ACHILLES IN SCYROS
is here out of order. Instead of standing second it should come fifth, that is after The Christian Captives. The following note is taken from the first edition.
Note to Achilles in Scyros.—After I had begun this play I came by chance on Calderon’s play on the same subject, El Monstruo de los Jardines. The monster is Achilles; the gardens the same. Excepting an expression or two I found nothing that it suited me to use, and I should not have recorded the circumstance, if it were not that Calderon’s play seemed to me to contain strong evidence that he had read The Tempest. This observation cannot be new, but I have never met with it; so I offer it to my readers, thinking it will interest them as it did me.
El Monstruo de los Jardines opens with a storm at sea, and shipwreck of royal persons, similar as it is inferior to Shakespeare’s (but compare also the Devil’s shipwreck in the second act of El magicio prodigioso, which may be read in Shelley’s translation). Stephano has his counterpart,
and the whole play is then on a supposed desert island, which turns out to be strangely peopled. There is the monster Achilles, who in many respects remembers Caliban, and is even addressed as Señor monstruo: ’Monsieur Monster.’ There is Thetis, who is to her nymphs as Prospero to his spirits; with musical enchantments, and voices in the air, and even a fantastico bajél. Calderon has moreover hit upon the same device of imitative fancy as tempted Dryden in like sad case, and pictured a man who had never seen a woman. The island is wandered on by the prince and his suite, and one of them says of it Republica es entera, &c. A curious reader might find more than I have here noticed: but Calderon is as far from sympathy with Shakespeare, as he is from the Greek story, with his drums and trumpets and El gran Sofí.
There is a passage in my Achilles (l. 518 and foll.) which is copied from Calderon: but this is after Muley’s well-known speech in the Principe Constante (see note to The Christian Captives); which is quoted in most books on Calderon. In my short play, which runs on without change of scene or necessary pause, I have had the act and scene divisions indicated by greater and lesser spaces in the printing.[A]
R. B., 1890.
[A] Not followed in this edition. 1901.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Line 1374/5 of The First Part of Nero “Now may some god of mischief Dare set me in the roll of puny spirits.” Roll could be a misprint for role but has not been changed.
The varied ellipses remain unchanged.
The variation in fonts, sizes etc in e-book displays makes accurate reproduction of verse indents and caesuras impossible. The approach used should give a reasonable approximation in most cases.