The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria by Pedro Calderon de la Barca
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Pedro Calderon de la Barca >> The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria
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8 THE
TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN:
CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA.
A Drama of Early Christian Rome.
FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON.
With Dedicatory Sonnets to
LONGFELLOW,
ETC.
BY
DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, M.R.I.A.
POR LA FE MORIRE.
Calderon's Family Motto.
DUBLIN:
JOHN F. FOWLER, 3 CROW STREET.
LONDON:
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75 PICCADILLY.
1870.
Calderon's Family Motto.
"POR LA FE MORIRE". --
FOR THE FAITH WELCOME DEATH.
THIS motto is taken from the engraved coat of arms prefixed to an
historical account of "the very noble and ancient house of Calderon de
la Barca"--a rather scarce work which I have never seen alluded to in
any account of the poet. The circumstances from which the motto was
assigned to the family are given with some minuteness at pp. 56 and 57
of the work referred to. It is enough to mention that the martyr who
first used the expression was Don Sancho Ortiz Calderon de la Barca, a
Commander of the Order of Santiago. He was in the service of the
renowned king, Don Alfonso the Wise, towards the close of the thirteenth
century, and having been taken prisoner by the Moors before Gibraltar,
he was offered his life on the usual conditions of apostasy. But he
refused all overtures, saying: "Pues mi Dios por mi murio, yo quiero
morir por el", a phrase which has a singular resemblance to the key note
of this drama. Don Ortiz Calderon was eventually put to death with
great cruelty, after some alternations of good and bad treatment. See
"Descripcion, Armas, Origen, y Descendencia de la muy noble y antigua
Casa de Calderon de la Barca", etc., que Escrivio El Rmo. P. M. Fr.
Phelipe de la Gandara, etc., Obra Postuma, que saca a luz Juan de
Zuniga. Madrid, 1753.
D. F. M. C.
TO
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
IN GRATEFUL RECOLLECTION OF SOME DELIGHTFUL DAYS SPENT WITH HIM AT
ROME,
This Drama is dedicated
BY
DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.
TO LONGFELLOW.
I.
PENSIVE within the Colosseum's walls
I stood with thee, O Poet of the West!--
The day when each had been a welcome guest
In San Clemente's venerable halls:--
Ah, with what pride my memory now recalls
That hour of hours, that flower of all the rest,
When with thy white beard falling on thy breast--
That noble head, that well might serve as Paul's
In some divinest vision of the saint
By Raffael dreamed, I heard thee mourn the dead--
The martyred host who fearless there, though faint,
Walked the rough road that up to Heaven's gate led:
These were the pictures Calderon loved to paint
In golden hues that here perchance have fled.
II.
YET take the colder copy from my hand,
Not for its own but for THE MASTER'S sake,--
Take it, as thou, returning home, wilt take
From that divinest soft Italian land
Fixed shadows of the Beautiful and Grand
In sunless pictures that the sun doth make--
Reflections that may pleasant memories wake
Of all that Raffael touched, or Angelo planned:--
As these may keep what memory else might lose,
So may this photograph of verse impart
An image, though without the native hues
Of Calderon's fire, and yet with Calderon's art,
Of what Thou lovest through a kindred Muse
That sings in heaven, yet nestles in the heart.
D. F. M. C.
Dublin, August 24th, 1869.
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE PROFESSOR OF POETRY AT OXFORD AND THE AUTOS SACRAMENTALES OF
CALDERON.
Although the Drama here presented to the public is not an 'Auto,' the
present may be a not inappropriate occasion to draw the attention of all
candid readers to the remarks of the Professor of Poetry at Oxford on
the 'Autos Sacramentales' of Calderon--remarks founded entirely on the
volume of translations from these Autos published by me in 1867,[*]
although not mentioned by name, as I conceive in fairness it ought to
have been, by Sir F. H. Doyle in his printed Lectures.[+]
In his otherwise excellent analysis of The Dream of Gerontius, Sir F. H.
Doyle is mistaken as to any direct impression having been made upon the
mind of Dr. Newman in reference to it by the Autos of Calderon. So late
as March 3, 1867, in thanking me for the volume made use of by Sir F. H.
