LIFE IS A DREAM Essay Paper Example For Students

LIFE IS A DREAM Essay Paper A monologue from the play by Pedro Calderon de la Barca NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Eight Dramas of Calderon. Trans. Edward Fitzgerald. London: Macmillan Co., 1906. KING: Rise, both of you,Rise to my arms, Astolfo and Estrella;As my two sisters children always mine,Now more than ever, since myself and PolandSolely to you for our succession lookd.And now give ear, you and your several factions,And you, the Peers and Princes of this realm,While I reveal the purport of this meetingIn words whose necessary length I trustNo unsuccessful issue shall excuse.You and the world who have surnamed me SageKnow that I owe that title, if my due,To my long meditation on the bookWhich ever lying open overheadThe book of heaven, I meanso few have read;Whose golden letters on whose sapphire leaf,Distinguishing the page of day and night,And all the revolution of the year;So with the turning volume where they lieStill changing their prophetic syllables,They register the destinies of men:Until with eyes that, dim with years indeed,Are quicker to pursue the stars than rule them,I get the start of Time, and from his handThe wand of tardy revelation draw.Oh, had the sel f-same heaven upon his pageInscribed my death ere I should read my lifeAnd, by fore-casting of my own mischance,Play not the victim but the suicideIn my own tragedy!But you shall hear.You know how once, as kings must for their people,And only once, as wise men for themselves,I wood and wedded: know too that my QueenIn childbirth died; but not, as you believe,With her, the son she died in giving life to.For, as the hour of birth was on the stroke,Her brain conceiving with her womb, she dreamdA serpent tore her entrail. And too surely(For evil omen seldom speaks in vain)The man-child breaking from that living tombThat makes our birth the antitype of death,Man-grateful, for the life she gave him paidBy killing her: and with such circumstanceAs suited such unnatural tragedy;He coming into light, if light it wereThat darkend at his very horoscope,When heavens two championssun and moon I meanSuffused in blood upon each other fellIn such a raging duel of eclipseAs hath not terrified the un iverseSince that which wept in blood the death of Christ:When the dead walkd, the waters turnd to blood,Earth and her cities totterd, and the worldSeemd shaken to its last paralysis.In such a paroxysm of dissolutionThat son of mine was born; by that first actHeading the monstrous catalogue of crime,I found fore-written in his horoscope;As great a monster in mans historyAs was in nature his nativity;So savage, bloody, terrible, and impious,Who, should he live, would tear his countrys entrails,As by his birth his mothers; with which crimeBeginning, he should clench the dreadful taleBy trampling on his fathers silver head.All which fore-reading, and his act of birthFates warrant that I read his life aright;To save his country from his mothers fate,I gave abroad that he had died with herHis being slew; with midnight secrecyI had him carried to a lonely towerHewn from the mountain-barriers of the realm,And under strict anathema of deathGuarded from mens inquisitive approach,Save from the trusty few one needs must trust;Who while his fastend body they provideWith salutary garb and nourishment,Instruct his soul in what no soul may missOf holy faith, and in such other loreAs may solace his life-imprisonment,And tame perhaps the Savage prophesiedToward such a trial as I aim at now,And now demand your special hearing to.What in this fearful business I have done,Judge whether lightly or maliciously,I, with my own and only flesh and blood,And proper lineal inheritor!I swear, had his foretold atrocitiesTouchd me alone, I had not saved myselfAt such a cost to him; but as a king,A Christian king,I say, advisedly,Who would devote his people to a tyrantWorse than Caligula fore-chronicled?But even this not without mis-giving,Lest by some chance mis-reading of the stars,Or mis-direction of what rightly read,I wrong my son of his prerogative,And Poland of her rightful sovereign.For, sure and certain prophets as the stars,Although they err not, he who reads them may;Or rightly rea dingseeing there is OneWho governs them, as, under Him, they us,We are not sure if the rough diagramThey draw in heaven and we interpret here,Be sure of operation, if the WillSupreme, that sometimes for some special endThe course of providential nature breaksBy miracle, may not of these same starsCancel his own first draft, or overruleWhat else fore-written all else overrules.As, for example, should the Will AlmightyPermit the Free-will of particular manTo break the meshes of else strangling fateWhich Free-will, fearful of foretold abuse,I have myself from my own son for-closedFrom ever possible self-extrication;A terrible responsibility,Not to the conscience to be reconciledUnless opposing almost certain evilAgainst so slight contingency of good.Wellthus perplexd, I have resolved at lastTo bring the thing nto trial: whereuntoHere have I summond you, my Peers, and youWhom I more dearly look to, failing him,As witnesses to that which I propose;And thus propose the doing it. Clotaldo, Who guards my son with old fidelity,Shall bring him hither from his tower by nightLocked in a sleep so fast as by my artI rivet to within a link of death,But yet from death so far, that next days dawnShall wake him up upon the royal bed,Complete in consciousness and faculty,When with all princely pomp and retinueMy loyal Peers with due obeisanceShall hail him Segismund, the Prince of Poland.Then if with any show of human kindnessHe fling discredit, not upon the stars,But upon me, their misinterpreter,With all apology mistaken ageCan make to youth it never meant to harm,To my sons forehead will I shift the crownI long have wishd upon a younger brow;And in religious humiliation,For what of worn-out age remains to me,Entreat my pardon both of Heaven and himFor tempting destinies beyond my reach.But if, as I misdoubt, at his first stepThe hoof of the predicted savage shows;Before predicted mischief can be done,The self-same sleep that loosed him from the chainShall re-consign him, not t o loose again.Then shall I, having lost that heir direct,Look solely to my sisters children twainEach of a claim so equal as dividesThe voice of Poland to their several sides,But, as I trust, to be entwined ere longInto one single wreath so fair and strongAs shall at once all difference atone,And cease the realms division with their own.Cousins and Princes, Peers and Councillors,Such is the purport of this invitation,And such is my design. Whose furtheranceIf not as Sovereign, if not as Seer,Yet one whom these white locks, if nothing else,To patient acquiescence consecrate,I now demand and even supplicate. .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a , .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .postImageUrl , .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a , .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:hover , .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:visited , .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:active { border:0!important; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:active , .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uede6fdd2f8eaac9cc0972f4a55cc0e3a:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" Essay