Explore "The Wonder-Working Magician" by Pedro Calderon De La Barca on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
CYPRIAN and The Demon.
CYPRIAN. Scarcely o'er earth's wounded bosom / Had I the true spell-word uttered, / When in the ensuing action, / She, of all my dreams the subject, / My adored, divine Justina. / But why take the useless trouble, / That to tell you know already? / I embraced her, would unmuffle / Her fair face, when (woe is me! ) / In her beauty I discovered / A gaunt skeleton, a statue, / A pale image, a sepulchral / Show of death, which in these measured / Words thus spoke (even yet I shudder), / "Cyprian, such are all the glories / Of the world that you so covet. " -- / To assert, that on thy magic / As expressed by me, the burden / Of the fault should lie, is vain, / For I, point by point, so worked it, / That of all its silent symbols / There was not a line but somewhere / Had its place, of all its spell-words / Not one word that was not uttered. / Then, 'tis plain thou has deceived me, / For though acting as instructed, / I but found an empty phantom / Where I sought a blissful substance.