“We take leave of Mr. MacCarthy with hearty acknowledgments for the pleasure we have had in reading his excellent translations, which have given us a sense of Calderon’s various and brilliant genius such as we never before had, and no analysis of his dramas, however full and careful, could bestow”.
From a Review of “Love the Greatest Enchantment”, etc., in the “New York Tablet”, July 19, 1862, written by the gifted and ill-fated Hon. Thomas D’Arcy M’Gee, of Montreal.
“This beautiful volume before us–like virtue’s self, fair within and without–is Mr. Mac-Carthy’s second contribution to the Herculean task which Longfellow cheers him on to continue–the translation into English of the complete works of Calderon. Two experimental volumes, containing six dramas of the same author, appeared in 1853, winning the well-merited encomium of every person of true taste into whose hands they happened to fall. The Translator was encouraged, if not by the general chorus of popular applause, by the precious and emphatic approbation of those best entitled by knowledge and accomplishments to pronounce judgment. So here, after an interval of seven years, we have right worthily presented to us three of those famous Autos, which for two centuries drew together all the multitude of the Madrilenos, on the annual return of the great feast of Corpus Christi. On that same self-same festival, in a northern land, under a gray and clouded sky, in the heart of a city most unlike gay, garden-hued, out-of-door Madrid, we have spent the long hours over these resurrected dramas, and the spell of both the poets is still upon us, as we unite together, in dutiful juxtaposition, the names of Calderon and Mac-Carthy.
“How richly gifted was this Spanish priest-poet! this pious playwright! this moral mechanist! this devout dramatist! How rare his experience! how broad the contrasts of his career, and of his observation. . . . . Happy poet! blessed with such fecundity! Happy Christian! blessed with such fidelity to the divine teachings of the Cross. . . .
“Very highly do we reverence Calderon, and very highly value his translator; yet, if it be not presumptuous to say so, we venture to suggest that Mac-Carthy might find nearer home another work still worthier of his genius than these translations. Now that he has got the imperial ear by bringing his costly wares from afar, are there not laurels to be gathered as well in Ireland as in Spain? The author of ‘The Bell-Founder’, of ‘St. Brendan’s Voyage’, of ‘The Foray of Con O’Donnell’, and ‘The Pillar Towers’, needs no prompting to discern what abundant materials for a new department of English poetry are to be found almost unused on Irish ground. May we not hope that in that field or forest he may find his appointed work, adding to the glory of first worthily introducing Calderon to the English readers of this century, the still higher glory of doing for the neglected history of his fatherland what he has chivalrously done for the illustrious Spaniard”.
A LIST
OF
Calderon’s Dramas and Autos Sacramentales,
Translated into English Verse
BY DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, M.R.I.A.
THE PURGATORY OF SAINT PATRICK.
“With the ‘Purgatory of St. Patrick’ especial pains seem to have been taken”.
“Considerable license has been taken with the prayer of St. Patrick; but its spirit is well preserved, and the translator’s poetry must be admired”.
“If Calderon can ever be made popular here, it must be in the manner generally adopted by Mr. Mac-Carthy in the specimens, six in number, which are here translated, preserving, namely, the metrical form, which is one of the characteristics of the old Spanish drama. This medium, through which it partakes of the lyrical character, is no accident of style, but an essential property of that remarkable creation of a poetic age–remarkable, because while the drama so adorned was entirely the offspring of popular impulse, in opposition to many rigorous attempts in favour of classical methods, it was at the same time raised above the tone of common expression by the rhythmical mode which it assumed, in a manner decisive of its ideal tendency. It thus displays a combination rare in this kind of poetry: the spirit of an untutored will, embodied in a form the romantic expression of which might seem only congenial to choice and delicate fancies. . . . .
“In conclusion, what has now been said of Calderon, and of the stage which he adorned, as well as of the praise justly due to parts of Mr. Mac-Carthy’s version, will at least serve to commend these volumes to curious lovers of poetry”.
From an elaborate article in “The Athenaeum”, by the late eminent Spanish scholar, Mr. J. R. Chorley, on the first two volumes of Mr. Mac-Carthy’s translations from Calderon.
THE CONSTANT PRINCE.
