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Segismundo's Soliloquy on Liberty in Calderon's La Vida es Sueño

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Milton A. Buchanan
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Extract

Spanish poets of the seventeenth century were very fond of the contrast between the physical limitations of men, especially when prisoners,—“ ces eternels envieux des mouches et des oiseaux” (Victor Hugo)—and the freedom of birds that fly at will, or of “ fishes that tipple in the deep.” But nowhere has the comparison been given such artistic form and signal appropriateness as in the mouth of Calderon's hero, Segismundo. This young Titan felt himself fettered by stone walls. They were a real prison to him and he rebelled against his lot. He was not in a mood to admit, had it even occurred to him to do so, the superior advantage of man's mental freedom over the physical freedom of fishes and birds and brutes, or running brooks. But the thought was not original with Calderon, nor, according to Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, was it original with any of Calderon's immediate predecessors, but went back to the Greek philosopher, Philo. Lope de Vega was probably the first to transplant the conceit to Spanish soil,—and it bore abundant fruit. In one of his early plays, El Remedio en la desdicha, written before the close of the sixteenth century, occur the following verses:

      Rendido estoy á tu nobleza, y veo
      Que mi ignorancia fué mi propio engaño;
      Aunque si amor á todos da disculpa,
      ¿ Porqué no la tendrán mi amor y celos ?
      Si tú, si tus soldados, si los hombres
      Si las aves, los peces, si las fieras,
      Si todo sabe amor, si todo teme
      Perder su bien, y con sus celos propios
      Defiende casa, nido, mar y cueva,
      Llora, lamenta, gime, y brama; advierte
      Que celos y sospechas me obligaron
      Al desatino que á tus pies me rinde.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , 1908 , pp. 240 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1908

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References

page 240 note 1 See the Acad. ed. of Lope de Vega, iv, xxxviii, where it is stated that the indebtedness to the Greek writer was first noted by Joseph Fernández Vinjoy, in his translation of Philo's , El Republico más sabio, 1788. The text was accessible to sixteenth and seventeenth century poets in Segismundo Galenio's translation. Vinjoy's work is very rare,—there is no copy at the National Library, Madrid. The treatise in question is not found in any of the editions of Philo's works accessible to me.

page 240 note 2 Ed. Rivad., iii, 144c–145. It may be noted here, once and for all, that, unless indicated, the material of this study, has not been used before in this connection.

page 242 note 1 Noted by Krenkel in his edition of La vida es sueño, 1881, pp. 18–19.

page 242 note 2 Ed. Rivad., ii, 508.

page 243 note 1 Ibid., 511b.

page 243 note 2 Ed. Acad., iv, 400. A passage in Lope's El Milagro por los celos, ibid., x, 205b, is more remotely reminiscent of the same thought.

page 244 note 1 Ed. Morel-Fatio, 1. 307.

page 244 note 2 Ed. Acad., x, 455.

page 244 note 3 MS. Bibl. nac., Madrid, catál. No. 2763, fol. 5. Headers will recall that there is something remotely akin in that classic selection, Ufano, alegre, altivo, enamorado … often attributed to Mira. There too we have a comparison suggested between man and a bird (el pardo gilguerillo), a lambkin, etc.

page 245 note 1 Parte treinta y tres de comedias nuevas … 1670, 179. The play is of uncertain date, but seems to be one of Mira's early productions.

page 246 note 1 MS., 1219, Bibl. nac., Madrid. The text is hopelessly corrupt and the variants, which the manuscript offers repeatedly, are of little avail.

page 246 note 2 Act I, sc. x.

page 246 note 3 The use of the refrain in monologues is worth insisting upon. Some readers may recall how effective it is in Lisardo's soliloquy in Lope's La Have de la honra (ed. Eivad., ii, 129–30). Another version (in décimas) by Mira will be found in No hay dicha … (Act. III) dated 1628. The refrain is interesting:

Y siendo yo racional
es eterna mi tristeza.

page 247 note 1 Ed. Eivad, p. 332.

page 248 note 1 Lope, ed. Acad., vii, p. cxxix; noted by Castro in Una joya desconocida de Calderon, 1881 (2nd ed.), 29 n.

page 249 note 1 I cite from my copy of a suelta, published at Salamanca, Imprenta de la Santa Cruz, pp. 12–13.

page 250 note 1 All the parallels referred to have been noted before, by Schmidt, Krenkel, etc.

page 250 note 2 Ed. Rivad., iv, 156c–157.

page 250 note 3 Ed. Bivad., iii, 531b.

page 251 note 1 Ibid., 334.

page 252 note 1 Ibid., ii, 576c.