The Wonder-Working Magician

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Title: The Wonder-Working Magician
Author: Pedro Calderon de la Barca
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6372]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
WONDER-WORKING MAGICIAN ***
Produced by Sue Asscher [email protected]

CALDERON'S DRAMAS.
THE WONDER-WORKING MAGICIAN
NOW FIRST TRANSLATED FULLY FROM THE SPANISH IN
THE METRE
OF THE ORIGINAL.
BY
DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.
LONDON: HENRY S. KING & CO.,
65 CORNHILL, AND 12,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1873.
INTRODUCTION.
Two of the dramas contained in this volume are the most celebrated of
all Calderon's writings. The first, "La Vida es Sueno", has been
translated into many languages and performed with success on almost
every stage in Europe but that of England. So late as the winter of
1866-7, in a Russian version, it drew crowded houses to the great
theatre of Moscow; while a few years earlier, as if to give a signal proof
of the reality of its title, and that Life was indeed a Dream, the Queen
of Sweden expired in the theatre of Stockholm during the performance
of "La Vida es Sueno". In England the play has been much studied for
its literary value and the exceeding beauty and lyrical sweetness of
some passages; but with the exception of a version by John Oxenford
published in "The Monthly Magazine" for 1842, which being in blank
verse does not represent the form of the original, no complete
translation into English has been attempted. Some scenes translated
with considerable elegance in the metre of the original were published
by Archbishop Trench in 1856; but these comprised only a portion of

the graver division of the drama. The present version of the entire play
has been made with the advantages which the author's long experience
in the study and interpretation of Calderon has enabled him to apply to
this master-piece of the great Spanish poet. All the forms of verse have
been preserved; while the closeness of the translation may be inferred
from the fact, that not only the whole play but every speech and
fragment of a speech are represented in English in the exact number of
lines of the original, without the sacrifice, it is to be hoped, of one
important idea.
A note by Hartzenbusch in the last edition of the drama published at
Madrid (1872), tells that "La Vida es Sueno", is founded on a story
which turns out to be substantially the same as that with which English
students are familiar as the foundation of the famous Induction to the
"Taming of the Shrew". Calderon found it however in a different work
from that in which Shakespeare met with it, or rather his predecessor,
the anonymous author of "The Taming of a Shrew", whose work
supplied to Shakespeare the materials of his own comedy.
On this subject Malone thus writes. "The circumstance on which the
Induction to the anonymous play, as well as to the present Comedy
[Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew"], is founded, is related (as
Langbaine has observed) by Heuterus, "Rerum Burgund." lib. iv. The
earliest English original of this story in prose that I have met with is the
following, which is found in Goulart's "Admirable and Memorable
Histories", translated by E. Grimstone, quarto, 1607; but this tale
(which Goulart translated from Heuterus) had undoubtedly appeared in
English, in some other shape, before 1594:
"Philip called the good Duke of Burgundy, in the memory of our
ancestors, being at Bruxelles with his Court, and walking one night
after supper through the streets, accompanied by some of his favourites,
he found lying upon the stones a certaine artisan that was very dronke,
and that slept soundly. It pleased the prince in this artisan to make trial
of the vanity