El gran teatro del mundo by Pedro Calderón de la Barca: read free online & download PDF or EPUB

The work opens with a loa, a short prologue piece. Spain, who calls herself “teatro insigne de Europa” (“Europe’s illustrious stage”), argues with Apostasy, “una nación del norte” (“a nation of the north”) that upholds “la religión reformada” (“the reformed religion”), over whether it is right to celebrate the mystery of the Eucharist with festivities and theatre. The two Testaments, the three Laws, Isaac and Samson show her that God himself chose to have it enacted in figures, and Apostasy is won over.

In the play proper, the Author, in a cloak of stars, summons the World and commissions a festivity: a play, “y es representación la humana vida” (“and human life is a performance”). He hands out the parts among those not yet born: the King, Beauty, the Rich Man, the Farmer, Discretion, the Poor Man and a Child who will die before being born. The Poor Man protests, and the Author promises that in the end he will make him equal to the King; the play will be called “Obrar bien, que Dios es Dios” (“Do good, for God is God”). The World dresses each of them and strips the Poor Man even of his clothes.

Life is performed between two doors, a cradle and a coffin, with no rehearsal, and the Law of Grace acts as prompter: “Ama al otro como a ti, y obra bien, que Dios es Dios” (“Love your neighbour as yourself, and do good, for God is God”). The Poor Man begs from them all: Beauty does not see him, the Rich Man throws him out, the King refers him to his almoner, the Farmer hands him the hoe to go and work, and only Discretion gives him bread. Then a mournful voice begins to call, one by one, those whose part is over.

Calderón starts from a very old commonplace, the theatrum mundi: the world as a stage on which every person plays a part. It came down from the Stoics and from Christian writers such as Saint Augustine, and was common in Baroque sermons. He turned it into an auto sacramental, an allegorical piece for the feast of Corpus Christi that celebrates the Eucharist. It was published in 1655 but may have been written in the 1630s, and it is recorded as performed at the Corpus Christi festivities in Valencia in 1641.

Its lesson is stern and consoling at once: the parts are only lent, death makes king and beggar equal, “Si cuna os recibí, tumba os despido” (“I received you as a cradle; as a tomb I send you off”), says the World, and all that counts is how each part was played. That is why it is still read: it speaks of inequality, free will and the meaning of life in memorable lines such as the Poor Man’s: “En fin, este mundo triste al que está vestido viste y al desnudo le desnuda” (“In short, this sad world clothes the clothed and strips the naked”).

Pedro Calderón de la Barca was born in Madrid on 17 January 1600 and died there on 25 May 1681. He was a court poet and a soldier, and in 1651 he was ordained a priest.

He is one of the great playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age: he wrote Life Is a Dream, The Mayor of Zalamea and The Surgeon of His Honour, and by his own count he composed a hundred and ten plays and eighty autos sacramentales.