The Epic of the Cid

Written down a century and a half or more after the previous selections, this work is what we would nowadays call a “prequel.” It recounts the exploits and adventures of the young Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. The prodigious warrior and respected leader of those earlier versions dominates his world, but performs deeds within the bounds of credibility. And he is a grown man: a prudent vassal and responsible lord, a dutiful husband, father, and kinsman. This version’s once and future Cid—not quite thirteen at the time of his first fabulous exploit—is a precursor of modern superheroes. Headstrong, impulsive, defiant of authority, this adolescent Rodrigo is in some ways a rebel, a troublemaker. But his preternatural martial prowess and uncanny wisdom serve transcendent causes: the upholding of justice and the defense of the realm.

Another important difference, with respect to earlier Cidian narratives, is the depiction of Jimena. Instead of the exemplary wife and mother of The Epic of the Cid we have here a precociously resolute and self-possessed young woman who brings her own suit before the king, makes her own marriage, and seeks to bring peace to the kingdom. Although it may seem odd to say so to present-day readers, her proposal of marriage to her father’s slayer could be seen as fourteenth-century feminism. The traditional woman would be expected to pursue, or at least support, clannish vengeance. Instead, Jimena comes up with a diplomatic solution to the conflict between families, and a very pragmatic way to deal with her dilemma as an orphaned daughter.²³

Count Gómez de Gormaz wronged Diego Laínez, maltreating Diego’s shepherds and stealing his cattle.

Diego Laínez came to Vivar, answering the call to arms. Sending word to his brothers to meet him, he rode forth without delay.

They went out to raid Gormaz as the sun was rising. Setting fire to the outer buildings, they broke through the town walls. Diego captured Gómez’s vassals and everything they were carrying with them, and took back with him all the cattle grazing in the fields. And he captured, to their great shame, the laundry-maids working on the river bank.

Count Gómez rode after them, along with a hundred wellborn knights, challenging in a loud voice the son of Laín Calvo:

“Let my laundry-maids go, you son-of-a-town-judge!²⁴ For your forces cannot match mine!”

“We’ll be there to face you, a hundred against a hundred, ready for action, toe-to-toe!”

Diego and his men sent back some of the laundry-maids and the count’s vassals, but not the cattle. For they wanted to keep the livestock to compensate for what the count had stolen.

Rodrigo, the son of Diego and grandson of Laín Calvo and Nuño Álvarez de Amaya, and great-grandson of the king of León—he was twelve years old, not yet even thirteen. Never had he found himself in battle, and now he was bursting to join in the fray. He joined the ranks of the other hundred warriors, whether his father wished it or not.

As he and Count Gómez strike the first blows between the two of them, the battle lines are drawn, and everyone begins to join battle.

Rodrigo killed the count, for the latter could not stave off the young man’s attack.

The count’s hundred men charged forth, determined to do battle. Rodrigo rode after them, showing them no mercy. He captured two of the count’s sons, much to their chagrin—Fernando Gómez and Alfonso Gómez—and took them back to Vivar.

When they learned that their brothers had been captured and their father killed, they wore brown-colored clothes and veils everywhere they went. Back then such colors were worn in mourning; nowadays they are worn to rejoice.

“We will tell you, lord, for we have no reason not to speak freely. We are daughters of Count Gormaz, and you ordered him to be killed. You have captured our brothers and are holding them here. We are only women, and now there is no one to watch over us.”

“You must not blame me. Ask Rodrigo for your brothers, and see if he will be willing to release them to you. As Christ is my witness, I will not mind at all.”

“You have done wrong, my lord, in disavowing your authority. For I am still your son and my mother’s. For charity’s sake, think of what people will say. The daughters cannot be blamed for what their father did. Give their brothers back to them, for they have great need of them. Toward these ladies you should show forbearance.”

When the brothers saw themselves out in the clear, safe and sound, they fell to talking.

