The Epic of the Cid

A number of scholars have favored an early date of composition, possibly even several years before the Cid’s death in 1099. Others have pointed to details suggesting a much later date. The varied evidence and its several interpretations are cogently presented by Alberto Montaner and Ángel Escobar in their introduction (see source below, 130–35). They favor a later date between 1181 and 1190; the reader is invited to decide which side’s arguments are the more persuasive.

Having said that, I must point out that the work seems animated by an urgent desire to explain who Rodrigo is and to justify glorification of his exploits. This immediacy would seem to suggest a poet writing about a relative newcomer—a subject still living at the time of composition. Details pointing to later dates might result from material inserted by subsequent reworkers of the original version.

What has been said of The History of Rodrigo—that it was remarkable in its telling the story of a man who was neither churchman, nor royal, nor of the highest nobility—may likewise be said of this panegyric on the martial excellencies of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. The tone and style echo Homer and Virgil. The unknown author, perhaps prompted by folklore, is converting the impressive historical man into a larger-than-life figure—a hero.¹³

We could tell tales of the glorious deeds of Paris, Pyrrhus, and Aeneas. But these have already been recounted with great praise by many poets—what then would be the point?¹⁴

To what avail would we sing such deeds of pagans, since they have now lost all meaning, owing to their extreme antiquity? Let us now therefore sing instead the new wars of the great commander, Rodrigo.

What if I sought to recount all the feats of arms of so great a vanquisher? They would not find room in even a thousand books—even if, with utmost care and labor, Homer himself sang of them.

But, inexpert though I be, and although of all the things I should know I have only learned a few, I nonetheless, a fearful mariner, unfurl my sails before the wind.

Come then, all you people, gather around, your hearts filled with joy, and hear this song of the Campeador, and above all let those come forward who have learned to rely upon his might.

Born of a most noble lineage, than which there is no greater in Castile—Seville, and the banks of the Ebro, know full well who Rodrigo is.¹⁵

His first notable feat of arms was when, still a young man, he vanquished a Navarrese knight in battle. For this reason a new name for him was on the lips of his elders: Campeador.

Already he portended what he would accomplish, destined to overcome counts in battle, treading royal armies under his feat, subduing them with his sword.

King Sancho, king over the land, loved Rodrigo so much, seeing him, so young, scale such heights, that he decided to set him at the head of his royal guard.

Rodrigo showed himself reluctant to accept this honor, so Sancho meant to confer on him an even better one, and would have if he, Sancho, had not soon thereafter faced death, that spares no man.

After Sancho’s treacherous murder, King Alfonso came into possession of the land and from his brother inherited all Castile.¹⁶

In truth, no less did Alfonso take to loving Rodrigo, wishing to exalt him over all others, until Rodrigo’s peers at court began to envy him.

They said to the king: “Lord, what are you doing? You work mischief against yourself, letting Rodrigo be raised up in this way. We find this most worrisome.

“Have no doubt: he will never love you, for he was a member of your brother’s court. He will always be devising and carrying out some wickedness against you.”

Having heard the words of these talebearers, King Alfonso, heart-struck with suspicion, dreading to lose the seat of honor, for fear’s sake, turned all his love to wrath, looking for excuses to confront Rodrigo and charging him, on the grounds of a few things he knew, of other and greater things of which he could know nothing.

The king commanded the baron to be banished from the land. From that moment, Rodrigo began to undo Moors in battle, to devastate all the countries of Spain, to ravage cities.

Hearsay soon reached the king’s court, to the effect that the Campeador, gathering together the elite of the Hagaritic tribe,¹⁷ was preparing a trap for the king and his followers.

Furious, the king assembled his cavalry, planning the Campeador’s death if he could catch him unawares, and ordering him, if captured, to be executed on the spot.

Against the Campeador the king sent Count García, a proud and prominent man. But then the Campeador doubled his triumph, taking possession of the field.

This, then, was the second battle, in which García was taken prisoner along with many others; that place, where the Campeador’s forces also captured García’s fortified camp, is called Cabra.

Whence throughout Spain Rodrigo’s name is held famous among all kings, who live in dread of him and likewise pay him tribute.

Then he undertook a third battle, which God permitted him to win; putting some to flight and capturing others, he subdued the enemy camp.

Then the Marquis, Count of Barcelona, to whom the Midianites¹⁸ rendered tribute, and with him al-Fagib of Lérida, together with his army, besieged the fortress of Saragossa, which to this day the Moors call Almenara. The Conqueror requested that they yield the place to him and let him replenish his supplies.

Seeing that they spurned his request and denied him free passage in that country, he immediately ordered his men to arm themselves without delay.

And he was the first to put on his cuirass—no man ever saw a finer one—and, belting on his gilded, two-edged sword, wrought by a master hand, he took up the lance of wondrous make, hewn from the ash tree of a noble forest, its point whetted sharp, with hardest iron, by his order.

In his left hand he bore his shield, all shaped in gold, on which a fierce dragon was splendidly painted.

On his head he wore a shining helmet, that the armorer had adorned with silver plates, while fitting the piece all around with bands of electrum.¹⁹

Rodrigo mounted his horse, brought from across the sea by a barbarian who sold it for a mere thousand gold pieces—an animal that ran swifter than the wind, leapt higher than a deer.

Thus furnished with such splendid weapons and so fine a steed—not Paris, not Hector, in the Trojan war, were ever better than he, nor are any today his equal—he prayed most earnestly …

13. Carmen Campidoctoris o Poema Latino del Campeador, edited, translated, and commentary by Alberto Montaner and Ángel Escobar (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal España Nuevo Milenio, 2001), 198–211.

14. Paragraph arrangement roughly approximates the stanza structure of the original.

15. Seville was at that time a great Muslim metropolis of the south, and thus exemplified Al-Andalus as an advanced and prosperous civilization; the Ebro River region meant, among numerous Christian and Muslim states, the emirate of Saragossa, and the powerful Christian realms of Aragon and Catalonia.

16. The treacherous murder of King Sancho by Vellid Adolfo, and events subsequent to it, are described in the First General Chronicle (see below, chapters 836 and following).

17. Agaricae gentis in the original, “of the Hagaritic tribe.” According to tradition, the Arabs were believed to descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham’s concubine Hagar (Gen. 16).

18. Midianites, or Arabs. Midian was one of the six sons of Abraham by Keturah, whom the patriarch married after the death of Sarah (Gen. 25:1–6). The people named for him, the Midianites, were traditionally identified with the Bedouin tribes of northern Arabia.