EIGHT DRAMAS
OF
CALDERON
FREELY TRANSLATED
BY
EDWARD FITZGERALD
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1906
All rights reserved
| PAGE | |
| Advertisement | 1 |
| The Painter of his own Dishonour | 3 |
| Keep your own Secret | 80 |
| Gil Perez, the Gallician | 139 |
| Three Judgments at a Blow | 193 |
| The Mayor of Zalamea | 255 |
| Beware of Smooth Water | 309 |
| The Mighty Magician | 369 |
| Such Stuff as Dreams are made of | 441 |
In apologizing for the publication of so free translationsof so famous a poet as Calderon, I must plead,first, that I have not meddled with any of his morefamous plays; not one of those on my list beingmentioned with any praise, or included in any selectionthat I know of, except the homely Mayor of Zalamea.Four of these six indeed, as many others in Calderon,may be lookt on as a better kind of what we callmelodramas. Such plays as the Magico Prodigiosoand the Vida es Sueño (I cannot rank the PrincipeConstante among them) require another translator,and, I think, form of translation.
Secondly, I do not believe an exact translation ofthis poet can be very successful; retaining so muchthat, whether real or dramatic Spanish passion, is stillbombast to English ears, and confounds otherwisedistinct outlines of character; Conceits that were afashion of the day; or idioms that, true and intelligibleto one nation, check the current of sympathy in othersto which they are unfamiliar; violations of the probable,nay possible, that shock even healthy romanticlicence; repetitions of thoughts and images thatCalderon used (and smiled at) as so much stageproperties—so much, in short, that is not Calderon’sown better self, but concession to private haste or[2]public taste by one who so often relied upon somestriking dramatic crisis for success with a not veryaccurate audience, and who, for whatever reason, wasever averse from any of his dramas being printed.
Choosing therefore such less famous plays as stillseemed to me suited to English tast