’Tis but a single step or up or down;
For men there must be that will plough or dig,
And when the vase has once been filled, be sure
’Twill always savour of what first it held.
I must observe of the beginning of Act III., that in this translation Isabel’s speech is intentionally reduced to prose, not only in measure of words, but in some degree of idea also. It would have been far easier to make at least verse of almost the most elevated and purely beautiful piece of Calderon’s poetry I know; a speech (the beginning of it) worthy of the Greek Antigone, which, after two Acts of homely talk, Calderon has put into his Labradora’s mouth. This, admitting for all culmination of passion, and Spanish passion, must excuse my tempering it to the key in which (measure only kept) Calderon himself sets out.