Statue of Calderón de la Barca. Plaza de Santa Ana. Madrid. Photograph of (c) Mariola DCA.
Today May 25 is a new anniversary of the death in Madrid of Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca in 1681, perhaps the most important poet and playwright, together with Lope de Vega, of our Golden age. Some of his most famous works are The life is dream, The mayor of Zalamea, The great theater of the world, o The goblin lady. Today, in memory of his memory, I highlight 20 phrases of his texts and the fragment of a poem, In praise of silence.
20 phrases
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But honor is the heritage of the soul and the soul belongs only to God.
- Fortune is not conquered with injustice and revenge, because before it is incited more.
- The death of love is jealousy, which does not forgive anyone, nor does it leave him or her humble, or respect him as serious.
- From the most beautiful carnation, the pomp of a pleasant garden, the asp draws poison, the officious bee honey.
- Whenever love and hate compete, it is love that wins.
- I am so afraid that even to flee I have no courage.
- To temper the damage, the prudent mute advice.
- The majesty and greatness is not in being a lord, but in having him as such.
- And having more soul, do I have less freedom?
- Never give advice to someone who asks you for money.
- Who loves without feeling, sound makes the instrument, but not that it sounds good.
- Reason, reason, how long will love beat you?
- At the extremes of fate there is no man so miserable that he does not have an envious man; nor is there a man so fortunate that he is not envied.
- The intention does the wrong.
- Who does not know how to love, be it marble, not a woman. The one who loves me, I love. To which I forget, I forget.
- Cheating today and waiting for tomorrow.
- Death is always early and does not spare anyone.
- From evils to goods they say that it passes easily; but from bad to bad, I say that it is more frequent.
- Although memory usually dies at the hands of time, it also tends to revive in view of objects, especially when their agreements are painful.
- A true friendship is bloodless kinship.
In Praise of Silence (excerpt)
Silence is a reserved file
where discretion has its seat;
restraint of mind, how haughty
crawl without it of thought;
cunning ruse of the less discursive,
and the most discursive understanding:
because no one regretted having been silent,
and many were sorry for having spoken.
It is against the most angry enemy
the most temperate brake of anger,
of passion the most legal witness,
for he who sighs says more than he who speaks;
of the truth so familiar friend,
than to the simulation of the lie
the complexion fades, because how much, wandering,
the tongue lied, the face denied.
It is stillness of the divine spirit,
whom the world could not contrast;
pilgrim image of modesty,
that one hand gives to the lip, another to the shield.
Of how many sacrifices did the unworthy see
adoration of the fish, mute animal,
forbidden was that in light of sacrifice,
Vice has not yet ravaged this virtue.
And if they gave him talk and silence
time to which perfection covets the most,
it was because to the referee's heart they did
of his sincerity or his malice.
Not because of the silence they did not believe
be the greatest cult of justice,
for if God in his works I revere,
God's language is silence.
Say it to heaven on the first day
that the power of the Creator manifested,
because in heaven there was great silence,
while Miguel with the dragon fought.
The land, then, the frozen and cold night
that human adored her, in silence she was,
and already by referee it was of peace and war:
what loved her say heaven and earth.
The school of Pythagoras five years
only the lition to be silent gave;
La Tebaida, in her sane disappointments
he only got together to keep quiet;
Well, if philosophers themselves and strangers
rhetorical silence indoctrinated,
Which gym has the most laurels
than the one who attended faithful and not faithful?