The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

INTRODUCTORY. The Cid was born A.D. 1026 and died A.D. 1099. His original name was Rodrigo di Bivar. In him, as the chief record of him has descended to us, Spain gave birth to the most entirely characteristic representative of mediæval chivalry. He embodied its happiest as well as its most heroic spirit. His military ardour was free alike from barbaric ruthlessness, and from the ambition of a Cæsar or an Alexander. He had not a touch either of that exaggerated love of praise which, at a later time, vulgarized the instinct of Honour, or of that selfishness and sentimentality which has infected modern times. For him all self-consciousness seems to have been lost in a light-hearted yet impassioned loyalty to just, generous, patriotic, and religious ends. Such were the ‘Men of Old’—

‘They went about their gravest deeds
Like noble boys at play.’—

Lord Houghton.

I. The Cid's Marriage.

Within Valencia's streets were dole and woe;
Among the thoughtful, silence long and then
Sharp question and brief answer; sobs and tears
Where women gathered; something strange concealed
From children; rapid step of priest grey-grown
As though his mission were to beds of death.
The cause? Nine days before, the sea had swarmed
With ships continuous like the locust cloud

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Full sail from far Morocco; six days later
Strange tents had crowded all the coasts as thick
As spots on corpse plague-stricken. The Cid lay dead,
Valencia's bulwark, but her sire much more.
Who else had made her Spain's;—Spain's Mother-City
Frowning defiance on the Prophet's coasts
Minarets enskied, gold domes, huge palaces
With ivory fretwork washed by azure waves,
Even to the fabulous East?
Day passed: night came:
Within Valencia's chiefest church the monks
Knelt round their Great One. He had sat since death
Throned near the Eastern altar. At the West
The many-columned aisles nigh lost in gloom
Changed to a fortress pile with massive walls
Lost in the mother rock, since Faith and War
That time were brethren vowed. Beneath its vault
Good knights kept watch, that stronghold's guard at need:
Glimmerings from distant altar lights, though faint,
Made way to them, oft crossed by shadowy forms
Gliding in silence o'er the pavements dim
With bosom-beating hand: the music strain
Reached them at times; less oft the voice of prayer.
Compline long past, the eldest of those knights,
By name Don Raymond, Lord of Barcelona,
Not rising, thus addressed low-toned his mates:
With great desire the nations will desire
To know our Cid in ages yet to come,
And yet will know him not. He was not one
Who builds a history up, complete and whole,
A century's blazon crying, ‘That was I!’
The day's work ever was the work he worked,

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And laughingly he wrought it. Spake another:
Ay, 'twas no single act that made his greatness:
Yet greatness flashed from all his acts—the least;
A peasant cried one day, ‘God sent that man;’
A realm made answer, ‘God.’
Don Sambro next:
I witnessed—'twas in youth—his earliest deed;
Gladsome it was, and gladdening when remembered,
Yet nowise alien 'mid these vaults of death:
His sire, Don Diego, was an aged man;
Between him and Count Gomez, Gormaz' lord,
Debate arose. Gomez had flourished long
A warrior prime: whene'er the Cortes met
He spake its earliest word. Among the hills
A thousand watched his hand, and wrought its hest.
That day, inflamed by wine, he struck Diego:
Diego, warrior once, then weak from age,
Was all unmeet for combat in the lists:
Daily he sat, grief-worn, beside his hearth
And shrank from friend like one who fears to infect
Sound man by hand diseased. He spake but once,
‘Till that black hour dishonour none defiled
Layn Calvo's blood!’ His son, our Cid, Rodrigo,
Then twelve years old, leaped up! ‘Mudarra's sword!
That and your blessing!’ Strong through both he rode,
Nor stayed until his horse foam-flecked stood up
At Gormaz’ gate. Gomez refused his challenge:
Rodrigo smote him: soon the lists were formed:
Not long the strife: sole standing o'er the dead
Thus 'mid that knightly concourse spake the boy,
‘Had he but struck my cheek, and not my sire's,
Far liefer had I lopped mine own left hand
Than yon sage head!’ Count Gomez’ orphaned daughter,

