sweet and desirable, mournful things are related\nunto him.\n\n\"For as much then (beloved Brother continue the Prelates), as thou\nhast partly seen what thou didst desire to see, namely, the Rest of\nthe Blessed, and the Torments of Sinners; thou must now return by the\nsame Way thou camest hither; and if thou wilt for the future lead a\nsober and godly Life; thou shalt be secure not only of this Rest; but\nalso of the Heavenly Mansions; but if thou wilt, which God forbid,\nlead an ill Life and pollute thy Body with Sin; behold thou hast seen\nthe Torments that attend thee.  Thou may'st now safely return; for\nthou need'st not fear any of those Things; wherewith the Devils\nattempted to frighten thee in thy way hither; because they dare not\napproach thee any more, being afraid to appear before thee; neither\ncan all the Torments which thou hast seen hurt thee.  The Soldier was\nastonished at these Words, and began with Tears and Crys humbly to\nbeseech the Bishops, not to oblige him to return again to the Cares\nof the World from so great a happiness.  'I cannot leave this place',\nsaid he, 'for I fear I shou'd be intangled in the snares of the\nWorld, so as to hinder me to come back here';  It shall not be as\nthou wouldest, replied the Bishops; but as He who hath made thee and\nus disposes, so shall it be; for He alone knows what is most\nexpedient for us all.\"\n\n\n\"CHAPTER X.\n\n\"How the Soldier went out of this Purgatory, made a Pilgrimage to\nJerusalem, and how he spent the rest of his days.\n\n\"Then Owen, the Soldier, having received their Blessing, set out, and\nreturn'd the same way he came.  The Prelates conducted him to the\nGate of Paradise, and shut it after him; and being sad and grieved to\nbe obliged to return again to the Miseries of this World, he went\nback the same way till he came to the Hall, where he was first\ninfested by the Devils.  He saw indeed the Devils on the way, but so\nsoon as they saw him, they vanished as if they had been afraid of\nhim.  He also passed thro' the Places where he was before tormented;\nbut now they had no Power to hurt him.  Being then come to the said\nHall, he went in boldly and Lo the fifteen Men, who had instructed\nhim in the beginning, met him, glorifying God, who had given him so\nmuch constancy in his Torments, and having congratulated him upon his\nvictory, said unto him: 'Courage, Brother.  We know thou hast\novercome the Torments which thou hast so manfully born; and that thou\nart purged of all thy Sins.  The Sun begins now to rise in thy\nCountry:  Make haste then up to the Cave:  For if the Prior, who when\nhe hath said Mass, shall come to the Door, finds thee not there, he\nwill lock the Door, as Despairing of thy salvation; and return to the\nChurch.'  The Soldier hereupon, having first got their Blessing,\nhasten'd up to the Cave, and at the very Minute that the Prior open'd\nthe Door, the Soldier appear'd.  The Prior embraced him, glorified\nGod, and conducted him to the Church, and caused him to continue\nthere fasting and praying for fifteen Days.  Then the Soldier put on\nhis Shoulder the mark of the Cross of Christ and went with great\nDevotion to the Holy Land, to visit the Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus\nChrist at Jerusalem, and all the holy Places round about it.  Which\nwhen he had Devoutly performed he came back, and went to Stephen,\nKing of England, to whom he had been before familiarly known, to\nadvise with him, after what Manner he might best for the future,\nWarfare for the King of Kings, as he had heretofore carry'd Arms for\nhim.\n\n\"It happen'd at the same time, that Gervasius Abbot of Lude, had got\nby King Stephen's Recommendation a Place in Ireland for the building\nof a Monastry.  