The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and
Daria, by Pedro Calderon de la Barca

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Title: The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria
A Drama of Early Christian Rome

Author: Pedro Calderon de la Barca

Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12173]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN ***

Produced by Dennis McCarthy

THE

TWO LOVERS OF HEAVEN:

CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA.

A Drama of Early Christian Rome.

FROM THE SPANISH OF CALDERON.

With Dedicatory Sonnets to
LONGFELLOW,
ETC.

BY
DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY, M.R.I.A.

POR LA FE MORIRE.
Calderon's Family Motto.

DUBLIN:
JOHN F. FOWLER, 3 CROW STREET.

LONDON:
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75 PICCADILLY.

1870.

Calderon's Family Motto.

"POR LA FE MORIRE". --
FOR THE FAITH WELCOME DEATH.

THIS motto is taken from the engraved coat of arms prefixed to an
historical account of "the very noble and ancient house of Calderon de
la Barca"--a rather scarce work which I have never seen alluded to in
any account of the poet. The circumstances from which the motto was
assigned to the family are given with some minuteness at pp. 56 and 57
of the work referred to. It is enough to mention that the martyr who
first used the expression was Don Sancho Ortiz Calderon de la Barca, a
Commander of the Order of Santiago. He was in the service of the
renowned king, Don Alfonso the Wise, towards the close of the thirteenth
century, and having been taken prisoner by the Moors before Gibraltar,
he was offered his life on the usual conditions of apostasy. But he
refused all overtures, saying: "Pues mi Dios por mi murio, yo quiero
morir por el", a phrase which has a singular resemblance to the key note
of this drama. Don Ortiz Calderon was eventually put to death with
great cruelty, after some alternations of good and bad treatment. See
"Descripcion, Armas, Origen, y Descendencia de la muy noble y antigua
Casa de Calderon de la Barca", etc., que Escrivio El Rmo. P. M. Fr.
Phelipe de la Gandara, etc., Obra Postuma, que saca a luz Juan de
Zuniga. Madrid,