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Child of ten years, hearing that word, replied,
‘He also had a Father.’
August's sun
Westering had tinged the castle hall with red:
There sat Diego at the supper-board
But eating not. A horse's foot was heard:
In rushed, all glowing like that sun, the boy:
He knelt; then rising, laughed. Aloud he cried,
‘Father, your fare hath scanty been of late
As spider's when long frosts have frozen the flies:
Haply this herb may sharpen appetite!’
His mantle fell: he lifted by the locks
The unjust Aggressor's head. Diego rose:
First with raised eyes he tendered thanks to Heaven;
Then added: ‘Son, my sentence ever stood,
The hand that battles best is hand to rule:
Henceforth live thou sole master in this house;’
He pointed, and the seneschal kneeling laid
The castle's keys before the young man's feet.
Then clamour rose, ‘O'er yon portcullis fix
That traitor's head, that all may gaze upon it
And hate it as a true man knows to hate!’
Not thus Rodrigo willed He sent that head
To Gormaz with a stately retinue—
Ten knights, and priests entoning ‘Miserere.’
This solaced Gomez’ child. Then rose that saying,
‘He strikes from love, not hate.’
Don Martin next—
Don Martin of Castile: Witness was I
Not less of wonders by Rodrigo wrought.
Eight years went by: his father died. The Moors
Swarmed forth o'er many a region of Castile,
Domingo, La Calzada, Vilforado,

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Capturing whole herds, white flocks, and brood-mares many:
Rodrigo of Bivar to battle rushed;
Smote them where Oca's mountains closed them round;
Retook their spoil. Five Moorish kings, their best,
He haled in triumph home to Bivar's gate
And bade them kneel chain-bound before his mother.
That homage tendered, thus he spake: ‘Depart!’
That holy Lady still had taught her son
Reverence for sufferers, and the Poor of Christ,
And courtesy 'mid wildest storms of war.
On her he looked, later on them; continued:
‘I scorn to hold you captive! from this hour
My vassals ye. I want nor slaves nor serfs.’
The Five made answer ‘Yea,’ and called him ‘Cid,’
Their term for ‘Lord’: he bore it from that hour.
Don Garcia next: A fairer sight by far
And fitter to beguile our sorrowful watch,
I saw—his marriage. Our great King Ferrando,
Who made one realm of Leon and Castile,
Beside that new-built bridge Zimara called
Was standing 'mid his nobles on a day
What time that name, ‘The Cid,’ rang first o'er Spain:
Then drew to him a maiden clothed in black,
A sister at each side. She spake: ‘Sir King,
I come your suitor, child of Gomez, once
Your counsellor and your friend, but come not less
The claimant of my right. Betwixt my sire
And Diego, father of that Cid world-famed
This hour for valour and for justice both,
Unhappy feud arose: my father smote him:
Aggrieved by that mischance the Cid, then young,
Challenged my sire and in the tourney slew him,

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To me great grief albeit, on wars intent,
My father seldom saw me. Since that day
Tumult perpetual shakes our vassal realm:
Who wills breaks down the bridge; who wills diverts
The river from our mill-wheel to his own:
Daily the insurgent commons toss their heads,
Clamouring “No tax.” I fear for these, my sisters,
Fear more the downfall of our House and Name,
And, motherless, have none with whom to counsel.
King! some strong hand and just should quell this wrong!
What hand but his who caused it? 'Twas his right
To smite his Father's smiter. 'Tis my right
To choose for champion him who wrought the woe.
Command him to espouse me! That implies
Privilege and Duty both to ward our House,
And these my sisters young.’ Level and clear
She fixed upon the King her eyes like one
Who knows her cause is just.
Ferrando mused,
Then answered, smiling, ‘Damsel, have your will!
You are happier than you know! Rodrigo's Wife!
Of him you wot as little as of marriage!
Yon Cid will prove the greatest man in Spain.’
Then with a royal frankness added thus:
‘Moreover, maid, your lands are broad: another
Conjoining them with his might plot and scheme:
The Throne itself might suffer some despite:
Not so the Cid: that man was loyal born;
My kinsman. He shall wed you!’
Straight he wrote:
‘Cid, at Palencia seek me at your earliest,
There to confer on things that touch the State,
Likewise God's glory, and your weal besides.’