Doyle, Dr. Newman implies that up to that period he had not devoted any
particular attention even to this most important and unique development
of Spanish religious poetry. The only complete Auto of Calderon that
had previously appeared in English--my own translation of The Sorceries
of Sin, had, indeed, been in his hands from 1859, and I wish I could
flatter myself that it had in any way led to the production of a
master-piece like The Dream of Gerontius. But I cannot indulge that
delusion. Dr. Newman had internally and externally too many sources of
inspiration to necessitate an adoption even of such high models as the
Spanish Autos. Besides, The Dream of Gerontius is no more an Auto than
Paradise Lost, or the Divina Commedia. In these, only real personages,
spiritual and material, are represented, or monsters that typified human
passions, but did not personify them. In the Autos it is precisely the
reverse. Rarely do actual beings take part in the drama, and then only
as personifications of the predominant vices or passions of the
individuals whose names they bear. Thus in my own volume, Belshazzar is
not treated so much as an historical character, but rather as the
personification of the pride and haughtiness of a voluptuous king. In
The Divine Philothea, in the same volume, there are no actual beings
whatever, except The Prince of Light and The Prince of Darkness or The
Demon. In truth, there is nothing analogous to a Spanish Auto in
English original poetry. The nearest approach to it, and the only one,
is The Prometheus Unbound of Shelley. There, indeed, The Earth, Ocean,
The Spirits of the Hours, The Phantasm of Jupiter, Demogorgon, and
Prometheus himself, read like the 'Personas' of a Spanish Auto, and the
poetry is worthy the resemblance. The Autos Sacramentales differ also,
not only in degree but in kind from every form of Mystery or Morality
produced either in England or on the Continent. But to return to the
lecture by Sir F. H. Doyle. Even in smaller matters he is not accurate.
Thus he has transcribed incorrectly from my Introduction the name of the
distinguished commentator on the Autos of Calderon and their translator
into German--Dr. Lorinser. This Sir F. H. Doyle has printed throughout
his lecture 'Lorinzer'. From private letters which I have had the
honour of receiving from this learned writer, there can be no doubt that
the form as originally given by me is the right one. With these
corrections the lecture of Sir F. H. Doyle may be quoted as a valuable
testimony to the extraordinary poetic beauty of these Autos even in a
translation.
LECTURE III.--Dr. Newman's Dream of Gerontius.
"It is probable, indeed, that the first idea of composing such a
dramatic work may have been suggested to Dr. Newman by the Autos
Sacramentales of Spain, and especially by those of the illustrious
Calderon; but, so far as I can learn, he has derived hardly anything
from them beyond the vaguest hints, except, indeed, the all-important
knowledge, that a profound religious feeling can represent itself, and
that effectively, in the outward form of a play. I may remark that
these Spanish Autos of Calderon constitute beyond all question a very
wonderful and a very original school of poetry, and I am not without
hope that, when I know my business a little better, we may examine them
impartially together. Nay, even as it is, Calderon stands so
indisputably at the head of all Catholic religious dramatists, among
whom Dr. Newman has recently enrolled himself, that perhaps it may not
be out of place to inquire for a moment into his poetical methods and
aims, in order that we may then discover, if we can, how and why the
disciple differs from his master. Now there is a great conflict of
opinion as to the precise degree of merit which these particular Spanish
dramas possess. Speaking as an ignorant man, I should say, whilst those
who disparage them seem rather hasty in their judgments, and not so well
informed as could be wished, still the kind of praise which they receive
from their most enthusiastic admirers puzzles and does not instruct us.
"Taking for example, the great German authority on this point, Dr.
Lorinzer [Lorinser], as our guide, we see his poet looming dimly through
a cloud of incense, which may embalm his memory, but certainly does not
improve our eyesight. Indeed, according to him, any appreciation of
Calderon is not to be dreamt of by a Protestant". Lectures, pp. 109,
110.
With every respect for Sir F. H. Doyle, Dr. Lorinser says no such thing.
He was too well informed of what had been done in Germany on the same
subject, before he himself undertook the formidable task of attempting a
complete translation of all the Autos of Calderon, to have fallen into
such an error. Cardinal Diepenbrock, Archbishop of Breslau, who, in his
"Das Leben ein Traum" (an Auto quite distinct from the well known drama
"La Vida es Sueno") first commenced this interesting labour in Germany,
was of course a Catholic. But Eichendorff and Braunfels, who both
preceded Dr. Lorinser, were Protestants. Augustus Schlegel and Baron
von Schack, who have written so profoundly and so truly on the Autos,
are expressly referred to by Dr. Lorinser, and it is superfluous to say
that they too were Protestants. Sir F. H. Doyle, in using my
translation of the passage which will presently be quoted, changes the
word 'thoroughly' into 'properly', as if it were a more correct
rendering of the original. Unfortunately, however, there is nothing to
represent either word in the German. Dr. Lorinser says, that by many,
not by all, Calderon cannot be enjoyed as much as he deserves, because a
great number of persons best competent to judge of his merits are
deficient in the knowledge of Catholic faith and Catholic theology which
for the understanding of Calderon is indispensible--"welche fuer
Calderons Verstaendniss unerlaesslich ist". Sir F. H. Doyle says that
to him these Autos are not "incomprehensible at all" (p. 112), but then
he understands them all the better for being a scholar and a churchman.