“Calm yourselves, brothers, for charity’s sake. I will go to Zamora to state our grievance before King Fernando. You will be safer this way, and he will do right by you.”

Then Jimena Gómez rode forth, accompanied by three young ladies and by several squires assigned to protect her.

At an early age I was bereft of the countess, my mother. Now a son of Diego Laínez has greatly wronged me. He took my brothers prisoner and killed my father. I come before you now, my king, to state my grievance. My lord, I beseech you: order to be righted this wrong that has been done me.”

“My kingdoms are greatly troubled at this moment. Castile is likely to rise up against me, and if the Castilians rise up against me, they will make a lot of trouble for me.”

“If it please you, sire, do not take my claim amiss. I will show you how to bring peace to Castile, and likewise to all your kingdoms. Give me Rodrigo as my husband: the very one who killed my father.”

When Count Osorio, King Fernando’s guardian and counselor, heard this, he took the king by the hand and led him aside:

“What do you think of this boon that she asks of you? Indeed, you should thank the Almighty Father himself! My lord, send immediately for Rodrigo and his father.”

Quickly they write the letters, for they do not want to put it off. They give the letters to the messenger, who sets out on his way.

“I bow before you, my lord, for I bring you good news. Our good King Fernando sends for you and for your son. Behold these letters I bring you, signed by the king himself. For if it be God’s will, Rodrigo will soon be raised to the highest rank.”

Don Diego looked over the letters, then turned pale. He suspected that the king wanted to kill him over the count’s death.

“Hear me, my son. Pay heed to this. I have a bad feeling about these letters, which seem full of deceit. When it comes to this kind of business, kings are very wicked in their ways. Any king you serve, serve him faithfully, no tricks. But watch out for him, as if he were a mortal enemy. Now then, my son, go to Haro, where your uncle Ruy Laínez dwells. Meanwhile I will go to the court, where the good king resides. And if perchance the king should kill me, you and your uncles can avenge me.”

“That would not be right. Whatever you go through, I will go through also. Even though you are my father, I wish to advise you. Take with you a full three hundred knights. As we enter Zamora, my lord, put me in charge of them.”

At the entrance to Zamora, where the Duero River flows, the three hundred men take up their weapons, and Rodrigo does likewise.

“Hear me,” he said, “friends, kinsmen, and vassals of my father. Watch over your lord, with no false dealing or trickery. If you see that the bailiff is trying to arrest him, kill the bailiff as quick as you can. May the king have as dark a day as the rest of the men there with him. They can’t call you traitors for killing the king, since we’re not his vassals, and God forbid we ever should be. The king would be more of a traitor if he killed my father, than I was for killing my enemy in a fair fight on the battlefield.”

As Rodrigo turned his eyes toward them, they all scattered. They were very much afraid of him and looked at him in awe.

Diego Laínez went forward to kiss the king’s hand. Seeing this, Rodrigo refused at first to kiss the king’s hand; then, kneeling down, he made to kiss his hand. The sword he wore was a long one; the king, alarmed, cried out in a loud voice:

“I’d sooner have a doornail for a lord than you. I would never be your vassal. It makes me sick to see my father kiss your hand.”

At that moment, the king said to Don Osorio, his childhood guardian and counselor:

Still unable to believe what he had been told, Don Diego remained very apprehensive.

The damsel came forward, Count Osorio leading her by the hand. Directing her gaze toward Rodrigo, she looked intently at him, then said:

“My lord, you have betrothed me, more against my will than with my consent. But I swear to Christ that I will never either kiss your hand, or be with her in town or open country, until such time as I have prevailed five times in fair combat on the battlefield.”

“I will soon show you. When the Moors come raiding into Castile, let no living man come to his aid. We’ll see then if he’s speaking in earnest or just bragging.”

Then father and son took their leave, setting out on the road. Rodrigo went to Vivar, to San Pedro de Cardeña, to dwell there for the summer.

