Dives And Lazarus

The Text is given from Joshua Sylvester's A Garland of Christmas Carols, where it is printed from an old Birmingham broadside.


The Story is one which naturally attracted the attention of the popular ballad-maker, and parallel ballads exist in fairly wide European distribution.

Like the Carnal and the Crane, the form in which this ballad is now known is no witness of its antiquity. A 'ballet of the Ryche man and poor Lazarus' was licensed to be printed in 1558; 'a ballett, Dyves and Lazarus,' in 1570-1.

In Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas (1639), a fiddler says he can sing the merry ballad of Diverus and Lazarus. A correspondent in Notes and Queries (ser. IV. iii. 76) says he had heard only Diverus, never Dives, and contributes from memory a version as sung by carol-singers at Christmas in Worcestershire, in which the parallelism of the stanzas is pushed so far that, in the lines corresponding to 13.3 and 13.4 in the present version, we have the delightfully popular idea--

    'There is a place prepared in hell,
        For to sit upon a serpent's knee.'

Husk (Songs of the Nativity) also gives this version, from an eighteenth-century Worcestershire broadside. I have no doubt but that this feature is traditional from the unknown sixteenth-century ballad.


DIVES AND LAZARUS

    1.
    As it fell out upon a day,
        Rich Dives he made a feast,
    And he invited all his friends,
        And gentry of the best.

    2.
    Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
        And down at Dives' door:
    'Some meat, some drink, brother Dives,
        Bestow upon the poor.'

    3.
    'Thou art none of my brother, Lazarus,
        That lies begging at my door;
    No meat nor drink will I give thee,
        Nor bestow upon the poor.'

    4.
    Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
        And down at Dives' wall:
    'Some meat, some drink, brother Dives,
        Or with hunger starve I shall.'

    5.
    'Thou art none of my brother, Lazarus,
        That lies begging at my wall;
    No meat nor drink will I give thee,
        But with hunger starve you shall.'

    6.
    Then Lazarus laid him down and down,
        And down at Dives' gate:
    'Some meat, some drink, brother Dives,
        For Jesus Christ his sake.'

    7.
    'Thou art none of my brother, Lazarus,
        That lies begging at my gate;
    No meat nor drink will I give thee,
        For Jesus Christ his sake.'

    8.
    Then Dives sent out his merry men,
        To whip poor Lazarus away;
    They had no power to strike a stroke,
        But flung their whips away.

    9.
    Then Dives sent out his hungry dogs.
        To bite him as he lay;
    They had no power to bite at all,
        But licked his sores away.

    10.
    As it fell out upon a day,
        Poor Lazarus sickened and died;
    There came two angels out of heaven.
        His soul therein to guide.

    11.
    'Rise up, rise up, brother Lazarus,
        And go along with me;
    For you've a place prepared in heaven,
        To sit on an angel's knee.'

    12.
    As it fell out upon a day,
        Rich Dives sickened and died;
    There came two serpents out of hell,
        His soul therein to guide.

    13.
    'Rise up, rise up, brother Dives,
        And go with us to see
    A dismal place prepared in hell,
        From which thou canst not flee.'

    14.
    Then Dives looked up with his eyes.
        And saw poor Lazarus blest:
    'Give me one drop of water, brother Lazarus,
        To quench my flaming thirst.

    15.
    'Oh! had I as many years to abide,
        As there are blades of grass,
    Then there would be an end, but now
        Hell's pains will ne'er be past.

    16.
    'Oh! was I now but alive again,
        The space of an half hour:
    Oh! that I'd made my peace secure,
        Then the devil should have no power.'