Sir F. H. Doyle thus continues his reference to Dr. Lorinser. "Even
learned critics", he says, "highly cultivated in all the niceties of
aesthetics, are deficient in the knowledge of Catholic faith and
Catholic theology properly to understand Calderon" (Lectures, p. 110,
taken from the Introduction to my volume, p. 3). "Old traditions",
continues Dr. Lorinzer, "which twine round the dogma like a beautiful
garland of legends, deeply profound thoughts expressed here and there
by some of the Fathers of the Church, are made use of with such
incredible skill and introduced so appositely at the right place,
that . . . . frequently it is not easy to guess the source from whence
they have been derived" (Lectures, p. 111, taken from the Introduction
to my volume, p. 6).
This surely is unquestionably true, and the argument used by Sir F. H.
Doyle to controvert it does not go for much. These Autos, no doubt,
were, as he says, "composed in the first instance to gratify, and did
gratify, the uneducated populace of Madrid". Yes, the crowds that
listened delighted and entranced to these wonderful compositions, were,
for the most part, "uneducated" in the ordinary meaning of that word.
But in the special education necessary for their thorough enjoyment, the
case was very different. It is not too much to say that, as the result
of Catholic training, teaching, intuition, and association, the least
instructed of his Madrid audience more easily understood Calderon's
allusions, than the great majority of those who, reared up in totally
different ideas, are able to do, even after much labour and sometimes
with considerable sympathy. Mr. Tennyson says that he counts--
"The gray barbarian lower than the Christian child",
because the almost intuitive perceptions of a Christian child as to the
nature of God and the truths of Revelation, place it intellectually
higher than even the mature intelligence of a savage. I mean no
disrespect to Sir F. H. Doyle, but I think that Calderon would have
found at Madrid in the middle of the seventeenth century, and would find
there to-day, in a Catholic boy of fifteen, a more intelligent and a
better instructed critic on these points, than even the learned
professor himself. I shall make no further comments on Sir F. H.
Doyle's Lecture, but give his remarks on Calderon's Autos to the end.
"At the same time", says Sir F. H. Doyle, "Dr. Lorinzer's knowledge of
his subject is so profound, and his appreciation of his favourite author
so keen, that for me, who am almost entirely unacquainted with this
branch of literature, formally to oppose his views, would be an act of
presumption, of which I am, as I trust, incapable. I may, however,
perhaps be permitted to observe, that with regard to the few pieces of
this kind which in an English dress I have read, whilst I think them not
only most ingenious but also surprisingly beautiful, they do not strike
me as incomprehensible at all. We must accept them, of course, as
coming from the mind of a devout Catholic and Spanish gentleman, who
belongs to the seventeenth century; but when once that is agreed upon,
there are no difficulties greater than those which we might expect to
find in any system of poetry so remote from our English habits of
thought. There is, for instance, the Divine Philothea, in other words,
our human spirit considered as the destined bride of Christ. This
sacred drama, we may well call it the swan-song of Calderon's extreme
old age, is steeped throughout in a serene power and a mellow beauty of
style, making it not unworthy to be ranked with that Oedipus Colonaeus
which glorified the sun-set of his illustrious predecessor: but yet,
Protestant as I am, I cannot discover that it is in the least obscure.
Faith, Hope, Charity, the Five Senses, Heresy, Judaism, Paganism,
Atheism, and the like, which in inferior hands must have been mere lay
figures, are there instinct with a dramatic life and energy such as
beforehand I could hardly have supposed possible. Moreover, in spite of
Dr. Lorinzer's odd encomiums, each allegory as it rises is more neatly
rounded off, and shows a finer grain, than any of the personifications
of Spenser; so that the religious effect and the theological effect
intended by the writer, are both amply produced--yes, produced upon us,
his heretical admirers. Hence, even if there be mysterious treasures of
beauty below the surface, to which we aliens must remain blind for ever,
this expression, which broke from the lips of one to whom I was eagerly
reading [Mr. Mac-Carthy's translation of] the play, 'Why, in the
original this must be as grand as Dante', tends to show that such merits
as do come within our ken are not likely to be thrown away upon any
fair-minded Protestant. Dr. Newman, as a Catholic, will have entered, I
presume, more deeply still into the spirit of these extraordinary
creations; his life, however, belongs to a different era and to a
colder people. And thus, however much he may have been directed to the
choice of a subject by the old Mysteries and Moralities (of which these
Spanish Autos must be taken as the final development and bright
consummate flower), he has treated that subject, when once undertaken by
him, entirely from his own point of view. 'Gerontius' is meant to be
studied and dwelt upon by the meditative reader. The Autos of Calderon
were got ready by perhaps the most accomplished playwright that ever
lived, to amuse and stimulate a thronging southern population.
