SEG. A dream! That seem'd as swearab...

SEG. A dream!

That seem'd as swearable reality

As what I wake in now.

CLO. Ay—wondrous how

Imagination in a sleeping brain

Out of the uncontingent senses draws

Sensations strong as from the real touch;

That we not only laugh aloud, and drench

With tears our pillow; but in the agony

Of some imaginary conflict, fight

And struggle—ev'n as you did; some, 'tis thought,

Under the dreamt-of stroke of death have died.

SEG. And what so very strange too—In that world

Where place as well as people all was strange,

Ev'n I almost as strange unto myself,

You only, you, Clotaldo—you, as much

And palpably yourself as now you are,

Came in this very garb you ever wore,

By such a token of the past, you said,

To assure me of that seeming present.

CLO. Ay?

SEG. Ay; and even told me of the very stars

You tell me here of—how in spite of them,

I was enlarged to all that glory.

CLO. Ay, By the false spirits' nice contrivance thus

A little truth oft leavens all the false,

The better to delude us.

SEG. For you know

'Tis nothing but a dream?

CLO. Nay, you yourself

Know best how lately you awoke from that

You know you went to sleep on?—

Why, have you never dreamt the like before?

SEG. Never, to such reality.

CLO. Such dreams

Are oftentimes the sleeping exhalations

Of that ambition that lies smouldering

Under the ashes of the lowest fortune;

By which, when reason slumbers, or has lost

The reins of sensible comparison,

We fly at something higher than we are—

Scarce ever dive to lower—to be kings,

Or conquerors, crown'd with laurel or with gold,

Nay, mounting heaven itself on eagle wings.

Which, by the way, now that I think of it,

May furnish us the key to this high flight

That royal Eagle we were watching, and

Talking of as you went to sleep last night.

SEG. Last night? Last night?

CLO. Ay, do you not remember

Envying his immunity of flight,

As, rising from his throne of rock, he sail'd

Above the mountains far into the West,

That burn'd about him, while with poising wings

He darkled in it as a burning brand

Is seen to smoulder in the fire it feeds?

SEG. Last night—last night—Oh, what a day was that

Between that last night and this sad To-day!

CLO. And yet, perhaps,

Only some few dark moments, into which

Imagination, once lit up within

And unconditional of time and space,

Can pour infinities.

SEG. And I remember

How the old man they call'd the King, who wore

The crown of gold about his silver hair,

And a mysterious girdle round his waist,

Just when my rage was roaring at its height,

And after which it all was dark again,

Bid me beware lest all should be a dream.

CLO. Ay—there another specialty of dreams,

That once the dreamer 'gins to dream he dreams,

His foot is on the very verge of waking.

SEG. Would it had been upon the verge of death

That knows no waking—

Lifting me up to glory, to fall back,

Stunn'd, crippled—wretcheder than ev'n before.

CLO. Yet not so glorious, Segismund, if you

Your visionary honour wore so ill

As to work murder and revenge on those

Who meant you well.

SEG. Who meant me!—me! their Prince

Chain'd like a felon—

CLO. Stay, stay—Not so fast,

You dream'd the Prince, remember.

SEG. Then in dream

Revenged it only.

CLO. True. But as they say

Dreams are rough copies of the waking soul

Yet uncorrected of the higher Will,

So that men sometimes in their dreams confess

An unsuspected, or forgotten, self;

One must beware to check—ay, if one may,

Stifle ere born, such passion in ourselves

As makes, we see, such havoc with our sleep,

And ill reacts upon the waking day.

And, by the bye, for one test, Segismund,

Between such swearable realities—

Since Dreaming, Madness, Passion, are akin

In missing each that salutary rein

Of reason, and the guiding will of man:

One test, I think, of waking sanity

Shall be that conscious power of self-control,

To curb all passion, but much most of all

That evil and vindictive, that ill squares

With human, and with holy canon less,

Which bids us pardon ev'n our enemies,

And much more those who, out of no ill will,

Mistakenly have taken up the rod

Which heaven, they think, has put into their hands.

SEG. I think I soon shall have to try again—

Sleep has not yet done with me.

CLO. Such a sleep.

Take my advice—'tis early yet—the sun

Scarce up above the mountain; go within,

And if the night deceived you, try anew

With morning; morning dreams they say come true.

SEG. Oh, rather pray for me a sleep so fast

As shall obliterate dream and waking too.

Calderon de la Barca, Pedro. La Vida es Sueno (Life is a Dream). Trans. Edward Fitzgerald. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2587/2587-h/2587-h.htm