作者:卡尔德隆,高乃依,拉辛,莫里哀,莱辛,席勒 等
出版社:万卷出版公司
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
百年哈佛经典(26-50)(套装共25册)试读:
总目录
CONTENT封面版权信息百年哈佛经典第26卷:欧洲大陆戏剧(英文原版)
百年哈佛经典第27卷:英国名家随笔(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第28卷:英国与美国名家随笔(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第29卷:比格尔号上的旅行(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第30卷:科学论文集:物理学、化学、天文学、地质学(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第31卷:契里尼自传(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第32卷:文学和哲学名家随笔(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第33卷:古代和现代著名航海与旅行记(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第34卷:法国和英国著名哲学家(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第35卷:见闻与传奇(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第36卷: 君王论(英文原版)乌托邦(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第37卷:17、18世纪英国著名哲学家(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第38卷:科学论文集:物理学、医学、外科学和地质学(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第39卷:名著之前言与序言(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第40卷:英文诗集(卷I):从乔叟到格雷(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第41卷:英文诗集(卷II):从科林斯到费兹杰拉德(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第42卷:英文诗集(卷III):从丁尼生到惠特曼(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第43卷:美国历史文件:1000-1904(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第44卷:圣书(卷一):孔子 希伯来书 基督圣经(I)(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第45卷:圣书(卷二) 基督圣经(II)(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第46卷:伊利莎白时期戏剧(卷I)(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第47卷:伊利莎白时期戏剧(卷II)(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第48卷:帕斯卡文集(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第49卷:史诗与传说(英文原版)百年哈佛经典第50卷:哈佛经典讲座(英文原版)返回总目录
目录CONTENT百年哈佛经典第26卷:欧洲大陆戏剧(英文原版)
LIFE IS A DREAM
POLYEUCTE
PHÆDRA
TARTUFFE OR THE HYPOCRITE
MINNA VON BARNHELM
WILHELM TELL返回总目录LIFE IS A DREAM
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
THE present volume aims to represent, as far as the limits of space allow, the chief dramatists of Spain, France, and Germany. To the plays included here should be added the “Faust” and “Egmont” of Goethe, printed in another volume of this series. These eight works, along with the specimens of the Elizabethan and modern English drama given in the Harvard Classics, indicate the high-water mark of dramatic production in modern times, and afford a basis for comparison with the masterpieces of the drama of antiquity as represented in the volume of “Nine Greek Dramas.”
Pedro Calderon de la Barca was born in Madrid, January 17, 1600, of good family. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Madrid and at the University of Salamanca; and a doubtful tradition says that he began to write plays at the age of thirteen. His literary activity was interrupted for ten years, 1625-1635, by military service in Italy and the Low Countries, and again for a year or more in Catalonia. In 1637 he became a Knight of the Order of Santiago, and in 1651 he entered the priesthood, rising to the dignity of Superior of the Brotherhood of San Pedro in Madrid. He held various offices in the court of Philip IV, who rewarded his services with pensions, and had his plays produced with great splendor. He died May 5, 1681.
At the time when Calderon began to compose for the stage, the Spanish drama was at its height. Lope de Vega, the most prolific and, with Calderon, the greatest, of Spanish dramatists, was still alive; and by his applause gave encouragement to the beginner whose fame was to rival his own. The national type of drama which Lope had established was maintained in its essential characteristics by Calderon, and he produced abundant specimens of all its varieties. Of regular plays he has left a hundred and twenty; of “Autos Sacramentales,” the peculiar Spanish allegorical development of the medieval mystery, we have seventy-three; besides a considerable number of farces.
The dominant motives in Calderon's dramas are characteristically national: fervid loyalty to Church and King, and a sense of honor heightened almost to the point of the fantastic. Though his plays are laid in a great variety of scenes and ages, the sentiment and the characters remain essentially Spanish; and this intensely local quality has probably lessened the vogue of Calderon in other countries. In the construction and conduct of his plots he showed great skill, yet the ingenuity expended in the management of the story did not restrain the fiery emotion and opulent imagination which mark his finest speeches and give them a lyric quality which some critics regard as his greatest distinction.
