The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (smart books to read txt) 📖

when a sweet voice sung, When a keen wit glowed and argued, When the instrument was silenced, When the tongue was forced to stammer, Until now, when with free will You succumb to the enchantment Of one fair and fatal face, Which hath done to you such damage That 't will work your final ruin, If the trial longer lasteth?-

CHRYSANTHUS. Oh! my father, oh! my teacher, Hear me, for although the charges Brought against me thus are heavy, Still I to myself have ample Reasons for my exculpation. Since you taught me, you, dear master, That the union of two wills In our law is well established. Be not then displeased, Carpophorus . . . (Aside.) Heavens! what have I said? My father!

(Enter Polemius.)

POLEMIUS (aside). Ah! this name removes all doubt. But I must restrain my anger, And dissemble for the present, If such patience Jove shall grant me:- How are you to-day, Chrysanthus? (aloud.

CHRYSANTHUS. Sir, my love and duty cast them Humbly at your feet: (aside, Thank heaven, That he heard me not, this calmness Cannot be assumed).

POLEMIUS.
I value More than I can say your manner Towards my son, so kind, so zealous For his health.

CARPOPHORUS.
Heaven knows, much farther Even than this is my ambition, Sir, to serve you: but the passions Of Chrysanthus are so strong, That my skill they overmaster.

POLEMIUS. How?

CARPOPHORUS.
Because the means of cure He perversely counteracteth.

CHRYSANTHUS. Ah! sir, no, I 've left undone Nothing that you have commanded.

CARPOPHORUS. No, not so, his greatest peril He has rashly disregarded.

POLEMIUS. I implicitly can trust you, Of whose courage, of whose talents I have been so well informed, That I mean at once to grant them The reward they so well merit.

CARPOPHORUS. Sir, may heaven preserve and guard you.

POLEMIUS. Come with me; for I desire That you should from my apartments Choose what best doth please you; I Do not doubt you 'll find an ample Guerdon for your care.

CARPOPHORUS.
To be Honoured in this public manner Is my best reward.

POLEMIUS (aside).
The world Shall this day a dread example Of my justice see, transcending All recorded in time's annals. (Exeunt Polemius and Carpophorus.)

CHRYSANTHUS. Better than I could have hoped for Has it happened, since my father Shows by his unruffled face That his name he has not gathered. What more evidence can I wish for Than to see the gracious manner In which he conducts him whither His reward he means to grant him? Oh! that love would do as much In the fears and doubts that rack me, Since I cannot wed Daria, And be faithful to Christ's banner.

(Enter Daria.)

DARIA (aside). Tyrant question which methought Timely flight alone could answer, Once again, against my will To his presence thou dost drag me.

CHRYSANTHUS (aside). But she comes again: let sorrow Be awhile replaced by gladness:- Ah! Daria, so resolved[13] (aloud, Not to see or hear me more, Art thou here?

DARIA.
Deep pondering o'er, As the question I revolved, I would have the mystery solved: 'T is for that I 'm here, then see It is not to speak with thee.

CHRYSANTHUS. Speak, what doubt wouldst thou decide?

DARIA. Thou hast said a God once died Through His boundless love to me: Now to bring thee to conviction Let me this one strong point try . . .

CHRYSANTHUS. What?

DARIA.
To be a God, and die, Doth imply a contradiction. And if thou dost still deny To my god the name divine, And reject him in thy scorn For beginning, I opine, If thy God could die, that mine Might as easily be born.

CHRYSANTHUS. Thou dost argue with great skill, But thou must remember still, That He hath, this God of mine, Human nature and divine, And that it has been His will As it were His power to hide- God made man-man deified- When this sinful world He trod, Since He was not born as God, And it was as man He died.

DARIA. Does it not more greatness prove, As among the beauteous stars, That one deity should be Mars, And another should be Jove, Than this blending God above With weak man below? To thee Does not the twin deity Of two gods more power display, Than if in some mystic way God and man conjoined could be?

CHRYSANTHUS. No, I would infer this rather, If the god-head were not one, Each a separate course could run: But the untreated Father, But the sole-begotten Son, But the Holy Spirit who Ever issues from the two, Being one sole God, must be One in power and dignity:- Until thou dost hold this true, Till thy creed is that the Son Was made man, I cannot hear thee, Cannot see thee or come near thee, Thee and death at once to shun.

