"
It is curious to find that the same anecdote which formed the
Induction to the original "Taming of a Shrew", and which, from a
comic point of view, Shakespeare so wonderfully developed in his own
comedy, Calderon invested with such solemn and sublime dignity in "La
Vida es Sueno". He found it, as Senor Hartzenbusch points out in the
edition of 1872 already quoted, in the very amusing "Viage
Entretenido" of Augustin de Rojas, which was first published in 1603.
Hartzenbusch refers to the modern edition of Rojas, Madrid, 1793,
tomo I, pp. 261, 262, 263, but in a copy of the Lerida edition of
1615, in my own possession, I find the anecdote at folios 118, 119,
120. There are some slight differences between the version of Rojas
and that of Goulart, but the incidents and the persons are the same.
The conclusion to which the artizan arrived at, in the version of
Goulart, that all had been a dream, is expressed more strongly by the
Duke himself in the story as told by Rojas.
"Y dijo entonces el Duque: 'veis aqui, amigos, "Lo que es el Mundo:
Todo es un Sueno", pues esto verdaderamente ha pasado por este, como
habeis visto, y le parece que lo ha sonado.'" --
The story in all probability came originally from the East. Mr. Lane
in his translation of the Thousand and One Nights gives a very
interesting narrative which he believes to be founded on an
historical fact in which Haroun Al Raschid plays the part of the good
Duke of Burgundy, and Abu-l-Hasan the original of Christopher Sly.
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