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Incontinent to Palencia rode my Cid
With kinsfold companied and many a knight;
The King received him in his palace chapel,
Vespers concluded but the aisles still thronged;
Embraced him; then stepped back, and, gazing on him,
Exclaimed, ‘Not knighted yet! My fault, my sin!
I must redeem the offence! Good kinsman, kneel!’
High up the bells renewed their silver clamour;
Ferrando knighted him: Ferrando's Queen
Led to the gate his charger: the Infanta
Girt him with spurs. Then gave the King command
Like bishop missioning priest but late ordained,
‘That gift now thine communicate to others!’
Straight to the chapel's altar moved the Cid
And lifted thence the sword of state. Before him
Three youthful nobles knelt. He with that sword
Their knighthood laid upon them.
Masque and dance
Lasted three days: then spake to him the King,
‘Cid—for that name by which all Spain reveres you,
Albeit a title not by me conferred,
I recognize well pleased—Donna Ximena,
Heiress of Gomez slain by you of old,
Warrior and counsellor dear to me and mine,
Stands sore imperilled through that righteous deed,
Her subjects in revolt and every knave
Flouting her princely right. Revolts spread fast;
Ere long my kingdom may lie meshed in such:
I see the hand that best can deal with treason!
My royal honour stands to her impledged
That you—first wedding her—her lands your own—
Should, in the embraces of your name and glory,
Foster the tender weakness of her greatness.
Wilt thou redeem that pledge?’

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The youth, ‘This maid,
King, is she good and fair?’
Ferrando smiled;
‘Glad am I that, as in my youthful days,
Goodness and grace still reign; kings rule not all!
Good she must needs be since her sire was good;
Majestical she is: her suit she made
As one who gives command; but you shall see her.
Seek we the Presence Chamber!’

From a throng
Of courtly ladies in the glory clad
Of silver cloudland when a moon sea-born
To pearl that silver turns, Ximena moved
Calmly, not quickly without summoning sign,
A sister at each hand in weeds night-black
And stood before the King. No gems she wore
And dark yet star-like shone her large, strong eyes,
A queenly presence. All Castile that day
Held naught beside so noble. Reverently
The young man glanced upon her; glanced again:
At last he gazed: then, smiling, thus he spake:
‘Forfend it, Heaven, Sir King, that vassal knight
Should break his monarch's pledge!’ Ferrando next,
‘Maid, thou hast heard him: he demands thy hand.’
To whom, unchanged, Ximena made reply:
‘King! better far the whole truth than the half!
That youth should know it. I demanded his:
I deemed his hand my right. My rights have ceased;
Now wife, not maid, my rights are two alone,
Henceforth to love my Husband and obey.’

She knelt, and, lifting, kissed her Husband's hand.
And next the King's; then rose and silent stood.

Ferrando spake: ‘The day's a youngling yet,
And I must see its golden promise crowned:

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Your bridesmaids and your bridal robes await you:
Kings lack not foresight: all things are prepared.’
Ximena sighed: ‘So soon! Then be it so!’
An hour and she returned in bridal white
With countenance unshaken as before,
Yet brightened by a glad expectancy.

The King gave sign: that company august
In long procession to the chapel passed;
Therein 'mid anthems sung, and incense cloud,
The nuptial Mass was solemnized. Ferrando,
Lowering his sceptre, gave the Bride away;
Her little sisters smiled and wept by turns;
The Cid adown her finger slipped the ring;
The Bishop blessed them, showering upon both
The Holy Water. From their knees they rose
Husband and Wife thenceforth. Leaving that church
Largess they showered on all.

