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This motto is taken from the engraved coat of arms prefixed to an historicalaccount of "the very noble and ancient house of Calderon de laBarca"—a rather scarce work which I have never seen alluded to in anyaccount of the poet.  The circumstances from which the motto wasassigned to the family are given with some minuteness at pp. 56 and 57of the work referred to.  It is enough to mention that the martyr whofirst used the expression was Don Sancho Ortiz Calderon de la Barca,a Commander of the Order of Santiago.  He was in the service of therenowned king, Don Alfonso the Wise, towards the close of the thirteenthcentury, and having been taken prisoner by the Moors before Gibraltar,he was offered his life on the usual conditions of apostasy.  But he refusedall overtures, saying: "Pues mi Dios por mi muriò, yo quiero morirpor èl", a phrase which has a singular resemblance to the key note of thisdrama.  Don Ortiz Calderon was eventually put to death with greatcruelty, after some alternations of good and bad treatment.  See Descripcion,Armas, Origen, y Descendencia de la muy noble y antigua Casade Calderon de la Barca, etc., que Escrivió El Rmo. P. M. Fr. Phelipede la Gandara, etc., Obra Postuma, que saca a luz Juan de Zuñiga. Madrid, 1753.