'Gerontius' is, we may perhaps say for Dr. Newman in the words of
Shelley,
'The voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought';
whilst the conceptions of the Spanish dramatist burst into life with
tumultuous music, gorgeous scenery, and all the pomp and splendour of
the Catholic Church. No wonder therefore that our English Auto, though
composed with the same genuine purpose of using verse, and dramatic
verse, to promote a religious and even a theological end, should differ
from them in essence as well as in form. There is room however for both
kinds in the wide empire of Poetry, and though Dr. Newman himself would
be the first to cry shame upon me if I were to name him with Calderon
even for a moment, still his Mystery of this most unmysterious age will,
I believe, keep its honourable place in our English literature as an
impressive, an attractive, and an original production"--pp. 109, 115.
I may mention that the volume containing Belshazzar's Feast, and The
Divine Philothea, the Auto particularly referred to by Sir F. H. Doyle,
has been called Mysteries of Corpus Christi by the publisher. A not
inappropriate title, it would seem, from the last observations of the
distinguished Professor. A third Auto, The Sorceries of Sin, is given
in my Three Plays of Calderon, now on sale by Mr. B. Quaritch, 15
Piccadilly, London. The Divine Philothea, The Sorceries of Sin, and
Belshazzar's Feast are the only Autos of Calderon that have ever been
translated either fully, or, with one exception, even partially into
English.
D. F. MAC-CARTHY.
74 Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin,
March 1, 1870.
* AUTOS SACRAMENTALES: THE DIVINE PHILOTHEA: BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. Two
Autos, from the Spanish of Calderon. With a Commentary from the German
of Dr. Franz Lorinser. By Denis Florence Mac-Carthy, M.R.I.A. Dublin:
James Duffy, 15 Wellington Quay, and 22 Paternoster Row, London.
+ LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1868. By Sir F.
H. Doyle Bart., M.A., B.C L., Late Fellow of All Souls', Professor of
Poetry. London: Macmillan & Co., 1869.
THE TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN.[1]
INTRODUCTION.
IN the "Teatro escogido de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca" (1868), at
present in course of publication by the Royal Academy of Madrid,
Calderon's dramas, exclusive of the autos sacramentales, which do not
form a part of the collection, are divided into eight classes. The
seventh of these comprises what the editor calls mystical dramas, and
those founded on the Legends or the Lives of Saints. The eighth
contains the philosophical or purely ideal dramas. This last division,
in which the editor evidently thinks the genius of Calderon attained its
highest development, at least as far as the secular theatre is
concerned, contains but two dramas, The Wonder-working Magician, and
Life's a Dream. The mystical dramas, which form the seventh division,
are more numerous, but of these five are at present known to us only by
name. Those that remain are Day-break in Copacabana, The Chains of the
Demon, The Devotion of the Cross, The Purgatory of St. Patrick, The
Sibyl of the East, The Virgin of the Sanctuary, and The Two Lovers of
Heaven. The editor, Sr. D. P. De La Escosura, seems to think it
necessary to offer some apology for not including The Two Lovers of
Heaven among the philosophical instead of the mystical dramas. He says:
"There is a great analogy and, perhaps, resemblance between "El Magico
Prodigioso" (The Wonder-working Magician), and "Los dos amantes del
cielo" (The Two Lovers of Heaven); but in the second, as it seems to us,
the purely mystical predominates in such a manner over the
philosophical, that it does not admit of its being classified in the
same group as the first (El Magico Prodigioso), and La Vida es Sueno
(Life's a Dream)". Introduccion, p. cxxxvii. note. Whether this
distinction is well founded or not it is unnecessary to determine. It
is sufficient for our purpose that it establishes the high position
among the greatest plays of Calderon of the drama which is here
presented to the English reader in the peculiar and always difficult
versification of the original. Whether less philosophical or more
mystical than The Wonder-working Magician, The Two Lovers of Heaven
possesses a charm of its own in which its more famous rival seems
deficient. In the admirable "Essay on the Genius of Calderon" (ch. ii.
