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Food for Thought:

JANUARY 9, 2003. With so many challenges facing George W. Bush at home and abroad, The Gully decided to look beyond the conventional to find words of wisdom for the US Commander in Chief. We found advice from an unexpected source: a soliloquy spoken by Segismundo, the lead character in La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), by Calderón de la Barca, a seventeenth-centry playwright who admirers have dubbed "The Spanish Shakespeare."

The king dreams he is king, living
with this deceit ordering,
dispensing, and governing;
and this acclaim that he gets
is borrowed, written in the wind
and into dust death
converts him (rotten luck);
whoever intends to rein
should prepare to wake
in the dream of death.

The rich man dreams his wealth
that only offers cares
the poor man dreams enduring
his misery and poverty;
he dreams who affects and pretends
he dreams who oppresses and offends,
and in the world, in conclusion,
all dream what they are
even if no one really understands.

I dream that I am here
held in these prisons
I dreamed that I saw myself
in high estate.
What is life? A frenzy.
What is life? An illusion,
a shadow, a fiction,
and the greatest good is small
that all life is a dream
and even dreams are only dreamt.

Related links:

For more about Calderón de la Barca, Segismundo and the Golden Age of Renaissance Spain:

• Jewels of Spain: Calderón de la Barca
• Summary and Study Guide to Life is a Dream
• Review of Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production