At once they rode
To Bivar, where from age to age had dwelt
The Cid's great race. Behind them rode their knights,
Two hundred men. Before the castle's gate
High on its topmost step his mother stood
Girt by the stateliest ladies of that land
In festive garb arrayed. Her daughter new
Before her knelt; then, to her bosom clasped,
Looked up, and, smiling, spake not. Spake my Cid:
‘Mother, if less than this had been my Bride
Here had I tarried many a month and year;
But this is gift of God in Spain His greatest,
A maid taught nobleness in sorrow's school,
Unmatched for courage, simpleness, and truth:
Yea all her words have in them strength and sweetness.
Now therefore, since God's gifts must first be earned,
Not till five victories on five battle-fields

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Against Christ's foes have made her justly mine
Inhabit I with her in castle or waste.
Cherish her thou as thou didst cherish me;
The laws of Honour and of Faith to her
Teach as thou taughtest to me. Farewell to both!’
He turned, he lingered not, he looked not back;
Westward he rode to combat with the Moors.

Then spake another of those watchers sad,
Count Gaspar of the Douro: Love is good;
But good things live beside. That knew the Cid;
That lesson learned I riding at his left
Beneath his standard named ‘Ximena's Veil.’
Three days we rode o'er hill and dale; the fourth,
The daylight slowly dying o'er the moor,
A shrill voice reached us from the neighbouring fen,
A drowning man's. Down leaped our Cid to earth
And, ere another's foot had left the stirrup,
Forth from the water drew him; held him next
On his own horse before him. 'Twas a Leper!
The knights stared round them! When they supped that eve,
He placed that Leper at his side. The knights
Forth strode. At night one bed received them both.
Sirs, learn the marvel! As Rodrigo slept
Betwixt his shoulders twain that Leper blew
Breath of strong virtue, piercing to his heart.
A cry was heard—the Cid's—the knights rushed in
Sworded: they searched the room: they searched the house:
The Cid slept well: but Leper none was found:
Sudden that chamber brightened like the sun
New-risen o'er waves, and in its splendour stood
A Man in snowy raiment speaking thus:
‘Sleepest thou, Rodrigo?’ Thus my Cid replied,

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‘My Lord, I slept; but sleep not; who art thou?’
He spake, and, rising, in that splendour knelt:
And answer came: ‘Thy Brother-man am I,
In heaven thy Patron, though the least in heaven,
Lazarus, thy brother, who unhonoured lay
At Dives’ gate. To-day thou honoured'st me:
Therefore thy Jesus this to thee accords
That whensoe'er in time of peril or pain
Or dread temptations dealing with the soul
Again that strong Breath blows upon thy heart,
Nor angel's breath that Breath shall be, nor man's,
But Breath immortal arming thy resolve,
So long as Humbleness and Love are thine,
With strength as though the total Hosts of Heaven
Leaned on thy single sword. The work thou workest
That hour shall prosper. Moor and Christian, both,
Shall fear thee and thy death be glorified.’
Slowly that splendour waned away: not less
Hour after hour the Cid prayed on. At morn
Forth from that village forest-girt we rode
Ere flashed a dew-drop on its lightest spray
Or woke its earliest bird.

Thenceforward knights
Flocked daily to the Cid. Each month, each week
The Impostor's hosts, with all their banners green
Moon-blazoned, fled before him like the wind.
Now champaign broad, now fortress eyeing hard
From beetling cliff the horizon's utmost bound
Witnessed well pleased the overthrow of each:
Merida fell, Evora, Badajoz,
Bega in turn; more late Estramadura.
Fiercest of those great conflicts was the fifth:
From that red battle-field my Cid despatched
Unbounded spoil that raised a mighty tower

