Page:The Grateful Dead.djvu/112

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96
The Grateful Dead.

where there is trouble because Queen Clarinda will not marry Prince Robert. Don Juan is cast into prison on a false charge, his identity being unknown to the queen, though he is recognized by Robert. He is saved by the aid of Lidoro's ghost, nevertheless, lays siege for Clarinda's hand, overcomes Robert, and so becomes king of England.

The correspondence of names and details makes it clear that the source of this play is Lope de Vega, though the plot has been modified in several features. In the process of adaptation all trace of The Two Friends has dropped out, a fact which would make the position of the variant difficult to ascertain, had the authors not left most of the characters their original names. The change in the position of the rescue of the hero from prison, indeed, gives a specious resemblance to the normal type The Grateful Dead+The Ransomed Woman, which is quite unjustified by the real state of the case.

All the other variants in which there is question of dividing a child, save one,[1] are folk-tales; and all of them save three[2] clearly belong in the category now under discussion. If they did not group themselves in this way, I should be unwilling even to consider the possibility of any general influence from The Two Friends upon these tales, since the only trait borrowed by any of them is precisely the division. Only in Oliver and Lope de Vega is this sacrifice made for the healing of a friend; and we have seen in the case of Transylvanian, Gaelic, and Breton III. how naturally the division of the child grows out of the division of the wife. As the matter stands, however, the case for the influence of The Two Friends is sufficiently strong to warrant the grouping of these tales together. The general

  1. Sir Amadas, for which see p. 37.
  2. Irish I., for which see pp. 62 and 64, Breton I., p. 65, and Sir Amadas.