In my first newsletter, I included a quote from Plato questioning whether or not our reality was a dream. When my friend Isabel Osth read those words, they reminded her of lines from a play by the famous Pedro Calderón de la Barca. A Spaniard, writing in the early 17th century, Calderón created a play titled La Vida es Sueño (Life is a Dream). Isabel then did a translation of her favorite passage and sent it to me. I found it haunting and beautiful. Written before the construction of St. Augustine’s Castillo de San Marcos, it almost reads as if was created created in our time. Let me introduce to you guest blogger, Isabel Osth, writer, translator and humanitarian. Here is what she shared with me:
La Vida es Sueño: Author is Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Published in 1635. Segismundo, Prince of Poland is the main character. Segismundo’s father, the King of Poland, has kept him in prison since he was born, because of an oracle predicting he would bring destruction to Poland. When Segismundo becomes a man, the King decides to set him free and inform him of his heritage. Segismundo becomes enraged and violent and after acting up must be sent to prison again. There in prison a second time,he arrives to the philosophical conclusion that is at the center of the play, within his soliloquy:
Truly, then, let’s repress this fierce condition, this fury… this ambition…
In case we might dream sometime…
And we will, since such is life that to be and to dream, are one.
From my experience I know that to live is to dream we do so… until waking up.
The king dreams he is king, and with this deceit lives ruling, ordering, commanding…
The applause he receives is simply borrowed and thus, written in the wind…
…and all is tuned into ashes by death, such a heavy thing!
Oh, that one might want to rule while seeing all will end, all, when waking in death’s own reign!
The rich man dreams of his wealth, with comforts and without cares.
The poor man dreams of the wretched lack and misery he bears.
The one who begins to flourish, dreams. The one struggling and trying, dreams.
The one who lies and offends, he dreams.
Finally, all in this world, dream that they are but don’t know.
I dream I am here now, enclosed in this heavy prison, yet I dreamt I once was free.
What is life? A maddening flash, a shadow, a mere fiction, an illusion…
The biggest good is so small since life is a dream, and so…
…dreams are just dreams after all.
Thank you Isabel.
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