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O'er Burgos' church wherein he was baptized.
Moreover, after every conquering march
Huge doles he sent to Christian and to Moor;
For thus he said: ‘Though war be sport to knights
The tears of poor men and their beardless babes
Bedew the trampled soil.’ His vow fulfilled,
Five victories won, five months gone by, with joy
Once more to Bivar's towers the Cid returned.
There, at its gate, they stood who loved him best:
On the third step—as when he saw them last—
His mother and Ximena. First he kissed
His mother, next Ximena.
Musing sat,
The legend of that Bridal at an end,
Long time those watchers. Lastly rose a knight,
The youngest of that company elect,
Silent till then, and slender as a maid;
With countenance innocent as childhood's self
Yet venerable as a priest's grey-haired.
He spake: ‘A bridal then, and now a death,
A short glad space between them! Such is life!
That means our earthly life is but betrothal;
The marriage is where marriage vows are none.
Lo there! once more the altar lights flash forth:
That Widow-Wife, five months a Maiden-Wife,
Kneels 'mid their splendour.’ Eastward moved the knights,
And, kneeling near the altar, with the monks
Entoned the Miserere.

II. The Cid in Exile.

Next night once more in that Cathedral keep
Walled by its mother-rock the warriors watched:

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After long silence, leaving not his seat,
At length there spake a noble knight and brave,
Don Aquilar of Gabra: low his voice;
His eyes oft resting on the altar lights,
At times on listener near:
‘Sirs, all applaud the Conqueror: braver far
Our Cid that hour when he refused the battle:
I heard that tale in childhood.’ ‘Let us hear it,’
The others cried; and thus that knight began:
Our King, Ferrando, nighing to his death,
Beckoned the Cid and spake: ‘We two were friends;
Attend my dying charge. My race is Goth,
And in the brain, and blood, and spirit of Goth
Tempest but sleeps to waken. I have portioned
My kingdom in three parts among my sons,
Don Sanchez, Don García, Don Alphonso,
And throned my daughter in Zamora's towers:
When bickerings rise, sustain my testament.’
He died; his son, King Sanchez, was a churl:
One day he rode abroad: at set of sun
Zamora faced him: many-towered it stood
Crowning a rock and flinging far its shade
O'er Douro's crimsoned wave. He muttered low:
‘Yon city mine, all Spain were mine.’ That night
Thus spake he, careless seeming, to the Cid:
‘Ill judged my father dowering with yon fort
A woman-hand. At morn search out that woman;
Accost her thus from me: “My kingdom's flank
Lies bare: it needs for shield thy city's fortress.
I yield to thee Medina in its place
Tredra not less.”’ Ill pleased, the Cid replied,
Though reverent not concealing his displeasure:
‘Send other herald on that errand, King!
Ofttimes, a boy I dwelt in yonder fort

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When lodged therein Ferrando and Urraca,
And will not wrong your father's testament.’
King Sanchez frowned. Unmoved, the Cid resumed:
‘I take thy missive, King, and bring her answer,
But proffer service none.’ At morn he placed
That missive in Urraca's hand; she rose;
And raised her hands to heaven and answered fierce:
‘His brother, Don García, he hath bound;
His brother, Don Alphonso, driven to exile;
Elvira next, my sister and his own,
He mulct of half her lands; he now mulcts me!
Swallow me, earth, if I obey his hest!
Cid! thee I blame not, for I know thy heart!
Forth with my answer to my traitor brother!
Zamora's sons and I will die ere yet
I yield her meanest stone to force or fraud.’
Then spake the Cid: ‘The answer of a queen,
And meet for King Ferrando's child! Urraca,
This sword shall ne'er be raised against thy right!
My knighthood was in part through thee conferred.’
The Cid returned: King Sanchez stormed and raged:
‘This work is thine!’ Unmoved, my Cid replied,
‘True vassal have I proved to thee, O King,
But sword against the daughter of thy sire
I will not lift.’ King Sanchez: ‘For his sake
I spare thy life! Henceforth thou livest an exile!’
Low bowed the Cid. Bivar he reached that night,
And summoning all his knights, twelve hundred men,
Rode thence and reached Toledo.
Sirs, ere long
God dealt with that bad man. Three days his host
Fought malcontent: grimly they scaled the walls;
Zamora's sons hurled on them stones and rocks
The battlements themselves, till ditch and moat

