One is don Pedro Calderon de la Barca, distinguished playwright and exceptional figure our Golden age. The other is Anne Bronte, the youngest of the three possibly most famous British sisters in literature. They were both born on a day like today. Calderón de la Barca did it in Madrid, riding a 1600, and Anne Brontë in Thorton, Yorkshire, in 1820.
Don Pedro achieved the greatest glories with his plays for the theater. Y Anne, despite the greater popularity of her older sisters Charlotte and Emily, also stood out with his prose. But they both cultivated the verse, so today, in his memory, I highlight two of his poems.
Calderon de la Barca
Hidalgo, soldier and priest, Pedro Calderón de la Barca initialed imperishable plays such as The life is dream, The mayor of Zalamea, The goblin lady or The doctor of his honor. But it also has an important poetic production. This is one of his poems, an octave belonging to The comedies, the call The Siege of Breda.
The Spanish soldier of the Tercios
This army you see
I wander to the yelo and the heat,
the best republic
and more politics is
of the world, in which nobody waits
that being preferred can
for the nobility that inherits,
but by what he acquires;
because here the blood exceeds
the place that one becomes
and without looking at how it is born
looks like it proceeds.
Here the need
it is not infamy; and if he is honest,
poor and naked a soldier
has better quality
that the most handsome and lucid;
because here to what I suspect
the dress does not adorn the chest
that the breast adorns the dress.
And so, full of modesty,
you will see the oldest
trying to be the most
and to appear the least.
Here the most main
feat is to obey,
and how it should be
it is neither asking nor refusing.
Here, finally, the courtesy,
the good deal, the truth,
firmness, loyalty,
the honor, the bizarre,
credit, opinion,
constancy, patience,
humility and obedience,
fame, honor and life are
wealth of poor soldiers;
that in good or bad fortune
the militia is just one
religion of honest men.
Anne Bronte
The youngest of the three Brontë sisters lived perhaps in the shadow of Emily and Charlotte, and shared his unfortunate fate of early death. His best known novel is Agnes Gray, but also signed The Wildfell Hall Tenant. However, also his poetry is remarkable, most of which he published under a pseudonym. These are two samples.