Keep Your Own Secret E-Book

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

• Herausgeber: Interactive Media
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

"Keep Your Own Secret" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca is a Spanish play. Rosaura disguises herself as a man to escape a vengeful suitor, leading to tangled love triangles. Calderón delves into themes of gender roles, identity, and honor. Amidst humor and mistaken identities, the play unveils society's constraints and personal truths. Through witty dialogue and theatrical twists, it underscores the complexity of relationships and self-discovery, making it a compelling exploration of human nature.

Leseprobe

Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Keep Your Own Secret

Published by Sovereign

This edition first published in 2023

Copyright © 2023 Sovereign

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 9781787367456

Contents

KEEP YOUR OWN SECRET

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

KEEP YOUR OWN SECRET

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

AlexanderPrince of Parma.

Nisidahis Sister.

Don Cesarhis Secretary.

Don Arias} Gentlemen of the Court.

Don Felix

Donna AnnaSister to Don Felix.

Elviraher Maid.

LazaroDon Cesar’s Servant.

ACT I

Scene I.—A Room in the Palace.

Enter the Prince Alexander, and Don Arias.

Prince. I saw her from her carriage, Arias,

As from her East, alight, another sun

New ris’n, or doubling him whose envious ray

Seem’d as I watch’d her down the corridor,

To swoon about her as she moved along;

Until, descending tow’rd my sister’s room,

She set, and left me hesitating like

Some traveller who with the setting sun

Doth fear to lose his way; her image still,

Lost from without, dazzling my inner eye—

Can this be love, Don Arias? if not,

What is it? something much akin to love.

Ar. But had you not, my lord, often before

Seen Donna Anna?

Prince. Often.

Ar. Yet till now

Never thus smitten! how comes that, my lord?

Prince. Well askt—though ignorantly. Know you not

That not an atom in the universe

Moves without some particular impulse

Of heaven? What yesterday I might abhor,

To-day I may delight in: what to-day

Delight in, may as much to-morrow hate.

All changes; ’tis the element the world,

And we who live there, move in. Thus with me;

This lady I have often seen before,

And, as you say, was ne’er a sigh the worse,

Until to-day; when, whether she more fair,

Or I less blind, I know not—only know

That she has slain me; though to you alone

Of all my friends I would my passion own.

Ar. Much thanks; yet I must wonder, good my lord,

First, that in all your commerce with Don Cupid

You never, I think, dealt seriously till now.

Prince. Perhaps: but if Don Cupid, Arias,

Never yet tempted me with such an offer?

Besides, men alter; princes who are born

To greater things than love, nevertheless

May at his feet their sovereignty lay down

Once in their lives; as said the ancient sage—

‘He were a fool who had not done so once,

Though he who does so twice is twice a fool.’

Ar. So much for that. My second wonder is,

That you commit this secret to my keeping;

An honour that, surpassing my desert,

Yea, and ambition, frights me. Good my lord,

Your secretary, Don Cesar,—

To whom you almost trust the government

Of your dominions,—whom you wholly love,

I also love, and would not steal from him

A confidence that is by right his own;

Call him, my lord: into his trusty heart

Pour out your own; let not my loyalty

To you endanger what I owe to him;

For if you lay ’t on me—

Prince. Don Arias,

I love Don Cesar with as whole a heart

As ever. He and I from infancy

Have grown together; as one single soul

Our joys and sorrows shared; till finding him

So wise and true, as to another self

Myself, and my dominion to boot,