Life Is a Dream

“Lying crudely among the barren crags, it’s a palace so insignificant that even the sunlight barely reaches it.” 

At the start of the play, Rossaura and Bugle are surprised to see a roughly-built tower in the wilderness in which they travel. She unknowingly foreshadows the existence of the prince, Sigismund, by ironically calling the tower a “palace.” Though the tower hardly resembles the grandness of a royal dwelling in a literal and physical way, the fact that the tower’s only resident is a prince elevates the structure and renders it a royal dwelling of an unusual sort. 

“But I would like to know, to ease my distress—leaving aside, heavens, the crime of birth—what else I did to merit further punishment.” 

When Rossaura and Bugle investigate the tower and meet Sigismund for the first time, they marvel at his miserable circumstances and eavesdrop as the prisoner voices his frustration. He appears aware of the astrological reasons behind his imprisonment, but the situation still does not make sense to him; after all, as a life-long prisoner, he has had no opportunity to commit any errors that warrant such a punishment as the one he suffers.

“What law, what powers of justice or reason are capable of denying men the sweet privilege, the fundamental license that God grants to crystalline waters, to fish, to beasts, and to birds?” 

Sigismund compares himself to various creatures of nature who all enjoy liberty to move about as they please. Rivers flow as freely as wild animals roam, yet he, a human, is unable to do as animals do.