ne is generally in o-e, o-o, o-a, which are
nearly all alike in sound. In the second scene the asonante is in a-e,
as in "scAttEr", etc.
12. See note referring to the auto, "The Sacred Parnassus", Act 1, p.
21.
13. The asonante changes here into five-lined stanzas in ordinary
rhyme. Three lines rhyme one way and two the other. Poems in this
metre are called in Spanish 'Versos de arte mayor,' from the greater
skill supposed to be required for their composition.
14. The asonante is single here, consisting only of the long accented
o, as in "ROme", "glObe", "dOme", etc.
15. Champion, or combater, the name generally given the Cid.
16. The metre changes to an irregular couplet in long and short lines.
17. The metre changes to the double asonante in e-e, which continues to
the end of the drama.
18. Baptism by blood and fire through martyrdom. Calderon refers here
evidently to the words of St. John the Baptist: "He shall baptize you in
the Holy Ghost and fire"--St. Matth., c. iii. v. ii. The following
passage in the Legend of St. Catherine must also have been present to
his mind:
"Et cum dolerent, quod sine baptismo decederent, virgo respondit: Ne
timeatis, quia effusio vestri sanguinis vobis baptismus reputabitur et
corona". Legenda Aurea, c. 167.
THE SPANISH DRAMA.
CALDERON'S DRAMAS AND AUTOS,
Translated into English Verse
BY DENIS FLORENCE MAC-CARTHY.
From Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature. London: 1863.
"Denis Florence M'Carthy published in London (in 1861) translations of
two plays, and an auto of Calderon, under the title of 'Love, the
greatest Enchantment; the Sorceries of Sin; the Devotion of the Cross,
from the Spanish of Calderon, attempted strictly in English Asonante,
and other imitative Verse', printing, at the same time, a carefully
corrected text of the originals, page by page, opposite to his
translations. It is, I think, one of the boldest attempts ever made in
English verse. It is, too, as it seems to me, remarkably successful.
Not that asonantes can be made fluent or graceful in English, or easily
perceptible to an English ear, but that the Spanish air and character of
Calderon are so happily preserved. Mr. M'Carthy, in 1853, had published
two volumes of translations from Calderon, to which I have already
referred; and, besides this, he has rendered excellent service to the
cause of Spanish literature in other ways. But in the present volume h
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