A Drama.
“In his dramas of a serious and devout character, in virtue of their dignified pathos, tragic sublimity, and religious fervour, Calderon’s best title to praise will be found. In such, above all in his Autos, he reached a height beyond any of his predecessors, whose productions, on religious themes especially, striking as many of them are, with situations and motives of the deepest effect, are not sustained at the same impressive elevation, nor disposed with that consummate judgment which leaves nothing imperfect or superfluous in the dramas of Calderon. ‘The Constant Prince’ and ‘The Physician of his own Honour’, which Mr. Mac-Carthy has translated, are noble instances representing two extremes of a large class of dramas”.
From the same article in “The Athenaeum”, by J. R. Chorley.
THE PHYSICIAN OF HIS OWN HONOUR.
“‘The Physician of his own Honour’ is a domestic tragedy, and must be one of the most fearful to witness ever brought upon the stage. The highest excess of dramatic powers, terror and gloom has certainly been reached in this drama”.
From an eloquent article in “The Dublin University Magazine” on “D. F. Mac-Carthy’s Calderon”.
THE SECRET IN WORDS.
A Drama.
“The ingenious verbal artifice of ‘The Secret in Words’, although a mere trifle if compared to the marvellous intricacy of a similar cipher in Tirso’s ‘Amar por Arte Mayor’, from which Calderon’s play was taken–loses sadly in a translation; yet the piece, even with this disadvantage, cannot fail to please”.
J. R. Chorley in “The Athenaeum”.
THE SCARF AND THE FLOWER.
A Drama.
“The ‘Scarf and the Flower’, nice and courtly though it be, the subject spun out and entangled with infinite skill, is too thin by itself for an interest of three acts long; and no translation, perhaps, could preserve the grace of manner and glittering flow of dialogue which conceal this defect in the original”.
J. R. Chorley in “The Athenaeum”.
LOVE AFTER DEATH.
A Drama.
“‘Love after Death’ is a drama full of excitement and beauty, of passion and power, of scenes whose enthusiastic affection, self-devotion, and undying love are drawn with more intense colouring than we find in any other of Calderon’s works”.
From an article in “The Dublin University Magazine” on D. F. Mac-Carthy’s Calderon.
“Another tragedy, ‘Love after Death’, is connected with the hopeless rising of the Moriscoes in the Alpujarras (1568-1570), one of whom is its hero. It is for many reasons worthy of note; amongst others, as showing how far Calderon could rise above national prejudices, and expend all the treasures of his genius in glorifying the heroic devotedness of a noble foe”.
Archbishop Trench.
LOVE THE GREATEST ENCHANTMENT
A Drama.
“This fact connects the piece with the first and most pleasing in the volume, ‘Love the greatest Enchantment’, in which the same myth [that of Circe and Ulysses] is exhibited in a more life-like form, though not without some touches of allegory. Here we have a classical plot which is adapted to the taste of Spain in the seventeenth century by a plentiful admixture of episodes of love and gallantry. The adventure is opened with nearly the same circumstances as in the tenth Odyssey: but from the moment that Ulysses, with the help of a divine talisman, has frustrated all the spells (beauty excepted) of the enchantress, the action is adapted to the manners of a more refined and chivalrous circle”.
“The Saturday Review” in its review of “Mac-Carthy’s Three Plays of Calderon”.
THE DEVOTION OF THE CROSS.
A Drama.
“The last drama to which Mr. Mac-Carthy introduces us is the famous ‘Devotion of the Cross’. We cannot deny the praise of great power to this strange and repulsive work, in which Calderon draws us onward by a deep and terrible dramatic interest, while doing cruel violence to our moral nature. . . . Our readers may be glad to compare the translations which Archbishop Trench and Mr. Mac-Carthy have given us of a celebrated address to the Cross contained in this drama. ‘Tree whereon the pitying skies’, etc. Mr. Mac-Carthy does not appear to us to suffer from comparison on this occasion with a true poet, who is also a skilful translator. Indeed he has faced the difficulties and given the sense of the original with more decision than Archbishop Trench”.
“The Guardian”, in its review of the same volume.
THE SORCERIES OF SIN.