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Thickened with corpses, and the Douro left
Daily a higher blood-line on those walls
While whispered man to man; ‘Our toil is lost,
He spurned our best; what cares he for men's lives?’
Then from Zamora sped a knight forsworn
By name Vellido Dolfos, crafty man,
Fearless in stratagem, in war a coward.
Like one pursued he galloped to the camp,
Checked rein at Sanchez’ tent, and, breathless, cried:
‘King, I had slain thee gladly yesternight;
This day a wronged man sues thee. Sir, revenge
'Gainst thy false sister is the meed I claim,
Thy sister kind to caitiffs, false to friends!
I know a secret postern to yon fort;
It shall be thine this night.’ ‘Who sees believes,’
Sanchez replied; ‘That postern—let me see it!’
They rode to where the forest's branching skirt
Screened it from random eyes. The King dismounted,
And, companied by that traitor knight alone,
Peered through that postern's bars. With lightning speed
The traitor launched his javelin 'gainst the King;
It nailed him to that ivy-mantled wall:
Vellido through the woodland labyrinths scaped.
The king ere sunset died.
Don Sanchez dead,
At once, from exile King Alphonso burst:
The Cortes met: with haughty brow he claimed
Allegiance due, like one who knows his rights,
Full sovereignty, God-given, and not from man,
Of Leon and Castile. They gave consent;
At Burgos in procession long and slow
The knights and nobles passed, and passing kissed
Each the King's hand. Alone the Cid stood still.

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Astonished sat the King. He spake: ‘The Cid
Alone no homage pays.’ The Cid replied:
‘Sir, through your total realm a rumour flies,
And kings, all know, must live above suspicion—
That in your brother's death a part was yours:
Sir, in his day your brother did me wrong:
I, for that wrong am none the less his vassal:
Make oath, sir King, that rumour is a lie!
Till then from me no homage!’ Silent long
Alphonso sat: then ‘Be it so,’ he said.
Next day he rode to Burgos' chiefest church,
And there heard Mass. About him stood that hour
His nobles and hidalgos: Mass surceased,
Crowned, on a dais high, in sight of all
Alphonso sat: behind him stood twelve knights:
Slowly my Cid advanced, upon his breast
Clasping the Gospels open thrown. The King
Laid on them hands outspread. Then spake my Cid:
‘I swear that in my brother's death no part
Was mine.’ Low-bowed, Alphonso said, ‘I swear;’
Likewise his twelve hidalgos. Then the Cid:
‘If false my oath, mine be my brother's fate.’
Alphonso said ‘Amen’; but at that word
His colour changed. With eye firm-fixed my Cid
Slowly that oath repeated; and once more
The King and his hidalgos said ‘Amen!’
Three times he spake it; thrice the monarch swore:
Then waved the standards, and the bells rang out;
And sea-like swayed the masses t'ward the gates.
Parting, Alphonso whispered to my Cid—
None heard the words he spake.

It chanced one day
The King, from Burgos riding with his knights,
Met face to face whom most he loathed on earth.

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With lifted hand he spake: ‘Depart my land!’
The Cid his charger spurred; o'er-leaped the wall;
Then tossing back his head, loud laughing cried,
‘Sir King, 'tis done! This land is land of mine!’
Raging the King exclaimed: ‘Depart my realm
Ere the ninth day!’ My Cid: ‘Hidalgo's right
By old prescription yields him thirty days
If banished from the realm.’ Alphonso then:
‘Ere the ninth eve, or else I take thy head!’
Low bowed Rodrigues to his saddle bow
And rode to Bivar. Summoning there his knights
Briefly he spake: ‘You see a banished man.’
They answered nought. Then Alvar Fanez rose
And said: ‘With thee we live; for thee we die,’
And rising, all that concourse said: ‘Amen.’

