From The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria A Drama of Early Christian Rome by Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Since then the ear cannot be closed, And thou resistance need'st not try, Listen to the gloss that I On this sweet conceit composed: "The bless`ed rapture of forgetting Never doth my heart deserve; What my memory would preserve Is the memory I 'm regretting". When Nature from the void obscure Her varied world to life awakes, All things find use and so endure:-- Thus she a poison never makes Without its corresponding cure: Each thing of Nature's careful setting, Each plant that grows in field or grove Hath got its opposite flower or weed; The cure is with the pain decreed; Thus too is found for feverish love 'The bless`ed rapture of forgetting.' The starry wonders of the night, The arbiters of fate on high, Nothing can dim: To see their light Is easy, but to draw more nigh The orbs themselves, exceeds our might. Thus 't is to know, and only know, The troubled heart, the trembling nerve, To sweet oblivion's blank may owe Their rest, but, ah! that cure of woe 'Never doth my heart deserve.' Then what imports it that there be, For all the ills of heart or brain, A sweet oblivious remedy, If it, when 't is applied to me, Fails to cure me of my pain? Forgetfulness in me doth serve No useful purpose: But why fret My heart at this? Do I deserve, Strange contradiction! to forget 'What my memory would preserve?' And thus my pain in straits like these, Must needs despise the only sure Remedial means of partial ease-- That is--to perish of the cure Rather than die of the disease. Then not in wailing or in fretting, My love, accept thy fate, but let This victory o'er myself, to thee Bring consolation, pride, and glee, Since what I wish not to forget 'Is the memory I 'm regretting.'

Cynthia Monologue from The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria A Drama of Early Christian Rome

Rehearse Cynthia's monologue