ABSTRACT
Written neatly in ink in Nbk 12 probably in Florence between 30 September and 10 November 1819, these lines are a translation from Calderón's Los cabellos de Absalón (The Hair of Absalom) which is based on 2 Samuel xiii. S. read this play either alone or with Charles Clairmont between 30 September and 10 November, as is clear from his letter to Maria Gisborne of 16 November 1819: ‘I have been reading Calderon without you. I have read the “Cisma de Ingalaterra” the “Cabellos de Absalon” & three or four others.’ This same letter contains an extended appreciation of Los cabellos de Absalón, as ‘full of the deepest & the tenderest touches of nature.’ (L ii 154) The source of these lines is the beginning of a speech by 66Amón in Act I where he refers indirectly to his consuming passion for Tamar: ‘Porque estimo mas / lo que amo, que lo que espero’ (Octava Parte de Comedias, ed. Vera Tassis (1684) in Comedias (1973) xvii 112–13). As Mary Quinn suggests (MYRS vi 179), since the pen-strokes and ink are similar, these lines were probably written at the same time as two transcriptions from Los cabellos de Absalón by S., without accompanying translations, on the facing page (Nbk 12 f 11r rev.). These are of two passages earlier in Act I that have been identified by Timothy Webb (BSM xix p. lxxvi n. 35). S.’s first transcription is from a speech by David: que de gozos Que de gustos, que de dichas Dessazona un pesar Solo! (‘the happiness, the joys, the pleasures which a single pain turns to bitterness!’, trans. Edwin Honig, Calderón de la Barca: Six Plays (1993) 375)
