The Type of ‘Partenopex’
The romance of Partenopex is undoubtedly of the same class as those of Cupid and Psyche and Melusine, in which one spouse must not behold another on pain of loss. The loss invariably occurs, but poetical justice usually demands that recovery should take place after many trials. Frequently the husband or wife takes beast or reptile shape, as in the grand old romance of Melusine, to which Partenopex bears a strong resemblance, and by which I think it has certainly been sophisticated. But in the story with which we have been dealing the reputed semi-reptilian form which the heroine is said to possess is proved to be the figment of the brain of a jealous rival, and in this we have a valuable variant of the main form of the legend, illustrating the rise within it of more modern ideas and the skilful utilization of an antique form to the uses of the writer of fiction. The tale of Partenopex de Blois certainly deserves fuller study at the hands of folklorists than it has yet received, and I hope they will peruse its Catalonian as well as its French form, thus rendering their purview of the tale more embracive.