This Abbot sent one of his Monks, called Gilbert, to\nthe King, to be recommended by him to the King of Ulster, and then to\nproceed from thence to Ireland in order to erect the said Monastry:\nwho being Kindly received by the King, complained very much that he\nwas a stranger to the Irish Language; I shall find you, by God's\nhelp, says the King, an excellent Interpreter.  Then he called Owen,\nthe Irish Soldier, commanded him to go with Gilbert, and to continue\nwith him in Ireland.  Owen readily obey'd the King's Orders, adding\nwith all, that he was obliged in gratitude to serve the Monks, whose\nCharity he had so often and so remarkably experienced.  They then\nwent over to Ireland, and began to build the Monastry, which they\nfinished in two years and a half.  The Monk Gilbert took care of the\nthings within the Monastry; and Owen the Soldier was a trusty\nProcurator, and devout Minister of the Things abroad; as also a\nfaithful Interpreter:  And having taken the Habit of a Monk; he lived\nan Holy and Religious Life all the rest of his days, as the said\nGilbert testifieth.  Whenever this Gilbert and the Soldier happen'd\nto be alone; Gilbert was very inquisitive to know from him the\nparticulars of all the Things he had seen and felt in this Purgatory;\nand the Soldier who upon pronouncing the word Purgatory, used to\nburst out into Tears, told him all that he had seen and felt, which\nYet he wou'd willingly have concealed, had he not been persuaded,\nthat it might tend to the Edification, and Amendment of the Lives of\nmany.  Nay and affirmed upon his Conscience, that he had seen with\nhis corporal Eyes all the Things which he related.  Now it was by the\nCare and Industry of this Monk, and upon the Testimony and Credit of\nthe Bishops of this part of the Kingdom, who had the account from the\nSoldier's own Mouth, and that of the other Religious and godly men of\nthose Times that these things were committed to Posterity.\"\n\nThe last chapter, which is \"Of the Examination and Manifold Proofs of\nthis History,\" concludes with the following observations by\nMessingham himself.\n\n\"This History of Owen the Soldier, as to that part of it that is\nrelated by Henry Salteriensis, I borrow'd from an ancient Manuscript\nof the said Author now extant in the Library of St. Victor, and that\nrelated by Mathew Paris, I took from his printed History of England:\nBut if after all, any Man chuse rather to oppose, than piously to\nbelieve the same, let him consult the Holy Fathers, St. Gregory,\nVenerable Bede, Dionysius Carthusianus, and carefully read the\nvarious Revelations, Visions, and Relations not unlike these recorded\nby them; to which as to things very probable they themselves were not\nafraid to give Credit, and which they would not presume to deny.\"\n\nCalderon was not the only celebrated poet who made the Purgatory of\nSt. Patrick the subject of his song.  Four centuries before the great\nSpanish dramatist was born, a most elaborate and very lengthy poem\nwas written on the same attractive theme by Marie de France, the\nfirst woman, as M. de Roquefort says,who ever wrote French verse, the\nSappho of her age.*  Nor was Marie herself the only minstrel of that\nearly time who yielded to the fascination of this legend.  Two\nanonymous Trouveres of a little later period were unconsciously her\nrivals in the attempt.  M. l'Abbe de la Rue, in his valuable work on\nNorman and Anglo-Norman Poetry, thus writes:--\n\n\n[footnote] *\"Poesies de Marie de France\", par B. De Roquefort.\nParis, 1820. t.i., p.1.\n\n\n\"Quoique la celebre Marie eut, au XIIIe siecle, donne une assez ample\nhistoire du Purgatoire de St.-Patrice, puisqu'elle est de plus de\ntrois mille vers, deux autres Trouveres anglo-normands qui\nprobablement ne connaissaient pas son poeme, volurent dans le siecle\nsuivant traiter le meme sujet.\"**\n\n\n[footnote} **\"Essais Historiques sur les Trouveres\", etc., par M.