Page:The great Galeoto; Folly or saintliness; two plays done from the verse of José Echegaray into English prose by Hannah Lynch (IA greatgaleotofoll00echerich).djvu/23

 The same gloom and power pervade The Avenger's Bride, the old story of Montague and Capulet But here the young Montague, one Don Carlos, slays the traditional family enemy, who happens to be the father of a weak-sighted maiden. She emerges into the strong sunlight just in time to recognise her father's assassin, and then is struck blind. Don Carlos woos her under another name, and an old lover, who is an enlightened oculist of the Middle Ages, restores her sight. Her lover Lorenzo had promised to kill the man she should name her father's murderer. When she cries out, 'Don Carlos,' he keeps his word, and she falls upon his corpse 'the avenger's bride.'

What touches us more closely is Echegaray's manipulation of the modern conscience, and its illimitable scope for reflection, for conflict, and the many-sided drama of temptation. This is familiar ground, and we are ever pleased to welcome a new combatant. That the Spanish dramatist brings a novel note may be accepted after reading the curious prologue to his Gran Galeoto. It is the best and most popular of Echegaray's plays. In its printed form it is dedicated to Everybody, which is the crowning insistance on the motif of the prologue, and there is an introduction by Señor Ignacio José Escobar from which I copy an interesting statement.

'And then came that unforgetable night the 19th March 1881, the night of the first representation of The Great Galeoto. There was neither strife nor contradiction, nothing but a universal concert of congratulation, xix