Calderon's Dramas; The Wonder-Working Magician Life Is a Dream the Purgatory of Saint Patrick. Now First Translated Fully From the Spanish in the Metre of the Original

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1873. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... carelessness or an imperfect knowledge of Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author, it may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the form as well as substance of the original may be some compensation for the absence of those higher poetical harmonies to which many of my readers will have been accustomed. El Magico Prodigioso appeared for the first time in the same volume as La Vida es Sueuo, prepared for publication in 1635 by Don Joseph Calderon. The translation is comprised in the same number of lines as the original, and all the preceding remarks on Life is a Dream, whether in reference to the period of the first publication of the drama in Spain, or the principles I kept in view while attempting this version may be applied to it. As in the Case of Life is a Dream, The Wonderful Magician has previously been translated entire by an English writer, (Justina, by J. H. 1848); but as Archbishop Trench truly observes, "the writer did not possess that command of the resources of the English language, which none more than Calderon requires." The Legend on which Calderon founded El Magico Prodigioso will be found in Surius, Deprobatis Sanctorum historiis, t. V. (Col. Agr. 1574), p. 351: Vita et Martyrium SS. Cypriani et Justinae, autore Simeone Metaphraste, and in Chapter cxlii. of the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine De Sancta Justina virgine. The martyrdom of the Saints took place in the year 290, and their festival is celebrated by the Church on the 26th of September. Mr. Ticknor in his History of Spanish Literature, 1863, volume ii. p. 369, says that the Wonder-working Magician is founded on "the same legend on which Milman has founded his 'Martyr of Antioch.'" This is a mistake of the learned writer. "The M...