The eighth day dawned: My Cid from Bivar rode;
Whilst yet his charger pawed before its gate
He turned, and backward gazed. Beholding then
His hall deserted, open all its doors,
No cloaks hung up, within the porch no seat,
No hawk on perch, no mastiff on the mat,
No standard from the tower forth streaming free
Large tears were in his eyes; but no tear fell;
And distant seemed his voice—distant though clear
Like voice from evening field, as thus he spake:
‘Mine enemies did this: praise God for all things!
Mary, pray well that I, the banished man,
May drive the Pagans from His holy Spain,
One day requite true friends.’ To Alvar next
He spake: ‘The poor have in this wrong no part;
See that they suffer none;’ then spurred his horse.
Beside the gate there sat an aged crone
Who cried, ‘In fortunate hour ride forth, O Cid!
God give thee speed and spoil!’

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They reached old Burgos
At noontide, while for heat the dogs red-tongued
Slept in the streets. The King had given command
‘Let no man lodge the Cid, or give him bread!’
As slowly on his sixty warriors rode
And gazed on bakers' shops, yet touched no loaf
The gentle townsmen wept, ‘A sorry sight!’
Women were bolder: ‘Vassal good,’ they cried,
‘To churlish Suzerain!’ The Posado's gate
He smote three times with spear-shaft: none replied.
At last beneath its bars there crept a child
Dark-eyed, red-lipped, a girl of nine years old,
Clasping a crust. Sweet-toned she made accost:
‘Great Cid, we dare not open window or door
The King would blind us else. Stretch down thy hand
That I may kiss it!’ At her word my Cid
Stretched down his hand. She kissed it, hiding next
Therein the crust, and closing one by one
O'er it the mail-clad fingers. Laughed my Cid:
‘God's saints protect that shining head from hurt
And those small feet from ways unblest, and send
In fitting time fit mate.’ The sixty laughed:
Once more the child crept in beneath the bars:
They noted long the silver feet upturned
With crimson touches streaked. That night my Cid
Couched on a sand plain with his company
The palm-boughs rustling 'gainst their stems thickscaled.
Half-sleeping thus he mused. ‘Could I, unworthy,
So all unlike that child in faith and love,
Have portioned out that crust among my knights
God might have changed it to a Sacrament
And caused us in the strength thereof to walk
Full forty days.’

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Ere yet the bird of Dawn
In neighbouring farm its earliest clarion rang
The Cid had mounted; reached ere nones that haunt
Wherein his wife had taken sanctuary,
San Pedro de Cardena. At the gate
He blew his battle-horn. They knew it well!
Rushed forth Ximena and her ladies first:
O what a weeping was there at his feet!
Then followed many a monk with large slow eyes:
The abbot long had wished to see the Cid;
And now rejoiced: the feast was great that day
And great the poor man's share; and chimed the bells
So loudly that the King, in Burgos throned,
Frowned but spake nought. Next day two hundred knights
Flocked to the Cid's white standard. On the third,
Ere shone its sunrise, by that Abbey's gate
My Cid for blessing knelt, then spake: ‘Lord Abbot,
Be careful of my wife, Donna Ximena,
For princelier lady stands not on this earth
Of stouter courage or of sweeter ways:
Likewise breed up my babes in holy life;
Thy convent shall not lack, and if I die
God is my banker and will pay my debts.’
Next, to her lord Ximena with slow steps
Made way, and knelt; and weeping thus she spake:
‘Sundered ere death! I knew not that could be!’
Their parting seemed like parting soul and body.
Last came two ladies with his daughters twain.
He took them in his arms: his tears fell on them
Because they wept not but bewildered smiled;
And thus he spake: ‘Please God, with Mary's prayers,
I yet shall give these little maidens mine
With mine own hand to husbands worthy of them.’