\nL'Abbe de la Rue.  Caen, 1834.  t. iii., p. 245.\n\n\nThese poems, still unedited, are to be found in the Cottonian and\nHarleian MSS.  The reader is also referred to the very interesting\nand exceedingly rare volume, 'Owain Miles' (Edinburgh, 1837), and\n'The Visions of Tundale' (Edinburgh, 1843), in the Prefaces to both\nof which, by the late lamented W.B.D.D. Turnbull, much curious\ninformation on the subject will be found.\n\n\n\n      *     *     *     *     *\n\n\nTHE AUTHORITIES FOR THE LEGEND,\nAS GIVEN BY CALDERON.\n\nACT III., SCENE X. (the concluding lines.)\n\nThe list of authorities at the end of the third act has been, and not\nwithout reason, a source of great perplexity.  Calderon is blamed\neven by so thoughtful a critic as Mr. Ticknor for putting into the\nmouth of Enius himself the names of a number of writers who have in\nsome way alluded to the Purgatory of St. Patrick, all of whom were of\nperiods long subsequent to the time at which he represents himself to\nhave lived, several of them being the very writers who nearly a\nthousand years later described his own adventures.  But this is quite\nusual on the Spanish stage.  There is scarcely a drama of Calderon\nthat does not end in the same way.  The last speaker, whoever he may\nbe, and he is frequently the 'gracioso', abandons, for the last few\nlines of his speech, his assumed character, and addresses the\naudience as an actor in a brief epilogue.  The list of authorities at\nthe end of \"El Purgatorio de San Patricio\" is nothing more.  It is\nsimply an epilogue, perhaps a little longer than usual, which the\ncurious nature of the subject to some extent justifies.  The manner\nin which the names are printed is a different matter.  But the reader\nshould recollect that this drama was not printed by Calderon himself,\nbut by his brother Joseph, who certainly in this instance at least\nconsidered it no part of his duty as editor to verify the correctness\nof the poet's references.  Some of the confusion certainly is\nattributable to Calderon himself, as he has separated and transposed\nnames for the purpose of adapting them to his versification.  But\nother mistakes remain behind which we may fairly divide between Don\nJoseph and the printer.\n\nThe original lines, as given in all the editions, that of\nHartzenbusch included, are the following:--\n\n\"Para que con esta acabe\nLa historia, que nos refiere\nDionisio el gran Cartusiano,\nCon Enrique Saltarense,\nCesario, Mateo Rodulfo,\nDomiciano Esturbaquense,\nMembrosio, Marco Marulo,\nDavid Roto, y el prudente\nPrimado de toda Hibernia,\nBelarmino, Beda, Serpi,\nFray Dimas, Jacob Solino,\nMensignano, y finalmente\nLa piedad y la opinion\nCristiana, que lo defiende.\"\n\nSome of these names are obvious enough; it is with regard to those\nthat are rendered more obscure by the manner in which they are\npresented that the difficulty arises.  The list is taken for the most\npart from the fourth chapter of Montalvan's \"Vida y Purgatorio de San\nPatricio\", but with the names singularly disconnected and misplaced.\nThey are turned, too, so completely into Spanish as to be scarcely\nrecognised.  Even in Messingham's \"Florilegium\", where they are all\nto be found, though not in one place, they are not always correctly\nprinted.  The following attempt at identification, now made for the first\ntime, will be found, it is believed, to be perfectly accurate.\n\nThe first name, \"Dionisio el gran Cartusiano,\" scarcely requires any\nexplanation.  The work referred to, in an edition of which I have a\ncopy, is as follows:--\n\n\"D. Dionysii Carthusiani liber utilissimus de quatuor hominis\nnovissimis, etc.,\" Parisiis, 1551.\n\nThe account \"De Purgatorio Sancti Patritii\" extends from fol. 235 to fol. 237.