Life Is a Dream: Segismundo's Monologues
Act One
Segismundo, chained in the tower, alone.
Ah, wretched me! Ah, luckless me!
I want to find out, heavens,
since you treat me in this way,
what crime I ever committed
against you by being born.
Though if I was born, I see
what crime it is I committed;
your justice and your rigour
have had cause enough,
for the greatest crime
of man is to have been born.
I would only like to know,
to settle my sleepless doubts
(leaving aside, heavens,
the crime of being born),
how else could I offend you,
that you should punish me more?
Were the others not born too?
And if the others were born,
what privileges did they have
that I have never enjoyed?
The bird is born, and with the finery
that gives it highest beauty,
it is barely a flower of feathers
or a bouquet with wings
before it cuts swiftly
through the halls of the air,
refusing the shelter
of the nest it leaves behind;
and I, who have more soul,
have I less freedom?
The beast is born, and with a hide
drawn over with lovely spots,
it is barely a map of stars
(thanks to the learned brush)
before, bold and cruel,
the need it shares with humans
teaches it to be fierce,
the monster of its labyrinth;
and I, with better instincts,
have I less freedom?
The fish is born, which does not breathe,
spawned of roe and weed,
and barely sees itself a ship
of scales upon the waves
before it turns every way,
measuring the vastness
of all the room
the cold deep gives it;
and I, with more free will,
have I less freedom?
The stream is born, a snake
that uncoils among the flowers,
and barely a silver serpent
winding through the flowers
before, a musician, it sings
the kindness of the flowers
that grant it the majesty
of the open field for its flight;
and I, who have more life,
have I less freedom?
When I come to this passion,
turned into a volcano, an Etna,
I would tear from my breast
pieces of my heart.
What law, justice or reason
can deny to men
so sweet a privilege,
so principal an exemption,
as God has given to a stream,
a fish, a beast and a bird?
Act Two
Segismundo, back in the tower, on waking.
It is true; then let us restrain
this savage nature,
this fury, this ambition,
in case we ever dream;
and so we shall, for we are
in so singular a world
that to live is only to dream;
and experience teaches me
that the man who lives dreams
what he is, until he wakes.
The king dreams he is king, and lives
in this deceit, commanding,
ordering and governing;
and the applause he receives,
only lent, he writes on the wind,
and death turns it
into ashes, cruel misfortune!
Who would try to reign,
seeing he must wake
in the dream of death?
The rich man dreams his riches,
which only bring him more cares;
the poor man dreams he suffers
his misery and his poverty;
the one beginning to rise dreams,
the one who toils and strives dreams,
the one who wrongs and offends dreams;
and in the world, in short,
all dream what they are,
though none of them understands it.
I dream that I am here,
weighed down with these chains,
and I dreamed that I saw myself
in another, kinder state.
What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
a shadow, a fiction,
and the greatest good is small;
for all of life is a dream,
and dreams are only dreams.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 1635. An excerpt, translated for Zeitzung from the Spanish text at Ciudad Seva. Public domain.