KING. Alas! my daughters, listen, you shall know.
From out the lips of a most lovely youth
(And though a miserable slave, in sooth
I dare not hurt him, and I speak his praise),
Well, from the mouth of a poor slave, a blaze
Of lambent lustre came,
Which mildly burned in rays of gentlest flame;
Till reaching you,
The living fire at once consumed ye two.
I stood betwixt ye both, and though I sought
To stay its fury, the strange fire would not
Molest or wound me, passing like the wind,
So that despairing, blind,
I woke from out a deep abysm
Of dream, a lethargy, a paroxysm;
But find my pains the same,
For still it seems to me I see that flame,
And flying, at every turn
See you consumed; but now I also burn.*


[footnote] *The Dream of Egerius, as given by Calderon, agrees
substantially with Jocelin's description, and differs only in one
slight particular (the number of the flames) from that in Montalvan's
"Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio". In the latter, the name of the
Irish prince to whom Patrick was sold is not given; in Jocelin he is
called "Milcho." Calderon was either ignorant of this, and gave the
king a name that was purely imaginary, or, considering it less
musical than he would wish, gave him the more harmonious one of