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HUSBANDMAN.

Whose heart were not for very anger rent?
Why, what a cursed world is this, I say!
Of all which avarice is on hoarding bent,
A mattock, instrument of wholesome toil,
One can not rescue from the general spoil.

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But whence springs this difference rare ?

One grieves to quit me, one had grieved to stay.

RICH MAN.

Because that I was rich and mighty there.

BEGGAR.

Because I had the beggar's part to play.

WORLD.

Let go these toys.

BEGGAR.

Lo! what good cause was mine,

Leaving the world to mourn not, nor repine!

Enter the INFANT.

WORLD.

To you a part at first the Author gave:
That you appeared not, how did it befall?

INFANT.

My life you re-demanded in a grave;
What you had given me, there returned I all.

Enter DISCRETION.

WORLD.

You, what did you for your adornment crave,
When you did at the gates of being call?

DISCRETION.

I asked for a strict vow, obedience,
A scourge, a cord, and rigid abstinence.

WORLD.

Well, leave them in my hands, that none may say They have delivered anything from me.

DISCRETION.

I will not; prayers and good works do not stay
In this world, can not here detainèd be;

And with me I must carry them away,
That something may survive thyself in thee.
Thou, if thy mind is, to resume them strive.

WORLD.

Thee of thy good deeds I can not deprive :
These only from the world have rescued been.

KING.

Who would not now no realms have called his own!

BEAUTY.

Who would not now have ne'er been Beauty's queen!

RICH MAN.

Who would not fain have no such riches known!

BEGGAR.

Who would not willingly more griefs have seen!

HUSBANDMAN.

Who would not more of toil have undergone!

WORLD.

It is too late- for after death in vain
You seek to blot out sins, or merits gain.

But now that I have marred the beauteous brow,
And the lent trappings mine again have made,
That I have caused all haughtiness to bow,

That I have equalled sceptre and rude spade,
Unto the stage of truth I send you now;
On this one only fictions have been played.

KING.

But why dost thou so rudely us dismiss,
Who greetedst us so fair?

WORLD.

The cause is this:

What time a man doth anything expect,
Waiting the gift his hands he places so;
Which thing when he would scornfully reject,
With hands in this wise he will from him throw:
Even thus the cradle for a man is decked

With mouth above; reverse its mouth, and lo!
You have his tomb: even thus I gave you room
As cradle then, but now dismiss as tomb.

Let me take the opportunity which these last words. suggest of adding something here, which will not be altogether out of its place. There is no surer mark of genius than the recognition of the mystery which so often lies in the common and the familiar. Only genius pierces or lifts the veil which custom and use have for most men so effectually thrown over these, that the most wonderful and most pregnant with meaning has come to have no meaning at all, if only its lesson has been constantly repeated; according to

that proverb, "What is ever seen is never seen.' Only genius detects in the humblest very often a significant symbolism of the highest, and finds the ever new in that which is the oldest of all. Calderon will endure excellently well to be tried by this test of genius. The mystery of the common, the symbolic character of many of our most ordinary actions and customs, is precious to him; and he constantly seeks to interpret it to others, and not to suffer it to pass by them unobserved. The ever-recurring mystery of sleep and waking as the daily rehearsal of death and resurrection; the dews and sunshine of earth, corresponding to the tears and laughter of those that are its dwellers,† or, as here, the likeness of the tomb to

*Thus in Belshazzar's Feast:

Descanso del sueño hace

El hombre, ay Dios! sin que advierta
Que quando duerme, y despierta,

Cada dia muere, nace.

Que vivo cadaver yáce

Cada dia, pues rendida

La vida á una breve homicida,
Que es su descanso no advierte
Una leccion, que la muerte
Le vá estudiando á la vida

† Al tiempo que ya la salva
Del sol estos montes dora
Sale riendo la aurora,
Y sale llorando el alba;
Risa y lágrimas envia
El dia al amanecer,
Para darnos á entender
Que amenece cada dia

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