The dauntless Moor, Burgos of Ayllón, came raiding, and with him the most honorable sheik Bulcor of Sepúlveda, and his brother Tosios, the sheik of Olmedo, very rich and well-off. All in all there were five thousand Moors on horseback. They went raiding into Castile, and got as far as Belorado, setting fire to Redecilla and Grañón, from one end to the other.

The call-to-arms reached Rodrigo as he was taking his siesta. As Rodrigo forbade anyone to even dare wake up his father, they armed themselves and rode out at full speed. Three hundred of his father’s knights went with him, at his orders, along with other folk from Castile who also joined up with him.

Meanwhile, the Moors were pillaging the countryside, doing great harm. Their forces were very numerous, as they took away with them droves of stolen cattle and many Christian captives—God curse them!

At Nava del Grillo, in the place called Lerma—that was where Rodrigo overtook them. Chasing after them, he fought with the marauders but not with the herdsmen who drove the stolen cattle. Some he killed, and the others he sent running in all directions.

Through the countryside of Gomiel, and as far as Yoda they came, there where the enemy forces were getting away with all their plunder.

There Rodrigo fought a fair fight with them, there on the battlefield. A day and a night, until noon of the following day, the battle hung in the balance, and the fray was a tangled skein. But Rodrigo won the battle, praise God!

As far as Peña Falcón, to the place called Peñafiel, they roiled the waters of the Duero. As they neared Fuentedueña, the melee was renewed. Rodrigo killed the two sheiks, took the noble Moor Burgos prisoner. He then led away the pagans toward Tudela de Duero, as well as the stolen cattle and the captive men and women: all these the Castilian brought back with him.

When the king heard these tidings, he was glad and very pleased. Lord, how the king of Castile rejoiced!

The good king rode forth, and with him many counts and knights and other high-born men. He went to Tudela de Duero, where the cattle were grazing.

“Behold, good king,” he said. “See what I bring you, even though I am not your vassal. Of the five battles I promised you on the day you betrothed me, I have now won the first. Now I will look to winning the other four.”

“May you be pardoned for everything, as long as you give me a fifth of all you’ve won here.”

“Let there be no thought of that! I will give it instead to the poor, who lead a life of suffering and deprivation. I will give the tithe-gatherers their share, for I would not have their curse upon me. And from my own share I will give their pay to all those who have followed me into battle.”

“Let there be no thought of that, not for as much as I am worth. For when one nobleman takes another nobleman prisoner, he must not dishonor him. Of the rest of this loot, I will only give you a fifth of the money in coin. The rest I am giving to my vassals, for they have gone through a lot in serving me.”

Three hundred knights in all were those gathered there together. When Rodrigo saw this, he quickly turned to the Moors:

“Hear me, Burgos of Ayllon, valiant Moorish king that you are! I would never capture a king, nor would it be fitting that I do such a thing. But I asked you to come with me, and you willingly did so. Go now, back to your kingdom, safe and sound. Would that as long as I live you have nothing to fear from any king, Moor or Christian. And all the possessions of those sheiks I killed, are now bequeathed to you, if they’ll open up their towns to you; if not, send me a message, and I’ll see to it that they open up for you out of fear, if not of their own free will.”

When the noble Moor Burgos of Ayllon saw how things were, he knelt down before Rodrigo and kissed his hand, giving voice to these words:

“You I now call my lord, and I am your vassal. And I will give you the fifth part of all I have, and your tribute payments, every year from now on.”

The Moor went away happy, and the Castilian also went home happy. The valiant Moorish king of Ayllon paid him tribute thereafter, so that in less than four years Rodrigo became rich and well-off….

23. Las Mocedades de Rodrigo: estudios críticos, manuscrito y edición, edited by Matthew Bailey (London: King’s College Center for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 1999), 189–216.

24. In many cultures, small-town magistrates are proverbially depicted as meddlesome, grasping, ambitious, pedantic; the comparison is not a compliment.