Synopsis: The national epic of Spain, written in the twelfth
century about Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, conqueror of Valencia, who
only died in 1099 but had already become a legend. Rendered into
vigorous English rhymed couplets of seven iambic feet in 1919.
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Transcription by Holly Ingraham.
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THE LAY OF THE CID
Translated into English Verse
by
R. Selden Rose
and
Leonard Bacon
______________________
THE CID
Lashed in the saddle, the Cid thundered out
To his last onset. With a strange disdain
The dead man looked on victory. In vain
Emir and Dervish strive against the rout.
In vain Morocco and Biserta shout,
For still before the dead man fall the slain.
Death rides for Captain of the Men of Spain,
And their dead truth shall slay the living doubt.
The soul of the great epic, like the chief,
Conquers in aftertime on fields unknown.
Men hear today the horn of Roland blown
To match the thunder of the guns of France,
And nations with a heritage of grief
Follow their dead victorious in Romance.
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INTRODUCTION
The importance of the Cid as Spain's bulwark against the Moors of
the eleventh century is exceeded by his importance to his modern
countrymen as the epitome of the noble and vigorous qualities that
made Spain great. Menéndez y Pelayo has called him the symbol of
Spanish nationality in virtue of the fact that in him there were
united sobriety of intention and expression, simplicity at once
noble and familiar, ingenuous and easy courtesy, imagination
rather solid than brilliant, piety that was more active than
contemplative, genuine and soberly restrained affections, deep
conjugal devotion, a clear sense of justice, loyalty to his
sovereign tempered by the courage to protest against injustice to
himself, a strange and appealing confusion of the spirit of
chivalry and plebeian rudeness, innate probity rich in vigorous
and stern sincerity, and finally a vaguely sensible delicacy of
affection that is the inheritance of strong men and clean blood.
[1]
[1] Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, Tratado de los romances viejos, I, 315.
This is the epic Cid who in the last quarter of the eleventh
century was banished by Alphonso VI of Castile, fought his way to
the Mediterranean, stormed Valencia, married his two daughters to
the Heirs of Carrión and defended his fair name in parliament and
in battle.
The poet either from ignorance or choice has disregarded the
historical significance of the campaigns of the Cid. He fails to
mention his defeat of the threatening horde of Almoravides at the
very moment when their victory over Alphonso's Castilians at
Zalaca had opened to them Spain's richest provinces, and turns the
crowning achievement of the great warrior's life into the
preliminary to a domestic event which he considered of greater
importance. We are grateful to him for his lack of accuracy, for
it illustrates how men thought about their heroes in that time.
The twelfth century Castilians would have admitted that in battle
the Cid was of less avail than their patron James, the son of
Zebedee, but they would have added that after all the saint was a
Galilean and not a Spaniard.
In order then to make the Cid not merely heroic but a national
hero he must become the possessor of attributes of greatness
beyond mere courage. The poet therefore, probably assuming that
his hearers were well aware of the Cid's prowess in arms, devoted
himself to a theme of more intimate appeal. The Cid, an exile from
Castile and flouted by his enemies at home, must vindicate
himself. The discomfiture of the Moor is not