An Auto.
“The central piece, the ‘Sorceries of Sin’, is an ‘Auto Sacramental’, or Morality, of which the actors represent Man, Sin, Voluptuousness, etc., Understanding, and the Five Senses. The Senses are corrupted by the influence of Sin, and figuratively changed into wild beasts. Man, accompanied by Understanding and Penance, demands their liberation and encounters no resistance; but his free-will is afterwards seduced by the Evil Power, and his allies reclaim him with difficulty. Yet the plan of the apologue is embellished with many ingenious conceits and artifices, and conformed in the leading circumstances with an Homeric myth–the names of Ulysses and Circe being frequently substituted for those of the Man and Sin”.
“The Saturday Review” on “Mac-Carthy’s Three Plays of Calderon”.
BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST.
An Auto.
“The first auto translated is ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’, a fortunate selection, for it is probably unsurpassed in dramatic effect and poetic description, and withal is much less encumbered with theology than most others”.
From an article in “The New York Nation”, by a distinguished professor of Cornell University, on “Mac-Carthy’s Translations of Calderon”.
THE DIVINE PHILOTHEA.
An Auto.
“‘The Divine Philothea’, probably the last work of the kind written by Calderon, and as such worthy of attention, inasmuch as it is the composition of an old man of eighty-one, is conceived with much boldness and executed with marvellous skill. No fewer than twenty personages are represented on the stage, and these have their several parts allotted to them with great discrimination, ingenuity, and judgment. The Senses, the Cardinal Virtues; Paganism and Judaism; Heresy and Atheism; the Prince of Light and the Power of Darkness, figure amongst the characters”.
“The Bookseller”, June 29, 1867, on Mac-Carthy’s “Mysteries of Corpus Christi (Autos Sacramentales), from the Spanish of Calderon”.
THE TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN.
A Drama.
“Of these ‘The Wonder-working Magician’ is most celebrated; but others, as ‘The Joseph of Women’, ‘The Two Lovers of Heaven’, quite deserve to be placed on a level if not higher than it. A tender pathetic grace is shed over this last, which gives it a peculiar charm”.
Archbishop Trench.
Calderon’s Autos Sacramentales, or Mysteries of Corpus Christi. Duffy: Dublin and London, 1867.
From “The Irish Ecclesiastical Record”.
“In conclusion, we heartily commend to our readers this most interesting and valuable specimen of Spanish thought and devotion, wrought, as it is, into such pure and beautiful English. . . . . When we remember the great literary advantages which Spain once possessed in the intellect and faith of her literary giants, we may well rejoice in the appearance among us of one of the greatest of that noble race in the person of Calderon, especially when introduced to us by a poet whose claim upon our consideration has been so emphatically made good by his own original productions as Denis Florence Mac-Carthy”.
THE SPANISH DRAMA
Just ready, double columns, price 2s. 6d.,
THE TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN,
From the Spanish of Calderon,
BY DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY,
Author of The Voyage of St. Brendan, The Bell-Founder, Waiting for the May, etc.
DUBLIN: W. B. KELLY, 8 GRAFTON STREET.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
In one vol. small 4to, double columns, with the Spanish text, beautifully printed by Whittingham, Price 7s. 6d.,
THREE DRAMAS OF CALDERON,
FROM THE SPANISH,
BY DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.
From Ticknor’s History of Spanish Literature.
“It is, I think, one of the boldest attempts ever made in English verse. It is, too, as it seems to me, remarkably successful . . .
“Nothing, I think, in the English language will give us so true an impression of what is most characteristic of the Spanish drama: perhaps I ought to say, of what is most characteristic of Spanish poetry generally”.–tom. iii. pp. 461, 462.
BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY, LONDON.
Transcriber’s Notes.
General. I have rendered instances of small capitals as all capitals. In most instances I have made no attempt to indicate here instances of italics in the original publication. Accents and other diacritical marks have also been dropt. However, where the original has an acute accent over the “e” in a past participle for poetical reasons, I have marked this with a grave accent (as in “learn`ed”) to indicate the intended pronunciation. For a fully formatted version, with italics, extended characters, et cetera, please refer to the HTML version of