\n\n\"Enrique Saltarense\" is Henry of Saltrey, a Benedictine monk of the\nAbbey of Saltrey in Huntingdonshire, who about the middle of the\ntwelfth century first reduced to writing the Adventures of Owain, or\nEnius, in the Purgatory of St. Patrick.\n\nOf him Messingham writes thus.  Referring to his authorities, he says:--\n\n\"What you shall find under the letter B, is taken from Henry\nSalteriensis, an English monk of the Cistercian order, who had been\ntaught most excellent Precepts of a good Life as well as good Letters\nby Florentianus, an Irish bishop, and Gilbert de Luda [Louth, in\nLincolnshire], Abbot of the Cistercian Monks, who also, being himself\nwell instructed, used to teach others the fear of the Lord as the\nbeginning of wisdom.  . . . . And hence it is that he wrote unto\nHenry Abbot of Sartis one Book of the Purgatory of St. Patrick and\none Book of the Pains of Purgatory.  He flourished in the year of\nGrace 1140.\" -- \"A Brief History of St. Patrick's Purgatory\".  Paris,\n1718.  Preface.\n\n\"Cesario,\" which carelessness or the exigency of metre has separated\nfrom the \"Esturbaquense,\" of the next line is Caesarius of\nHeisterbach, a well-known hagiological writer of whom Adrien Baillet\nthus speaks:--\n\"Un religieux Allemand de l'ordre de Citeaux nomme 'Cesaire de\nHeisterbach', qui mourut du tems de l'empereur Frederic II. travailla\naussi a la vie des Saints.\"  He adds in a note:--\n\"Cesaire se fit moine l'an 1198, au Val de Saint de Pierre, dit\nautrement Heisterbach, pres de la ville de Bonne, dans le diocese de\nCologne, et ne mourut que pres de quarante ans apres.  Il avoit ete\nmaitre des novices dans son couvent, et ensuite prieur de la maison\nde Villiers.\" -- 'Discours sur l'histoire de la Vie des Saints.  Les\nVies Des Saints'.  Paris, 1739.  T. i., p. xlvii.\n\n\"Mateo Rodulfo,\" printed as the names of one author in Calderon,\nseparate into two persons in Messingham and Montalvan.  The first is\nthe well-known Mathew Paris, whose 'Relation of the vision of Owen\nthe Irish Soldier' is expressly referred to in these words by\nMessingham, who also alludes to him more fully in his preface.  'What\nyou shall find under the letter C,' says Messingham, 'is borrowed\nfrom Mathew Paris, an English Benedictine Monk, who had from his\nyouth consecrated himself to a Monastic life, and polish'd most\nexcellent talents of nature with exquisite Arts and Sciences, and\nadorn'd the same with all Christian virtues; being an Handicraft, a\nWriter, a good Painter, a fine Poet, an acute Logician, a solid\nDivine; and (which is much more valuable) pure in his Manners, bright\nin the innocence of his life, simple and candid.  Pitseus, upon the\nyear 1259, in which the said Mathew died, gives him a great many more\nencomiums, which for brevity sake I hear omit.'\n\nThe remaining half of 'Mateo Rodulfo' turns out to be Ranulphus or\nRalph, Higden, the Monk of Chester, whose Polychronicon is quoted\nboth by Messingham and Montalvan.  The 'Domiciano' of the next line,\nwhich is 'Dominicano' in Montalvan, has so completely got rid of the\nname to which it belongs, that without the aid of Calderon's\nauthorities, Messingham and Montalvan, it would be impossible to know\nwho was meant.  In Messingham the reference is to 'Jacobus Januensis,\nthe Dominican, in the Life of St. Patrick,' and in Montalvan to\n'Jacobo Januense, o Genuense, Dominicano.'  The person thus disguised\nis the famous Jacobus de Voragine, the Dominican, author of 'The\nGolden Legend,' who was Bishop of Genoa in 1292, and died at a very\nadvanced age in 1298.  Of the 'Legenda Aurea', the fiftieth chapter\nis devoted to St. Patrick.\n\n'Membrosio' is called 'Mombrisio' in Montalvan, and 'Mombrusius' in\nMessingham.  Correctly it was neither.  The writer referred to is\n'Boninus Mombritius', a fine copy of whose 'Sanctuarium' is in the\nBritish Museum.  