p. 34), with which Archbishop Trench introduces his spirited analysis of
La Vida es Sueno, he refers to the group of dramas which forms, with one
exception, the seventh and eighth divisions of the classification above
referred to, and pays a just tribute to the superior merits of Los dos
amantes del cielo. After alluding to the dramas, the argument of which
is drawn from the Old Testament, and especially to The Locks of Absalom,
which he considers the noblest specimen, he continues: "Still more have
to do with the heroic martyrdoms and other legends of Christian
antiquity, the victories of the Cross of Christ over all the fleshly and
spiritual wickednesses of the ancient heathen world. To this theme,
which is one almost undrawn upon in our Elizabethan drama,--Massinger's
Virgin Martyr is the only example I remember,--he returns continually,
and he has elaborated these plays with peculiar care. Of these The
Wonder-working Magician is most celebrated; but others, as The Joseph of
Women, The Two Lovers of Heaven, quite deserve to be placed on a level,
if not higher than it. A tender pathetic grace is shed over this last,
which gives it a peculiar charm. Then too he has occupied what one
might venture to call the region of sacred mythology, as in The Sibyl of
the East, in which the profound legends identifying the Cross of Calvary
and the Tree of Life are wrought up into a poem of surpassing
beauty".[2] An excellent German version of Los dos amantes del cielo is
to be found in the second volume of the "Spanisches Theater", by Schack,
whose important work on Dramatic Art and Literature in Spain, is still
untranslated into the language of that country,--a singular neglect,
when his later and less elaborate work, "Poesie and Kunst der Araber in
Spanien und Sicilien" (Berlin, 1865), has already found an excellent
Spanish interpreter in Don Juan Valera, two volumes of whose "Poesia y
Arte de los Arabes en Espana y Sicilia" (Madrid, 1868), I was fortunate
enough to meet with during a recent visit to Spain.
The story of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria (The Two Lovers of Heaven), whose
martyrdom took place at Rome A.D. 284, and whose festival occurs on the
25th of October, is to be found in a very abridged form in the "Legenda
Aurea" of Jacobus de Voragine, c. 152. The fullest account, and that
which Calderon had evidently before him when writing The Two Lovers of
Heaven, is given by Surius in his great work, "De Probatis Sanctorum
Vitis", October, p. 378. This history is referred to by Villegas at the
conclusion of his own condensed narrative in the following passage,
which I take from the old English version of his Lives of Saints, by
John Heigham, anno 1630.
"The Church doth celebrate the feast of SS. Chrisanthus and Daria, the
25th of October, and their death was in the year of our Lord God 284, in
the raigne of Numerianus, Emperor. The martyrdom of these saints was
written by Verinus and Armenius, priests of St. Stephen, Pope and
Martyr: Metaphrastes enlarged it somewhat more. St. Damasus made
certain eloquent verses in praise of these saints, and set them on their
tombe. There is mention of them also in the Romaine Martirologe, and in
that of Usuardus: as also in the 5. tome of Surius; in Cardinal
Baronius, and Gregory of Turonensis", p. 849.
A different abridgment of the story as given by Surius, is to be found
in Ribadeneyra's "Flos Sanctorum" (the edition before me being that of
Barcelona, 1790, t. 3. p. 304). It concludes with the same list of
authorities, which, however, is given with more precision. The old
English translation by W. P. Esq., second edition: London, 1730, p. 369,
gives them thus:
"Surius in his fifth tome, and Cardinal Baronius in his 'Annotations
upon the Martyrologies', and in the second tome of his Annals, and St.
Gregory of Tours in his 'Book of the Glory of the Martyrs', make mention
of the Saints Chrysanthus and Daria".
The following is taken from Caxton's Golden Legende, or translation of
the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine. I have transcribed from the
following edition, which is thus described in the Colophon:
"The legende named in latyn Legenda Aurea, that is to say in englyshe
the golden legende, For lyke as golde passeth all other metalles, so
this boke excedeth all other bokes". "Finyshed the xxvii daye of
August, the yere of our lord M. CCCCC. XXVII, the xix yere of the regne
of our souverayne lord Kynge Henry the eyght. Imprynted at London in
Flete Strete at the Sygne of the Sonne by Wynkyn de Worde".
In the following extract the spelling is somewhat modernised, and a few
obsolete words are omitted.
"The Life of Saynt Crysant and Saynte Daria".
Fo. cc. lxxxv.
"Here followeth the lyfe of Saynt Crysaunt, and fyrst of his name. And
of Saynte Daria, and of her name.
"Of Crysaunt is said as growen and multyplyed of God. For when his
father would have made hym do sacrifyce to the idols, God gave to hym
force and power to contrary and gaynsay his father, and yield himself to
God. Daria is sayd of dare to give, for she gave her to two thynges.
Fyrst will to do evil, when she had will to draw Crysaunt to sacrifyce
to the idols. And after she gave her to good will when Crysaunt had
converted her to Almighty God.
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