The Purgatory of St. Patrick | Page 6

share it cuts the azure mass,
A fish of the wind, a swift
bird of the sea,
And being for two elements designed,
Flies in the
wave and swims upon the wind?
But now no witchery
Were it to
any eyes that sight to see;
For lo! the roused-up ocean,
Heaving
with all its mountain waves in motion,
Wrinkles its haughty brow,

And suddenly awaking,
Neptune, his trident shaking,
Ruffles the
beauteous face so sweet and calm but now.
Well may the sailor in his
floating home

Expect a storm, for, lo! in heaven's high vault
Rise
pyramids of ice, mountains of salt,
Turrets of snow, and palaces of

foam.
POLONIA returns.
POLONIA. O dire misfortune!
KING. What so suddenly
Has chanced, Polonia?
POLONIA. This inconstant sea,
This Babel of wild waves that seeks
heaven's gate,
So great its fury, and its rage so great,
Driven by a
drought accursed,
(Who would have thought that waves themselves
could thirst?) Has swallowed in the depths of its dread womb,
But
now, a numerous company, to whom
It consecrates below
Red
sepulchres of coral, tombs of snow,
In silver-shining caves;
For
from their prison out o'er all the waves
Has Aeolus the winds let
loose, and they,
Without a law to guide them on their way,
Fell on
that bark from which the trumpet rang,
A swan whose own sad
obsequies it sang.
I from that cliff's stupendous height,
Which dares
to intercept the great sun's light,
Looked full of hope along that
vessel's track,
To see if it was Philip who came back;
Philip whose
flag had borne upon the breeze
Thy royal arms triumphant through
the seas;
When his sad wreck swept by,
And every sound was
buried in a sigh,
His ruin seemed not wrought by seas or skies,
But
by my lips and eyes,
Because my cries, the tears that made me blind,

Increased still more the water and the wind.
KING. How! ye immortal deities,
Would you still try by threatenings
such as these
What I can bear?
Is it your wish that I should mount
and tear
This azure palace down, as if the shape
Of a new Nimrod*
I assumed, to show
How on my shoulders might the world escape,

Nor as I gazed below
Feel any fear, though all the abysses under

Were rent with fire and flame, with lightning and with thunder.
[footnote] *Nimrod is here used for Atlas. "Nimrod aber ist hier, was
den Profandichtern und auch dem Calderon oft Atlas ist." -- Schmidt,

'Die Schauspiele Calderon's' etc.,' p. 426.

SCENE II.
PATRICK, and then LUIS ENIUS.
PATRICK [within]. Ah me!
LEOGAIRE. Some mournful voice.
KING. What's this?
CAPTAIN. The form,
As of a man who has escaped the storm,

Swims yonder to the land.
LESBIA. And strives to give a life-sustaining hand
Unto another
wretch, when he
Appeared about to sink in death's last agony.
POLONIA. Poor traveller from afar,
Whom evil fate and thy
malignant star
On this far shore have cast,
Let my voice guide thee,
if amid the blast
My accents thou canst hear; since it is only
To
rouse thy courage that I speak to thee.
Come!
[Enter PATRICK and LUIS ENIUS, clasping each other.
PATRICK. Oh, God save me!
LUIS. Oh, the devil save ME!
LESBIA. They move my pity, these unhappy two.
KING. Not mine, for what it is I never knew.
PATRICK. Oh, sirs, if wretchedness
Can move most hearts to pity
man's distress,
I will not think that here
A heart can be so cruel and
severe
As to repel a wretch from out the wave.
Pity, for God's sake,

at your feet I crave.
LUIS. I don't, for I disdain it.
From God or man I never hope to gain
it.
KING. Say who you are; we then shall know
What hospitable care
your needs we owe.
But first I will inform you of my name,
Lest
ignorance of that perchance might claim
Exemption from respect, and
words be said
Unworthy of the deference and the dread
That here
my subjects show me,
Or wanting the due homage that you owe me.

I am the King Egerius,
The worthy lord of this small realm, for
thus
I call it being mine;
Till 'tis the world, my sword shall not
resign
Its valorous hope. The dress,
Not of a king, but of wild
savageness
I wear: to testify,
Thus seeming a wild beast, how wild
am I.
No god my worship claims;
I do not even know the deities'
names:
Here they no service nor respect receive;
To die and to be
born is all that we believe.
Now that you know how much you should
revere
My royal state, say who you are.
PATRICK. Then hear:
Patrick is my name, my country
Ireland, and
an humble hamlet,*
Scarcely known to men, called Empthor,**
Is
my place of birth: It standeth
Midway 'twixt the north and west,
On
a mountain which is guarded
As a prison by the sea,--
In the island
which hereafter
Will be called the Isle of Saints,
To its glory
everlasting;
Such a crowd, great lord, therein
Will give up their
lives as martyrs
In religious attestation
Of the faith, faith's highest
marvel.
Of an Irish cavalier,
And of his chaste spouse and partner,

A French lady, I was born,

Unto whom I owe (oh, happy
That
'twas so!), beyond my birthright
Of nobility, the vantage
Of the
Christian