At fol. 188, t. ii, there is a full account of the\nPurgatory, the name of the adventurous visitor being 'Nicolaus'.  Of\nMombritius, whom he calls Bonin Mombrice, the same writer (Baillet),\nfrom whom I have already quoted, says:--\n\n\"Cet homme peu connu d'ailleurs etoit Milanois de naissance,\nconseiller on fils de conseiller au senat de Milan; il vivoit du tems\nde Galeas Marie, duc de Milan, qui fut tue l'an 1476, et du Pape\nSixte IV., qui mourut en 1484.  Il s'etoit deja fait regarder comme\ngrammairien, poete, orateur et philosopohe par divers ouvrages, mais\naucun ne lui fit tant d'honneur que son 'Sanctuaire', qui est le\ntitre qu'il donna a son recueil d'actes des Saints dedie a Simonete,\nsecretaire des ducs de Milan.\" -- 'Discours', p. lvii.\n\n'Marco Marulo' is Marcus Marulus, Cap. xiv., Lib. 6, of whose work,\n\"De religiose vivendi institutione per exempla,\" is entitled \"De\nrevelationibus infernalium poenarum.\" -- 'Apul Sanctam Coloniam.\nAnno M.D.XXXI.\n\nIn this there is an account of a certain Irish monk, \"cui Petro nomen\nfuit,\" who appears to have entered the Purgatory in vision.  This is\nprobably the passage which Messingham and Montalvan quote, though a\ndifferent reference is given.\n\n'Maurolicus Siculus', who follows next in Messingham and Montalvan,\nis omitted by Calderon.\n\n\"David Roto, y el prudente Primado de toda Hibernia,\" are one and the\nsame person.  This was the famous David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory, so\nintimately connected in 1642 with the Confederation of Kilkenny, of\nwhich an excellent history has been written by the Rev. Charles\nMeehan, M.R.I.A.  The epithet \"prudente\" seems to have been a happy\ncondensation of the many terms of encomium lavished upon this\ncelebrated man by Messingham.  Alluding again to his classification\nof his authorities under the first four letters of the alphabet,\nMessingham says:--\n\n\"Whatever then you shall find written under the letter A, until you\ncome to the next letter, is taken from the Right Reverend Father\nDavid Roth, Lord Bishop of Ossory, and Vice Primate of all Ireland, a\nMan excellently well read in all parts of literature, an eloquent\nRhetorician, a subtle Philosopher, a profound Divine, a celebrated\nHistorian, a zealous chastizer of Vice, a steady Defender of\nEcclesiastical Liberty, a constant Assertor of the Privileges of his\nCountry, most devoutly compassionate upon the calamities of his\nNation, a diligent Promoter of Peace and Unity among the Clergy, and,\nfor that end, instituted the Congregation commonly called Pacifick,\nin the year 1620, which has, with no little fruit and advantage to\nthe Clergy, spread itself over all the Kingdom, -- a Man, in fine,\nwho has left to Posterity many rare Monuments of his excellent\ntalents, the Catalogue of which I shall not here, for good reasons,\ninsert, but hope for more soon from him.\"\n\n\"Belarmino,\" \"Beda.\"  Cardinal Bellarmin and Venerable Bede are too\nwell known to require any observations.\n\n\"Serpi, Fray Dimas,\" cut into two lines, with the names transposed,\nmean 'Fr. Dimas Serpi', one of whose works ('Aprodixis Sanctitatis,\netc', Romae, M.DC. IX.), though not the one referred to by\nMessingham, is in the British Museum.  In Montalvan the marginal note\ngives, \"Lib. de Purgatorio, cap. 26,\" as the reference.  The German\ntranslator of this drama (Brunn, 1824), misled by the punctuation of\nthe original, treats Dimas Serpi as two persons.\n\n\"Jacob Solino,\" the next authority for the legend, is perhaps the\nmost perplexing in the list.  Like twin stars that seem one to the\nnaked eye, but resolve themselves into two beneath the telescope, so\nthe single author of the printed text of Calderon appears distinct\npersons in the pages of Montalvan.  