Of all Calderon's works, “Life is a Dream” may be regarded as the most universal in its theme. It seeks to teach a lesson that may be learned from the philosophers and religious thinkers of many ages—that the world of our senses is a mere shadow, and that the only reality is to be found in the invisible and eternal. The story which forms its basis is Oriental in origin, and in the form of the legend of “Barlaam and Josaphat” was familiar in all the literatures of the Middle Ages. Combined with this in the plot is the tale of Abou Hassan from the “Arabian Nights,” the main situations in which are turned to farcical purposes in the Induction to the Shakespearean “Taming of the Shrew.” But with Calderon the theme is lifted altogether out of the atmosphere of comedy, and is worked up with poetic sentiment and a touch of mysticism into a symbolic drama of profound and universal philosophical significance.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
BASILIO · · King of Poland.
SEGISMUND· · his Son.
ASTOLFO · · his Nephew.
ESTRELLA · · his Niece.
CLOTALDO· · a General in Basilio's Service.
ROSAURA· · a Muscovite Lady.
FIFE· · her Attendant.
CHAMBERLAIN, LORDS-IN-WAITING, OFFICERS, SOLDIERS,
ETC., IN BASILIO'S SERVICE.
The Scene of the first and third Acts lies on the Polish
frontier: of the second Act, in Warsaw.
ACT I
SCENE I.—A pass of rocks, over which a storm is rolling away, and the sun setting: in the foreground, half-way down, a fortress.
Enter first from the topmost rock ROSAURA, as from注1
horseback, in man's attire; and, after her, FIFE
Rosaura
THERE, four-footed Fury, blast-
engender'd brute, without the wit
Of brute, or mouth to match the bit
Of man—art satisfied at last?
Who, when thunder roll'd aloof,
Tow'rd the spheres of fire your ears
Pricking, and the granite kicking
Into lightning with your hoof,
Among the tempest-shatter'd crags
Shattering your luckless rider
Back into the tempest pass'd?
There then lie to starve and die,
Or find another Phaeton
Mad-mettled as yourself; for I,
Wearied, worried, and for-done,
Alone will down the mountain try,
That knits his brows against the sun.
FIFE (as to his mule). There, thou mis-begotten thing,
Long-ear'd lightning, tail'd tornado,
Griffin-hoof-in hurricano,—
(I might swear till I were almost
Hoarse with roaring Asonante)
Who forsooth because our betters
Would begin to kick and fling—
You forthwith your noble mind
Must prove, and kick me off behind,
Tow'rd the very centre whither
Gravity was most inclined.
There where you have made your bed
In it lie; for, wet or dry,
Let what will for me betide you,
Burning, blowing, freezing, hailing;
Famine waste you: devil ride you:
Tempest baste you black and blue:—
(To Rosaura.) There! I think in downright railing
I can hold my own with you.
ROS. Ah, my good Fife, whose merry loyal pipe,
Come weal, come woe, is never out of tune—
What, you in the same plight too?
FIFE. AY;
And madam—sir—hereby desire,
When you your own adventures sing
Another time in lofty rhyme,
You don't forget the trusty squire
Who went with you Don-quixoting.
ROS. Well, my good fellow—to leave Pegasus
Who scarce can serve us than our horses worse—
They say no one should rob another of
The single satisfaction he has left
Of singing his own sorrows; one so great,
So says some great philosopher, that trouble
Were worth encount'ring only for the sake
Of weeping over—what perhaps you know
Some poet calls the ‘luxury of woe.’
FIFE. Had I the poet or philosopher
In the place of her that kick'd me off to ride,
I'd test his theory upon his hide.
But no bones broken, madam—sir, I mean?—
ROS. A scratch here that a handkerchief will heal—
And you?—
FIFE. A scratch in quiddity, or kind:
But not in ‘quo’—my wounds are all behind.
But, as you say, to stop this strain,
Which, somehow, once one's in the vein,
Comes clattering after—there again!—
What are we twain—deuce take't!—we two,
I mean, to do—drench'd through and through—
Oh, I shall choke of rhymes, which I believe
Are all that we shall have to live on here.
