The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #47438   Message #708170
Posted By: Ringer
10-May-02 - 10:50 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Dives and Lazarus-or vice versa(Child 56)
Subject: RE: Help: Dives and Lazarus - or vice versa
If you look at Luke 16, you see that Dives & Lazarus is basically 2 parables: first "The poor go to heaven, the heedless rich go to hell" (I simplify) and second: "The (Jewish) law is enough; it doesn't need the dead to be raised to life to confirm it."

The version sung occasionally at a session I attend is basically Child-56B as given by Joe above, but with 2 extra verses which roughly correspond to the second parable:

Then Dives laid him down and down, even down in Hell's deep pit.
"Some water, Brother Lazerus, just a drop from your fingertip."
"I may not, Brother Dives, I may not give it thee;
You've earned yourself your place in Hell, a-sitting on a serpent's knee."

"Then go, I pray, Brother Lazerus, unto my brothers seven
And tell them what has befallen me, lest they too fail of heaven."
"I may not, Brother Dives, I may not." Lazerus said.
"For if they pay no heed to the law, they'll pay no heed to the dead."

Anyone else come across them?