He gives them thus: -- \"Jacobo,\"\n\"Solino,\" with a separate reference to each.  Thus to \"Jacobo,\" the\nmarginal reference is, \"In sua historia Orientale;\" and to \"Solino,\"\n\"cap. 35,\" without the name of the work.\n\n From Messingham we at once learn who the former writer was.  He calls\nhim in one place \"Jacobus de Vitriaco,\" and in another more briefly,\n\"Vitriacus.\"  The passage referred to in the marginal note of\nMontalvan is given thus:--\n\n\"Further, Jacobus de Vitriaco, in his History of the East, chap. 92,\nwrites thus concerning this cave:-- 'There is a certain Place in\nIreland, call'd St. Patrick's Purgatory, into which whosoever enters,\nexcept he be truly penitent and contrite in Heart, is snatched away\nby Devils, and never returns.  But he that with true contrition\nconfesseth his sins, and goes in there, tho' the Devils vex and\ntorture him, by Fire and Water, and many other Torments, yet is he\npurged of all his sins:  Now they that are thus purged, and return,\nare never more seen to laugh or play; or to take pleasure in any\nthing in this World, but constantly weeping and sighing, forget the\nthings that are behind, and stretch forward to the things that are\nbefore them.' -- A Brief History of St. Patrick's Purgatory, Paris,\n1718, pp. 9, 10.\n\n\"Solino,\" who is so strangely united by Calderon's printer to\n\"Jacob,\" presents some difficulty.  In Messingham's list of\nauthorities this name does not appear.  The first French translator\nof Montalvan (Bruxelles, 1637) merely gives the Latin form of the\nname, \"Solinus.\"  The second French translator, Bouillon, in his\n'Histoire de la vie et du Purgatoire de S. Patrice' (Troyes, 1642),\nturns both names into French, thus, \"Jacques Solin, en son Histoire\nOrientale, chap. 26.\"  This is doubly a mistake.  The 'Histoire\nOrientale' is the work of Vitriacus, as already pointed out; and\n\"chap. 26\" refers not to that work, but to some unnamed writing of\n\"Solino.\"\n\nOf course the first name that suggests itself, as the author alluded\nto, is that of Caius Julius Solinus.  The latest date assigned as the\nperiod when this celebrated writer flourished is A.D. 238 -- that is,\nabout 135 years before the birth of St. Patrick.  To quote him as an\nauthority on the subject of St. Patrick's Purgatory would therefore\nbe a more absurd anachronism than any that has been pointed out in\nthis curious list.  This difficulty appeared to me so strong, that\nfor a while I was led to believe that \"Solino\" was but a corrupted\nSpanish form of \"Joceline,\" or \"Joscelino,\" as it is sometimes given,\nwhose 'Life of St. Patrick', written in the twelfth century, supplies\nall the incidents of St. Patrick's early life recorded by Montalvan\nand Calderon.  He is also frequently referred to by Messingham.  But\nfurther reflection convinces me that the writer alluded to was in\nreality the celebrated Latin author of the third century already\nmentioned, Caius Julius Solinus.\n\nSolinus has of course no allusion to St. Patrick's Purgatory; but in\nhis celebrated work, 'Polyhistor', compiled, it is thought, chiefly\nfrom Pliny's Natural History, he has a remarkable chapter on Ireland.\nSome of his statements are doubtful, and all are very curious; one of\nthem at least depriving St. Patrick, by anticipation, of one of his\nmost famous miracles.  This is the banishment of the serpents, which\nit appears was first mentioned by Jocelin in the twelfth century.  It\nis expressly stated by Solinus, who wrote in the third century, that\nin Ireland \"There are no snakes and few byrdes,\" to use the language\nof the old English translator, Arthur Golding.  This statement of the\nprevious exemption of Ireland from venomous reptiles was warmly\ndisputed by Dr. David Rothe, the Bishop of Ossory, early in the\nseventeenth century.  