ROS. What, is our victual gone too?—
FIFE.Ay, that brute
Has carried all we had away with her,
Clothing, and cate, and all.
ROS.And now the sun,
Our only friend and guide, about to sink
Under the stage of earth.
FIFE.And enter Night,
With Capa y Espada—and—pray heaven!—
With but her lanthorn also.
ROS.Ah, I doubt
To-night, if any, with a dark one—or
Almost burnt out after a month's consumption.
Well! well or ill, on horseback or afoot,
This is the gate that lets me into Poland;
And, sorry welcome as she gives a guest
Who writes his own arrival on her rocks
In his own blood—
Yet better on her stony threshold die,
Than live on unrevenged in Muscovy.
FIFE. Oh, what a soul some women have—I mean
Some men—
ROS. Oh, Fife, Fife, as you love me, Fife,
Make yourself perfect in that little part,
Or all will go to ruin!
FIFE. Oh, I will,
Please God we find some one to try it on.
But, truly, would not any one believe
Some fairy had exchanged us as we lay
Two tiny foster-children in one cradle?
ROS. Well, be that as it may, Fife, it reminds me
Of what perhaps I should have thought before,
But better late than never—You know I love you,
As you, I know, love me, and loyally
Have follow'd me thus far in my wild venture.
Well! now then—having seen me safe thus far—
Safe if not wholly sound—over the rocks
Into the country where my business lies—
Why should not you return the way we came,
The storm all clear'd away, and, leaving me
(Who now shall want you, though not thank you, less,
Now that our horses gone) this side the ridge,
Find your way back to dear old home again;
While I—Come, come!—
What, weeping my poor fellow?—
FIFE.Leave you here
Alone—my Lady—Lord! I mean my Lord—
In a strange country—among savages—
Oh, now I know—you would be rid of me
For fear my stumbling speech—
ROS.Oh, no, no, no!—
I want you with me for a thousand sakes
To which that is as nothing—I myself
More apt to let the secret out myself
Without your help at all—Come, come, cheer up!
And if you sing again, ‘Come weal, come woe,’
Let it be that; for we will never part
Until you give the signal.
FIFE. 'Tis a bargain.
ROS. Now to begin, then. ‘Follow, follow me,‘You fairy elves that be.’
FIFE. Ay, and go on—
Something of ‘following darkness like a dream,’
For that we're after.
ROS. No, after the sun;
Trying to catch hold of his glittering skirts
That hang upon the mountain as he goes.
FIFE. Ah, he's himself past catching—as you spoke
He heard what you were saying, and—just so—
Like some scared water-bird,
As we say in my country, dōve below.
ROS. Well, we must follow him as best we may
Poland is no great country, and, as rich
In men and means, will but few acres spare
To lie beneath her barrier mountains bare.
We cannot, I believe, be very far
From mankind or their dwellings.
FIFE. Send it so!
And well provided for man, woman, and beast.
No, not for beast. Ah, but my heart begins
To yearn for her—
ROS. Keep close, and keep your feet
From serving you as hers did.
FIFE. As for beasts,
If in default of other entertainment,
We should provide them with ourselves to eat—
Bears, lions, wolves—
ROS.Oh, never fear.
FIFE.Or else
Default of other beasts, beastlier men,
Cannibals, Anthropophagi, bare Poles
Who never knew a tailor but by taste.
ROS. Look, look! Unless my fancy misconceive
With twilight—down among the rocks there, Fife—
Some human dwelling, surely—
Or think you but a rock torn from the rocks
In some convulsion like to-day's, and perch'd
Quaintly among them in mock-masonry?
FIFE. Most likely that, I doubt.
ROS.No, no—for look!
A square of darkness opening in it—
FIFE.Oh,
I don't half like such openings!—
ROS.Like the loom
Of night from which she spins her outer gloom—
FIFE. Lord, Madam, pray forbear this tragic vein
In such a time and place—
ROS.And now again
Within that square of darkness, look! a light
That feels its way with hesitating pulse,
As we do, through the darkness that it drives
To blacken into deeper night beyond.
FIFE. In which could we follow that light's example,
As might some English Bardolph with his nose,
We might defy the sunset—Hark, a chain!