DARIA. Stay, my love may so be won, And if thou wouldst wish this done, Oh! explain this mystery! What am I to do, ah! me, That my love may thus be tried?

CARPOPHORUS (within). Seek, O soul! seek Him who died Solely for the love of thee.

CHRYSANTHUS. All that I could have replied Has been said thus suddenly By this voice that, sounding near, Strikes upon my startled ear Like the summons of my death.

DARIA. Ah! what frost congeals my breath, Chilling me with icy fear, As I hear its sad lament: Whence did sound the voice? [Enter Polemius and soldiers.

POLEMIUS.
From here: 'T is, Chrysanthus, my intent Thus to place before thy sight- Thus to show thee in what light I regard thy restoration Back to health, the estimation In which I regard the wight Who so skilfully hath cured thee. A surprise I have procured thee, And for him a fit reward: Raise the curtain, draw the cord, See, 't is death! If this . . . (A curtain is drawn aside, and Carpophorus is seen beheaded, the head being at some distance from the body.)

CHRYSANTHUS.
I freeze!-

POLEMIUS. Is the cure of thy disease, What must that disease have been! 'T is Carpophorus. . . .

DARIA.
Dread scene!

POLEMIUS. He who with false science came Not to give thee life indeed, But that he himself should bleed:- That thy fate be not the same, Of his mournful end take heed: Do not thou that dost survive, My revenge still further drive, Since the sentence seems misread- The physician to be dead, And the invalid alive.-

CHRYSANTHUS. It were cruelty extreme, It were some delirious dream, That could see in this the cure Of the ill that I endure.

POLEMIUS. It to him did pity seem, Seemed the sole reward that he Asked or would receive from me: Since when dying, he but cried . .

THE HEAD OF CARPOPHORUS. Seek, O soul! seek Him who died Solely for the love of thee!-

CHRYSANTHUS. What a portent!

DARIA.
What a wonder!

ESCARPIN. Jove! my own head splits asunder!-

POLEMIUS. Even though severed, in it dwells Still the force of magic spells.

CHRYSANTHUS. Sir, it were a fatal blunder To be blind to this appalling Tragedy you wrong by calling The result of spells-no spells Are such signs, but miracles Outside man's experience falling. He came here because he yearned With his pure and holy breath To give life, and so found death. 'T is a lesson that he learned- 'T is a recompense he earned- Seeing what his Lord could do, Being to his Master true: Kill me also: He had one Bright example: shall I shun Death in turn when I have two?

POLEMIUS. I, in listening to thy raving, Scarce can calm the wrath thou 'rt braving. Dead ere now thou sure wouldst lie, Didst thou not desire to die.

CHRYSANTHUS. Father, if the death I 'm craving . . .

POLEMIUS. Speak not thus: no son I know.

CHRYSANTHUS. Not to thee I spoke, for though Humanly thou hast that name, Thou hast forfeited thy claim: I that sweet address now owe Unto him whose holier aim Kindled in my heart a flame Which shall there for ever glow, Woke within me a new soul That thou 'rt powerless to control- Generated a new life Safe against thy hand or knife: Him a father's name I give Who indeed has made me live, Not to him whose tyrant will Only has the power to kill. Therefore on this dear one dead, On this pallid corse laid low, Lying bathed in blood and snow, By this lifeless lodestone led, I such bitter tears shall shed, That my grief . . .

POLEMIUS.
Ho! instantly Tear him from it.

DARIA (aside).
Thus to be By such prodigies surrounded, Leaves me dazzled and confounded.

POLEMIUS. Hide the corse.

ESCARPIN.
Leave that to me (The head and body are concealed).

POLEMIUS. Bear Chrysanthus now away To a tower of darksome gloom Which shall be his living tomb.

CHRYSANTHUS. That I hear with scant dismay, Since the memory of this day With me there will ever dwell. Fair Daria, fare thee well, And since now thou knowest who Died for love of thee, renew The sweet vow that in the dell Once thou gav'st me, Him to love After death who so loved thee.

POLEMIUS. Take him hence.

DARIA.
Ah! suddenly Light descendeth from above Which my darkness doth remove. Now thy shadowed truth I see, Now the Christian's faith profess. Let thy bloody lictors press Round me, racking every limb, Let me only die with him, Since I openly confess That the gods are false whom we Long have worshipped, that I trust Christ alone-the True-the Just- The One God, whose power I see, And who died for love of me.

POLEMIUS. Take her too, since she in this Boasts how