Chapter 42

The story of Luis Enius, as given by Calderon in this long address, seems to be entirely the invention of Montalvan. It is told in the sixth chapter of his "Vida y Purgatorio de San Patricio", and in the edition of 1628 fills over forty pages. Calderon follows the narrative very closely, but in one noticeable incident he greatly improves upon his predecessor. This is in the celebrated skeleton scene of the third act. The corresponding scene in Montalvan's story is puerile enough. In Montalvan Luis Enius has no interview with the skeleton, so powerfully described by Calderon. His conversion is effected by a floating piece of paper which had eluded his grasp for two nights, but which he seized on the third, and examined by a mysterious light at the foot of a cross. On the paper he perceived the representation of a skull, under which is written, "I am Luis Enius". How utterly ineffective and commonplace this is compared with the fine scene in Calderon need not be pointed out.

The story of the vision of himself at Lerici, as recorded in some of the lives of the poet Shelley, which is almost identical with that in Calderon, was evidently suggested by this scene. Shelley's reference to the "Purgatorio de San Patricio" in a note to "The Cenci" shows the attention with which he read this drama. The "Embozado" which Captain Medwin and others supposed to be the name of one of Calderon's dramas, and which, as might be expected, Washington Irving vainly looked for in Spain, was the "Hombre embozado," the "Muffled Figure" of Calderon's "Purgatorio de San Patricio", act 3, scene i.

A vivid description of this scene by Shelley to one of his friends may have been mistaken for a circumstance that had actually happened to the poet himself.