The Wonder-Working Magician | Page 3

writer Don Vicente Garcia
de la Huerta, in his "Teatro Espanol" (Parte Segunda, tomo 3o), denies
the existence of this volume of 1635, and states that it did not appear
until 1640. As if to corroborate this view, Barrera in his "Catalogo del
Teatro antiguo Espanol" gives the date 1640 to the "Primera parte de
comedias de Calderon" edited by his brother Joseph.

There can be no doubt, however, that the volume appeared in 1635 or
1636 as stated. In 1637 Don Joseph Calderon published the "Second
Part" of his brother's dramas containing like the former volume twelve
plays.* In his dedication of this volume to D. Rodrigo de Mendoza,
Joseph Calderon expressly alludes to the First Part of his brother's
comedies which he had "printed." "En la primera Parte,
Excellentissimo Senor, de las comedias que imprimi de Don Pedro
Calderon de La Barca, mi hermano," etc. This of course settles the fact
of the prior publication of the first Part. It is singular, however, to find
that the most famous of all Calderon's dramas should have been
frequently ascribed to Lope de Vega. So late as 1857 it is given in an
Italian version by Giovanni La Cecilia, under the title of "La Vita e un
Sogno", as a drama of Lope de Vega, with the date 1628. This of
course is a mistake, but Senor Hartzenbusch, who makes no allusion to
this circumstance, admits that two dramas of Lope de Vega, which it is
presumed preceded the composition of Calderon's play turn on very
nearly the same incidents as those of "La Vida es Sueno". These are
"Lo que ha de ser", and "Barlan y Josafa". He gives a passage from
each of these dramas which seem to be the germ of the fine lament of
Sigismund, which the reader will find translated in the present volume.
[footnote] *In the library of the British Museum there is a fine copy of
this "Segunda Parte de Comedias de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca"
Madrid, 1637. Mr. Ticknor mentions (1863) that he too had a copy of
this interesting volume.
Senor Hartzenbusch, in the edition of Calderon's "La Vida es Sueno",
already referred to (Madrid, 1872), prints the passages from Lope de
Vega's two dramas, but in neither of them, he justly remarks, can we
find anything that at all corresponds to this "grandioso caracter de
Segismundo."
The second drama in this volume, "The Wonderful Magician", is
perhaps better known to poetical students in England than even the first,
from the spirited fragment Shelley has left us in his "Scenes from
Calderon." The preoccupation of a subject by a great master throws
immense difficulties in the way of any one who ventures to follow in

the same path: but as Shelley allowed himself great licence in his
versification, and either from carelessness or an imperfect knowledge
of Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author, it
may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the form
as well as substance of the original may be some compensation for the
absence of those higher poetical harmonies to which many of my
readers will have been accustomed.
"El Magico Prodigioso" appeared for the first time in the same volume
as "La Vida es Sueno", prepared for publication in 1635 by Don Joseph
Calderon. The translation is comprised in the same number of lines as
the original, and all the preceding remarks on "Life is a Dream",
whether in reference to the period of the first publication of the drama
in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting this version
may be applied to it. As in the Case of "Life is a Dream", "The
Wonderful Magician" has previously been translated entire by an
English writer, ("Justina", by J.H. 1848); but as Archbishop Trench
truly observes, "the writer did not possess that command of the
resources of the English language, which none more than Calderon
requires."
The Legend on which Calderon founded "El Magico Prodigioso" will
be found in Surius, "De probatis Sanctorum historiis", t. V. (Col. Agr.
1574), p. 351: "Vita et Martyrium SS. Cypriani et Justinae, autore
Simeone Metaphraste", and in Chapter cxlii, of the "Legenda Aurea" of
Jacobus de Voragine "De Sancta Justina virgine".
The martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their
festival is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of September.
Mr. Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature, 1863, volume ii. p.
369, says that the Wonder-working Magician is founded on "the same
legend on which Milman has founded his 'Martyr of Antioch.'" This is a
mistake of the learned writer. "The Martyr of Antioch" is founded not
on the history of St. Justina but of Saint Margaret, as Milman himself
expressly states.