To dine with me in the hall. You'll fill the seat
Which that unhappy villain held before.
Take this new robe! Wear it and follow me!
And you, the rest of you, conduct that fellow
To his future home and place of occupation,

The gate of the city; where the allies and foreigners,
That he maltreated, may be sure to find him.

[Exeunt.

LIFE A DREAM

BY

PEDRO CALDERON

[Metrical translation by Edward Fitzgerald]

DRAMATIS PERSONE

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.

LIFE A DREAM

ACT FIRST

SCENE I.-A pass of rocks, over which a storm is rolling away, and the sun setting: in the foreground, half way down, a fortress. Enter first, from the topmost rock, Rosaura, as from horseback, in man's attire; and, after her, Fife.*

ROSAURA.-There, four-footed Fury, blast

engender'd brute, without the wit Of brute, or mouth to match the bit

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 misbegotten thing,

As this version of Calderon's drama is not for acting, a higher and wider mountain-scene than practicable may be imag ined for Rosaura's descent in the first act and the soldier's ascent in the last. The bad watch kept by the sentinels who guarded their state-prisoner, together with much

else (not all!) that defies sober sense in this wild drama, I must leave Calderon to answer for; whose audience were not critical of detail and probability, so long as a good story, with strong, rapid, and picturesque action and situation, was set before them.