ROS. And now a lamp, a lamp! And now the hand
That carries it.
FIFE. Oh, Lord! that dreadful chain!
ROS. And now the bearer of the lamp; indeed
As strange as any in Arabian tale,
So giant-like, and terrible, and grand,
Spite of the skin he's wrapt in.
FIFE.Why, 'tis his own:
Oh, 'tis some wild man of the woods; I've heard
They build and carry torches—
ROS.Never Ape
Bore such a brow before the heavens as that—
Chain'd as you say too!—
FIFE.Oh, that dreadful chain!
ROS. And now he sets the lamp down by his side,
And with one hand clench'd in his tangled hair
And with a sigh as if his heart would break—
[During this SEGISMUND has entered from the
fortress, with a torch.
SEGISMUND. Once more the storm has roar'd itself away,
Splitting the crags of God as it retires;
But sparing still what it should only blast,
This guilty piece of human handiwork,
And all that are within it. Oh, how oft,
How oft, within or here abroad, have I
Waited, and in the whisper of my heart
Pray'd for the slanting hand of heaven to strike
The blow myself I dared not, out of fear
Of that Hereafter, worse, they say, than here,
Plunged headlong in, but, till dismissal waited,
To wipe at last all sorrow from men's eyes,
And make this heavy dispensation clear.
Thus have I borne till now, and still endure,
Crouching in sullen impotence day by day,
Till some such out-burst of the elements
Like this rouses the sleeping fire within;
And standing thus upon the threshold of
Another night about to close the door
Upon one wretched day to open it
On one yet wretcheder because one more;—
Once more, you savage heavens, I ask of you—
I, looking up to those relentless eyes
That, now the greater lamp is gone below,
Begin to muster in the listening skies;
In all the shining circuits you have gone
About this theatre of human woe,
What greater sorrow have you gazed upon
Than down this narrow chink you witness still;
And which, did you yourselves not fore-devise,
You registered for others to fulfil!
FIFE. This is some Laureate at a birthday ode;
No wonder we went rhyming.
ROS.Hush! And now
See, starting to his feet, he strides about
Far as his tether'd steps—
SEG.And if the chain
You help'd to rivet round me did contract
Since guiltless infancy from guilt in act;
Of what in aspiration or in thought
Guilty, but in resentment of the wrong
That wreaks revenge on wrong I never wrought
By excommunication from the free
Inheritance that all created life,
Beside myself, is born to—from the wings
That range your own immeasurable blue,
Down to the poor, mute, scale-imprison'd things,
That yet are free to wander, glide, and pass
About that under-sapphire, whereinto
Yourselves transfusing you yourselves englass!
ROS. What mystery is this?
FIFE.Why, the man's mad:
That's all the mystery. That's why he's chain'd—
And why—
SEG. Nor Nature's guiltless life alone—
But that which lives on blood and rapine; nay,
Charter'd with larger liberty to slay
Their guiltless kind, the tyrants of the air
Soar zenith-upward with their screaming prey,
Making pure heaven drop blood upon the stage
Of under earth, where lion, wolf, and bear,
And they that on their treacherous velvet wear注2
Figure and constellation like your own,
With their still living slaughter bound away
Over the barriers of the mountain cage,
Against which one, blood-guiltless, and endued
With aspiration and with aptitude
Transcending other creatures, day by day
Beats himself mad with unavailing rage!
FIFE. Why, that must be the meaning of my mule's
Rebellion—
ROS. Hush!
SEG. But then if murder be
The law by which not only conscience-blind
Creatures, but man too prospers with his kind;
Who leaving all his guilty fellows free,
Under your fatal auspice and divine
Compulsion, leagued in some mysterious ban
Against one innocent and helpless man,
Abuse their liberty to murder mine:
And sworn to silence, like their masters mute
In heaven, and like them twirling through the mask
Of darkness, answering to all I ask,
Point up to them whose work they execute!
ROS. Ev'n as I thought, some poor unhappy wretch,
By man wrong'd, wretched, unrevenged, as I!
