A Night at the Theatre: El Monstruo De Los Jardines by Calderon

El monstruo de los jardines (The monster of the gardens) is inspired by the episode of Achilles in Sciros, when he is hidden by his mother, the nymph Thetis, at the court of King Lycomedes, disguised as a woman so that the prophecy of his death in Troy will not be fulfilled.

Calderón puts myth at the service of his philosophical concerns and turns Achilles into Sigismund. Thus, we see the budding hero leaving the cave in which his mother has kept him locked up for fifteen years, practically being born into the world, and we follow him on an initiatory journey, through the many facets of love, until we can glimpse the hero whom he will become in Troy.

Calderón's mythological comedies represent the culmination of baroque theatre as a fusion of the arts, and the wonder of the verses contained in this Monster of the Gardens demand that we place it as one of Don Pedro's crowning works.