It will be remembered that \"David Roto\" has\nalready been quoted as an authority on the subject of St. Patrick's\nPurgatory, and it is his collateral controversy with Solinus that\nprobably led Montalvan, and subsequently Calderon, to suppose that\nSolinus had in some way alluded to that legend.  A valuable 'Life of\nSt. Patrick', by P. Lynch (Dublin, 1828), contains many allusions to\nthis subject, of which the following may be given as an example.\n\n\"The objections which Doctor Roth raised to the testimony of Solinus\nhave as slender a foundation in reason.  For Solinus (saith he) not\nonly mentions thisexemption of Ireland from venomous creatures, but\nsays further, that in Ireland there are few birds, and no bees; and\ntherefore concludes, that as he is mistaken in these latter\nparticulars, so he is not to be believed in the former,\"-- p. 42.\n\nThe author of this Life of St. Patrick goes on to say that Solinus\nmay have been perfectly accurate in these statements.  That other\nwriters have alluded to the time when bees were first introduced into\nIreland, and that the migration of some birds thither, among others\nthe magpie, took place at a comparatively modern period.  He does not\nadd, however, that Solinus states that the very dust of Ireland was\nso distasteful to the bees, where they are now as much at home as in\nHymettus, that if it is scattered about their hives even in another\ncountry they abandon their combs.  Thus writes quaint Arthur\nGolding:--\n\n\"There is not any Bee among them, and if a man bring of the dust of\nthe stones from thence, and strew them among Bee-hyves, the swarme\nforsake ye combes.\"\n\nAnother misstatement of Solinus may be pointed out.  He says:--\n\n\"The sea that is betweene Ireland and Britayne, being full of\nshallows and rough all the yeere long, cannot be sayled but a few\ndayes in the summer time.\"\n\nWith the following picturesque passage referring to the warlike\ntraining of their children by the Irish, as recorded by a Roman\nwriter in the third century of the Christian era, we take leave of\nSolinus, who we have no doubt was the author referred to by Montalvan\nand Calderon under the name of \"Solino:\"--\n\n\"If a woman be delivered of a man childe, she layes his first meate\nupon her husband's sworde, and putting it softly to his prettie mouth\ngives him the first hansel of his sworde upon the very point of the\nweapon, praying (according to the manner of their country) that he\nmay not otherwise come to his death, than in Battel and among\nweapons.\"-- 'The Excellent and Pleasant Worke of Julius Solinus\nPolyhistor.  Translated out of Latin into English by Arthur Golding,\nGent.'  At London, 1587.  p. 105.\n\nThe last name in the list of authorities on the subject of St.\nPatrick's Purgatory is \"Mensignano,\" with the reference in the margin\nof Montalvan's 'Vida y Purgatorio' to his 'Florilegium'.  This of\ncourse is Messingham, out of whose book, aided by his own wild\nimagination, Perez de Montalvan created the character of Luis Enius,\nwho is presented to us with such dramatic power by Calderon.\n\nNotwithstanding the length of these notes, the following summary,\ntaken with some corrections from the Introduction to the former\ntranslation of this drama (1853), may still be useful:--\n\nThe curious history of Luis Enius, on which the principal interest of\nthe play depends, has been alluded to, and given more or less fully\nby many ancient authors.  The name, though slightly altered by the\ndifferent persons who have mentioned him, can easily be recognised as\nthe same in all, whether as Owen, Oien, Owain, Egan, Euenius, or\nEnius.  Perhaps the earliest allusion to him in any printed English\nwork is that contained in Ranulph Higden's \"Polychronicon,\" published\nat Westminster, by Wynkin de Worde, in 1495:  \"In this Steven's tyme,\na knyght that hyght Owen wente in to the Purgatory of the second\nPatrick, abbot, and not byshoppe.  