Life's a Dream (La Vida es Sueño): (La Vida es Sueño)

Act 2

Life’s a Dream, Act 2 109 Act 2 HI SCENE 1 (VV. 986–2017). KING’S PALACE. Enter VASILY and CLOTHOLD. CLOTHOLD. Everything you ordered has been carried out. VASILY. Tell me, Clothold, how it went. CLOTHOLD. In this way, my lord. With the soothing concoction you had brewed from a mixture of medicinal herbs, whose tyrannical properties and secret powers so dissipate, rob, and disorient human reasoning that they turn one into a living corpse, and whose potency robs one in his sleep of his senses and faculties—there’s no reason to doubt that this is possible, for so many times, my lord, experiment has shown us, and it’s true, that medicine is full of natural secrets, and there’s no animal, plant, or rock that doesn’t have a determined property; and if human malice has experimented with a thousand poisons in search of their lethal qualities, is it any surprise that, with just a little less potency, a poison that kills could be made to induce sleep? Not at all, for it’s been demonstrated through hypotheses and proofs—with the concoction, I was saying, of opium, poppy leaves, and henbane, I descended to Sigismund’s narrow cell. I talked with him a bit about the lessons he’s been taught by the silent nature of the mountains and sky, under whose divine instruction he learned rhetoric from the birds and the beasts. To elevate his spirit to the level of the task you have in store for him, I Pedro Calderón de la Barca 110 pointed to a majestic eagle and proposed for discussion the swiftness that allowed it, in scorning the sphere of the wind, to become a feathery flare or a runaway comet in the lofty regions of fire. I praised the headstrong flight, saying, “You are, after all, sovereign among birds, so it is natural that you should consider yourself superior to all the rest.” He needed no further prompting, for whenever the topic of sovereign power is discussed, he reasons with ambition and pride because his blood, of course, incites, moves, and animates him to great things, and he said: “To think that in the restless realm of the birds there is one that can command the obedience of all! In this matter my misfortunes console me, since, if I’m subservient to another, it’s only by force because I would never submit of my own free will to another man.” Seeing him enraged by this idea—a constant theme of his grief—I invited him to drink from the potion, and hardly had the elixir passed from the glass to his chest when he surrendered himself to the arms of sleep and a cold sweat coursed through his veins and broke out upon his body, such that, if I hadn’t known it was a simulated death, I would have doubted whether he was alive. At this moment the people to whom you have entrusted the success of this endeavor have arrived and, having placed him in a coach, are taking him to your quarters, which have been prepared with the majesty and grandeur worthy of his person. They will lay him upon your bed where, when the stupor wears off, they will attend to him as if he were you, my lord, for thus you have ordered. And if having obeyed you has earned me any favor, I ask only—and forgive me my impropriety—that you tell me what your intention is in bringing Sigismund to the palace in this way. VASILY. Clothold, your doubt is well founded, and I would like to satisfy it for you alone. The influence of my son Sigismund’s star, as you know, threatens a thousand misfortunes and tragedies. I wish to study whether heaven— which is incapable of lying, especially when it’s already given us, in the prince’s cruel character, so many examples of its accuracy—at least softens or tempers its judgment and, won over through valor and prudence, retracts its prediction; for man ultimately has mastery over the stars. I wish to study this matter by bringing the prince to a place where he’ll discover he’s my son and have his talent put to the test. If he shows virtue and Life’s a Dream, Act 2 111 overcomes his inclinations, he will become king; but if his cruel...