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DONNA BLANCA: Oh, my liege,

Not in one breath

Turn royal mercy into needless threat;

Though it be true my bosom has so long

This secret kept close prisoner, and hop'd

To have it buried with me in my grave,

Yet if I peril my own name and theirs

By such a silence, I'll not leave to rumour

Another hour's suspicion; but reveal

To you, my liege, yea, and to heaven and earth,

My most disastrous story.

My father, though of lineage high and clear

As the sun's self, was poor; and knowing well

How in this world honour fares ill alone,

Betroth'd the beauty of my earliest years

(The only dowry that I brought with me)

To Lope de Urrea, whose estate

Was to supply the much he miss'd of youth.

We married--like December wed to May,

Or flower of earliest summer set in snow;

Yet heaven witness that I honour'd, ay,

And loved him; though with little cause of love,

And ever cold returns; but I went on

Doing my duty toward him, hoping still

To have a son to fill the gaping void

That lay between us--yea, I pray'd for one

So earnestly, that God, who has ordain'd

That we should ask at once for all and nothing

Of him who best knows what is best for us,

Denied me what I wrongly coveted.

Well, let me turn the leaf on which are written

The troubles of those ill-assorted years,

And to my tale. I had a younger sister,

Whom to console me in my wretched home,

I took to live with me--of whose fair youth

A gentleman enamour'd--Oh, my liege,

Ask not his name--yet why should I conceal it,

Whose honour may not leave a single chink

For doubt to nestle in?--Sir, 'twas Don Mendo,

Your minister; who, when his idel suit

Prosper'd not in my sister's ear, found means,

Feeing one of the household to his purpose,

To get admittance to her room by night;

Where, swearing marriage soon should sanction love,

He went away the victor of an honour

That like a villain he had come to steal;

Then, but a few weeks after, (so men quit

All obligation save of their desire,)

Married another, and growing great at court,

Went on your father's bidding into France

Ambassador, and from that hour to this

Knows not the tragic issue of his crime.

I, who perceived my sister's altered looks,

And how in mind and body she fared ill,

With menace and persuasion wrung from her

The secret I have told you, and of which

She bore within her bosom such a witness

As double prey'd upon her life. Enough;

She was my sister, why reproach her then,

And to no purpose now the deed was done?

Only I wonder'd at mysterious Heaven,

Which her misfortune made to double mine,

Who had been pining for the very boon

That was her shame and sorrow; till at last,

Out of the tangle of this double grief

I drew a thread to extricate us both,

By giving forth myself about to bear

The child whose birth my sister should conceal.

'Twas done--the day came on--I feign'd the pain

She felt, and on my bosom as my own

Cherish'd the crying infant she had borne,

And died in bearing--for even so it was;

I and another matron (who alone

Was partner in the plot)

Assigning other illness for her death.

This is my story, sir--this is the crime,

Of which the guilt being wholly mine, be mine

The punishment; I pleading on my knees

My love both to my husband and my sister

As some excuse. Pedro of Arragon,

Whom people call the Just, be just to me:

I do not ask for mercy, but for justice,

And that, whatever be my punishment,

It may be told of me, and put on record,

That, howsoever and with what design

I might deceive my husband and the world,

At least I have not shamed my birth and honour.

Credits: Reprinted from Eight Dramas of Calderon. Trans. Edward Fitzgerald. London: Macmillan & Co., 1906.