The Purgatory of St. Patrick

by Pedro Calderón de la Barca

LUIS. Oh, the devil save ME!

LESBIA. They move my pity, these unhappy two.

KING. Not mine, for what it is I never knew.

PATRICK. Oh, sirs, if wretchedness
Can move most hearts to pity man's distress,
I will not think that here
A heart can be so cruel and severe
As to repel a wretch from out the wave.
Pity, for God's sake, at your feet I crave.

LUIS. I don't, for I disdain it.
From God or man I never hope to gain it.

KING. Say who you are; we then shall know
What hospitable care your needs we owe.
But first I will inform you of my name,
Lest ignorance of that perchance might claim
Exemption from respect, and words be said
Unworthy of the deference and the dread
That here my subjects show me,
Or wanting the due homage that you owe me.
I am the King Egerius,
The worthy lord of this small realm, for thus
I call it being mine;
Till 'tis the world, my sword shall not resign
Its valorous hope. The dress,
Not of a king, but of wild savageness
I wear: to testify,
Thus seeming a wild beast, how wild am I.
No god my worship claims;
I do not even know the deities' names:
Here they no service nor respect receive;
To die and to be born is all that we believe.
Now that you know how much you should revere
My royal state, say who you are.

PATRICK. Then hear:
Patrick is my name, my country
Ireland, and an humble hamlet,*
Scarcely known to men, called Empthor,**
Is my place of birth: It standeth
Midway 'twixt the north and west,
On a mountain which is guarded
As a prison by the sea,—
In the island which hereafter
Will be called the Isle of Saints,
To its glory everlasting;
Such a crowd, great lord, therein
Will give up their lives as martyrs
In religious attestation
Of the faith, faith's highest marvel.
Of an Irish cavalier,
And of his chaste spouse and partner,
A French lady, I was born,
Unto whom I owe (oh, happy
That 'twas so!), beyond my birthright
Of nobility, the vantage
Of the Christian faith, the light
Of Christ's true religion granted
In the sacred rite of baptism,
Which a mark indelibly stampeth
On the soul, heaven's gate, as it
Is the sacrament first granted
By the Church. My pious parents,
Having thus the debt exacted
From all married people paid
By my birth, retired thereafter
To two separate convents, where
In the purity and calmness
Of their chaste abodes they lived,
Till the fatal line of darkness,
Ending life, was reached, and they,
Fortified by every practice
Of the Catholic faith, in peace
Yielded up their souls in gladness,
Unto heaven their spirits giving,
Giving unto earth their ashes.
I, an orphan, then remained
Carefully and kindly guarded
By a very holy matron,
Underneath whose rule I hardly
Had completed one brief lustrum —
Five short years had scarce departed —
Five bright circles of the sun
Wheeling round on golden axles,
Twelve high zodiac signs illuming
And one earthly sphere, when happened
Through me an event that showed
God's omnipotence and marvels;
Since of weakest instruments
God makes use of, to enhance his
Majesty the more, to show
That for what men think the grandest
And most strange effects, to Him
Should alone the praise be granted.—
It so happened, and Heaven knoweth
That it is not pride, but rather
Pure religious zeal, that men
Should know how the Lord hath acted,
Makes me tell it, that one day
To my doors a blind man rambled,
Gormas was his name, who said,
"God who sends me here commands thee
In His name to give me sight;"
I, obedient to the mandate,
Made at once the sign of the cross
On his sightless eyes, that started
Into life and light once more
From their state of utter darkness.
At another time when heaven,
Muffled in the thickest, blackest
Clouds, made war upon the world,
Hurling at it lightning lances
Of white snow, which fell so thickly
On a mountain, that soon after
They being melted by the sun,
So filled up our streets and alleys,
So inundated our houses,
That amid the wild waves stranded
They were ships of bricks and stones,
Barks of cement and of plaster.
Who before saw waves on mountains?
Who 'mid woods saw ships at anchor?
I the sign of the cross then made
On the waters, and in accents,
In a tone of grave emotion,
In God's name the waves commanded
To retire: they turned that moment
And left dry the lands they ravaged.
Oh, great God! who will not praise Thee?
Who will not confess Thee Master?—
Other wonders I could tell you,
But my modesty throws shackles
On my tongue, makes mute my voice,
And my lips seals up and fastens.
I grew up, in fine, inclined
Less to arms than to the marvels
Knowledge can reveal: I gave me
Almost wholly up to master
Sacred Science, to the reading
Of the Lives of Saints, a practice
Which doth teach us faith, hope, zeal,
Charity and Christian manners.
In these studies thus immersed,
I one day approached the margin
Of the sea with some young friends,
Fellow-students and companions,
When a bark drew nigh, from which
Suddenly out-leaping landed
Armed men, fierce pirates they,
Who these seas, these islands, ravaged;
We at once were captives made,
And in order not to hazard
Losing us their prey, they sailed
Out to sea with swelling canvas.
Of this daring pirate boat
Philip de Roqui was the captain,
In whose breast, for his destruction,
Pride, the poisonous weed, was planted.
He the Irish seas and coast
Having thus for some days ravaged,
Taking property and life,
Pillaging our homes and hamlets;
But myself alone reserved
To be offered as a vassal,
As a slave to thee, O king!
In thy presence as he fancied.
Oh! how ignorant is man,
When of God's wise laws regardless,
When, without consulting Him,
He his future projects planneth!
Philip well, at sea might say so;
Since to-day, in sight of land here,
Heaven the while being all serene,
Mild the air, the water tranquil,
In an instant, in a moment,
He beheld his proud hopes blasted.
In the hollow-breasted waves
Roared the wind, the sea grew maddened,
Billows upon billows rolled
Mountain high, and wildly dashed them
Wet against the sun, as if
They its light would quench and darken.
The poop-lantern of our ship
Seemed a comet most erratic —
Seemed a moving exhalation,
Or a star from space outstarted;
At another time it touched
The profoundest deep sea-caverns,
Or the treacherous sands whereon
Ran the stately ship and parted.
Then the fatal waves became
Monuments of alabaster,
Tombs of coral and of pearl.
I (and why this boon was granted
Unto me by Heaven I know not,
Being so useless), with expanded
Arms, struck out, but not alone
My own life to save, nay rather
In the attempt to save this brave
Young man here, that life to barter;
For I know not by what secret
Instinct towards him I'm attracted;
And I think he yet will pay me
Back this debt with interest added.
Finally, through Heaven's great pity
We at length have happily landed,
Where my misery may expect it,
Or my better fate may grant it;
Since we are your slaves and servants,
That being moved by our disasters,
That being softened by our weeping,
Our sore plight may melt your hardness,
Our affliction force your kindness,
And our very pains command you.***

[footnote] * The asonante in a — e, or their vocal equivalents, commences here, and is continued to the commencement of the speech of Enius, when it changes to the asonante in e — e, which is kept up through the remainder of the Scene, and to the end of Scene III.

[footnote] ** "Empthor" — see note on this name.

[footnote] *** See note for some extracts from Montalvan's "Vida y Purgaterio de San Patricio".