Nay, so much worse than I, as by those chains
Clipt of the means of self-revenge on those
Who lay on him what they deserve. And I,
Who taunted Heaven a little while ago
With pouring all its wrath upon my head—
Alas! like him who caught the cast-off husk
Of what another bragg'd of feeding on,
Here's one that from the refuse of my sorrows
Could gather all the banquet he desires!
Poor soul, poor soul!
FIFE. Speak lower—he will hear you.
ROS. And if he should, what then? Why, if he would,
He could not harm me—Nay, and if he could,
Methinks I'd venture something of a life
I care so little for—
SEG. Who's that? Clotaldo? Who are you, I say,
That, venturing in these forbidden rocks,
Have lighted on my miserable life,
And your own death?
ROS. You would not hurt me, surely?
SEG. Not I; but those that, iron as the chain
In which they slay me with a lingering death,
Will slay you with a sudden—Who are you?
ROS. A stranger from across the mountain there,
Who, having lost his way in this strange land
And coming night, drew hither to what seem'd
A human dwelling hidden in these rocks,
And where the voice of human sorrow soon
Told him it was so.
SEG. Ay? But nearer—nearer—
That by this smoky supplement of day
But for a moment I may see who speaks
So pitifully sweet.
FIFE. Take care! take care!
ROS. Alas, poor man, that I, myself so helpless,
Could better help you than by barren pity,
And my poor presence—
SEG.Oh, might that be all!
But that—a few poor moments—and, alas!
The very bliss of having, and the dread
Of losing, under such a penalty
As every moment's having runs more near,
Stifles the very utterance and resource
They cry for quickest; till from sheer despair
Of holding thee, methinks myself would tear
To pieces—
FIFE. There, his word's enough for it.
SEG. Oh, think, if you who move about at will,
And live in sweet communion with your kind,
After an hour lost in these lonely rocks
Hunger and thirst after some human voice
To drink, and human face to feed upon;
What must one do where all is mute, or harsh,
And ev'n the naked face of cruelty
Were better than the mask it works beneath?—
Across the mountain then! Across the mountain!
What if the next world which they tell one of
Be only next across the mountain then,
Though I must never see it till I die,
And you one of its angels?
ROS.Alas; alas!
No angel! And the face you think so fair,
'Tis but the dismal frame-work of these rocks
That makes it seem so; and the world I come from—
Alas, alas, too many faces there
Are but fair vizors to black hearts below,
Or only serve to bring the wearer woe!
But to yourself—If haply the redress
That I am here upon may help to yours.
I heard you tax the heavens with ordering,
And men for executing, what, alas!
I now behold. But why, and who they are
Who do, and you who suffer—
SEG. (pointing upwards). Ask of them,
Whom, as to-night, I have so often ask'd,
And ask'd in vain.
ROS.But surely, surely—
SEG.Hark!
The trumpet of the watch to shut us in.
Oh, should they find you!—Quick! Behind the rocks!
To-morrow—if to-morrow—
ROS. (flinging her sword toward him). Take my sword!
ROSAURA and FIFE hide in the rocks; Enter CLOTALDO
CLOTALDO. These stormy days you like to see the last of
Are but ill opiates, Segismund, I think,
For night to follow: and to-night you seem
More than your wont disorder'd. What! A sword!
Within there!
Enter SOLDIERS with black vizors and torches
FIFE. Here's a pleasant masquerade!
CLO. Whosever watch this was
Will have to pay head-reckoning. Meanwhile,
This weapon had a wearer. Bring him here,
Alive or dead.
SEG. Clotaldo! good Clotaldo!—
CLO. (to Soldiers who enclose Segismund; others searching the rocks). You know your duty.
SOLDIERS (bringing in Rosaura and Fife). Here are two of them,
Whoever more to follow—
CLO.Who are you,
That in defiance of know proclamation
Are found, at night-fall too, about this place?
FIFE. Oh, my Lord, she—I mean he—
ROS.Silence, Fife,
And let me speak for both.—Two foreign men,
To whom your country and its proclamations
Are equally unknown; and had we known,
Ourselves not masters of our lawless beasts
That, terrified by the storm among your rocks,
试读结束[说明:试读内容隐藏了图片]