"The fatal refuge of the frozen night"
Dublin Core
Title
"The fatal refuge of the frozen night"
Subject
Theatre--Seventeenth Century--Pedro Calderón de la Barca--Saint Patrick's Purgatory
Description
"[POLONIA:] This, then, by mournful cypress trees surrounded,
Between the lips of rocks at either side,
Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded..."
Between the lips of rocks at either side,
Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded..."
Creator
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 1600-1681
Source
Barca, Pedro Calderón de la, The Purgatory of St. Patrick, trans. by Denis Florence MacCarthy, Act II, Scene XIX
Publisher
Henry S. King & Co., London
Date
1873
Contributor
Digitised for Project Gutenberg
Rights
Public domain
Format
Collected Plays
Language
Spanish (English trans.)
Type
Play
Text
Identifier
DD_0068
Coverage
54.6083, -7.8714
References
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6371
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
"[POLONIA:] This, then, by mournful cypress trees surrounded,
Between the lips of rocks at either side,
Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded,
Whose tangled hair is scantily supplied
By the wild herbs that there the wind hath grounded,
A gloom whose depths no sun has ever tried,
A space, a void, the gladsome day's affright,
The fatal refuge of the frozen night.
I wished to enter there, to make my dwelling
Within the cave; but here my accents fail,
My troubled voice, against my will rebelling.
Doth interrupt so terrible a tale.—
What novel horror, all the past excelling,
Must I relate to you, with cheeks all pale,
Without cold terror on my bosom seizing,
And even my voice, my breath, my pulses freezing?
I scarcely had o'ercome my hesitation,
And gone within the cavern's vault profound,
When I heard wails of hopeless lamentation,
Despairing shrieks that shook the walls around,
Curses, and blasphemy, and desperation,
Dark crimes avowed that would even hell astound,
Which heaven, I think, in order not to hear,
Had hid within this prison dark and drear.
Let him come here who doubts what I am telling,
Let him here bravely enter who denies,
Soon shall he hear the sounds of dreadful yelling,
Soon shall the horrors gleam before his eyes.
For me, my voice is hushed, my bosom swelling,
Pants now with terror, now with strange surprise.
Nor is it right that human tongue should dare
High heaven's mysterious secrets to lay bare." (Act II, Scene XIX)
Between the lips of rocks at either side,
Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded,
Whose tangled hair is scantily supplied
By the wild herbs that there the wind hath grounded,
A gloom whose depths no sun has ever tried,
A space, a void, the gladsome day's affright,
The fatal refuge of the frozen night.
I wished to enter there, to make my dwelling
Within the cave; but here my accents fail,
My troubled voice, against my will rebelling.
Doth interrupt so terrible a tale.—
What novel horror, all the past excelling,
Must I relate to you, with cheeks all pale,
Without cold terror on my bosom seizing,
And even my voice, my breath, my pulses freezing?
I scarcely had o'ercome my hesitation,
And gone within the cavern's vault profound,
When I heard wails of hopeless lamentation,
Despairing shrieks that shook the walls around,
Curses, and blasphemy, and desperation,
Dark crimes avowed that would even hell astound,
Which heaven, I think, in order not to hear,
Had hid within this prison dark and drear.
Let him come here who doubts what I am telling,
Let him here bravely enter who denies,
Soon shall he hear the sounds of dreadful yelling,
Soon shall the horrors gleam before his eyes.
For me, my voice is hushed, my bosom swelling,
Pants now with terror, now with strange surprise.
Nor is it right that human tongue should dare
High heaven's mysterious secrets to lay bare." (Act II, Scene XIX)
Original Format
Monograph
Citation
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, 1600-1681, “"The fatal refuge of the frozen night",” Digital Derg: A Deep Map, accessed April 25, 2024, https://digitalderg.eu/items/show/68.