He came agayne and dwelled in the\nabbaye of Ludene of Whyte Monks in Irlonde, and tolde of joye and of\npaynes that he had seen.\"  The history of Enius had, however, existed\nin MS. for nearly three centuries and a half before the Polychronicon\nwas printed; it had been written by Henry, the monk of Saltrey in\nHuntingdonshire, from the account which he had received from Gilbert,\na Cistercian monk of the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Luden,\nor Louth, in Lincolnshire (Colgan, 'Trias Thaumaturgae', p. 281.\nWare's 'Annals of Ireland', A.D. 1497).  Colgan, after collating this\nMS. with two others on the same subject which he had seen, printed it\nnearly in full in his 'Trias', which was published at Louvain, A.D.\n1647, where with the notes it fills from the 273rd to the 281st page.\nMessingham, as we have seen, had printed it earlier from other\nsources, in 1624.  Matthew Paris, however, had before this, in his\nHistory of England, under the date 1153, given a full account of the\nadventures of Oenus in the Purgatory, and in the few places that I\nhave compared his account with that given in Colgan, I find both\ngenerally agreeing in substance, though not in words.  In the folio\nedition of Mathew Paris, London, 1604, the history of Oenus begins at\nthe 72nd and ends at the 77th page.  In Montalvan's life of St.\nPatrick, the adventures of Enius are given much more fully than\neither in Matthew Paris or Colgan.  In their versions of the story\nthe early life of Enius, previous to his undertaking to enter the\nPurgatory, is passed over with a few general remarks as to its\nextreme wickedness -- while they give in great detail all that he saw\nand heard therein.  Matthew Paris, for instance, opens the story of\nEnius in these words:  \"Miles quidam Oenus nomine, qui multis annis\nsub Rege Stephano militaverat -- licentia a Rege impetrata, profectus\nest in Hyberniam ad natale solum, ut parentes visitaret.  Qui cum\naliquandiu in regione illa demoratus fuisset coepit ad mentem\nreducere vitam suam adeo flagitiosam:  Quod ab ipsis cunabulis,\nincendiis semper vacaverat et rapinis, et quod magis dolebat, se\necclesiarum fuisse violatorem et rerum ecclesiasticarum invasorem\npraeter multa enormia quae intrinsecus latebant peccata,\" etc. --\n'Mat. Par'., p. 72.  In Henry of Saltrey's account, as given by\nMessingham in 1624 and Colgan in 1647, this portion of the life of\nEnius is despatched even with more succinctness, but in Montalvan's\n'Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio', all his early crimes are\ndetailed nearly in the order and almost in the very words that\nCalderon has used.  Sir Walter Scott mentions, in his Border\nMinstrelsy, that there is a curious MS. Metrical Romance, in the\nAdvocates' Library of Edinburgh, called, \"The Legend of Sir Owain,\"\nrelating his adventures in St. Patrick's Purgatory; he gives some\nstanzas from it, descriptive of the knight's passage of \"The Brig\nO'Dread;\" which in the legend, is placed between Purgatory and\nParadise.  This poem is supposed to have been written late in the\nthirteenth century.  It was printed for private distribution in\nEdinburgh, in 1837, but from the very limited impression, there\nhaving been but thirty-two copies struck off, it must always remain\nextremely scarce.  A cognate work, however, \"The Visions of Tundale\"\n(Edinburgh, 1843), published by the same lamented scholar (Mr.\nTurnbull) who edited the former work, though rare, is more accessible.\n\nTHE END.\n\nBRADBURY, AGNEW, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.","title":"The Purgatory of St. Patrick","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":37512}