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He said; and shook his rein, nor once looked back;
And the rising sun shone bright on many a face
Tear-wet in that dim porch.
Then spake a knight
Revered by all, Don Incar of Simancas
With strenuous face, keen eyes, and hectic hand:
A stripling I, when first that war began;
Rapturous it was as hunting of the stag
When blares the horn from echoing cliff and wood,
And deer-like bound the coursers. Sport began
Nigh to Castregon; next, like wind it rushed
To Fita, Guadalgara, and Alcala,
Thence to Heneres, and Torancio's plain,
And the olive-shaded gorge of Bobierca.
We crossed its dark-bright stream. A Moorish maid
Sold us red apples, and from wells snow-cold
Drew water for our mules. Our later deeds
Fade from my mind. We captured castles twelve
And raised the Cross upon them. Once dim mist
Lifted at morn shewed Moors uncounted nigh;
We stood in doubt. Our standard-bearer cried;
‘Sustain your standard, sirs; or if it please you,
Consign it to the Moors!’ He galloped on;
The dusky hordes closed round him. Torrent-like
We dashed upon them! Soon the morning shone
Through that black mass. The standard saved the host,
And not the host the standard. Likewise this
Clings to my memory trivial as it seems:
At Imbra, when the Moors bewailed their kine
Snatched from its golden mead, my Cid replied:
‘God save you, sirs! My King and I are foes.
In exile gentlemen must live on spoil.
What! would you set us spinning flax or wool?
Not kine alone, but all your vales and plains

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Are ours by ancient right! To Afric back!
This land is Spain—our Spain!’
That warfare past,
My Cid addressed him thus to Alvar Fanez:
‘Cousin, betake thee to that saintly place,
San Pedro, where abide my wife and babes:
Raise first those Moorish banners in its aisles,
Then noise abroad thy tidings. Greet with spoil
That abbot old. Seek last the King, Alphonso:
Give him his fifth: make no demand in turn;
Much less request. I wait not on his humours.’
Alvar went forth: In fair Valladolid
Ere long he met Alphonso with his train
Half way betwixt the palace and cathedral
Recent from Mass. The monarch—without greeting—
‘What means yon train of horses trapped in gold,
And swords inwrought with gems?’ Alvar replied
‘Sir King, my Cid bestows them on your Highness,
The fifth part of his spoil: for battles still
He wins, and wide domains, and tower, and town.
King, if the Cid but kept the lands he conquers
Half Spain would be his realm. Content he is
To hold them from your Grace in vassalage.
Therefore restore him to your royal favour!’
Alphonso then: ‘'Tis early in the morn
To take a banished man to grace and favour!
'Twere shame to stint my wrath so soon. For spoil,
Kings need not spoil! Not less, since thus the Moors
Are stripped, his work is work of God in part:
Let him send still my fifth!’
Then laughing spake
A humorous knight, Don Leon of Toledo:
Ay, ay, our King can jest when jest means gold!
Our Cid could jest with lions in his path!

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A hundred tales attest it: this is one:
Here dwelt he long in royal state. One day
It chanced, the banquet o'er, asleep he fell
Still seated on the dais for the noon
Was hot, while talked or laughed the noble guests
Ranged as their custom was around his board;
His palace held some guests beside hidalgos
That day, and one from Afric, not a Moor;
A lion's cage stood in the outer court;
Its door was left ajar. Scenting the meat
That lion reached at last the banquet chamber:
The ladies screamed: the warriors drew their swords:
The Infantes twain of Carrion most were mazed;
The elder backed into a wine-vat brimmed
Purpling the marble floors; the youngest crept
Beneath the board to where the Cid was throned
And quivering clasped his feet. The Cid awoke;
Rubbed first his eyes; gazed round him; marked that lion;
Advanced, though still half sleeping; by the mane
Drew him obedient as a mastiff hound;
Relodged him; barred his prison; re-enthroned
His own brave bulk. The knights pushed back their swords:
The Infantes strove to laugh: the ladies smiled;
A priest gave thanks in Latin, first for meat,
Next that that beast had failed on them to banquet;
Ere ceased that grace my Cid again slept well;
Sole time, men say, he ever slept at prayer,
Albeit at sermons oft.
Sir Incar next;
Your boasters see not far! Fortune ere long
On King Alphonso cast a glance oblique,
For vassals weak and meek grew strong and haughty;

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And when huge tracts were flooded now, now parched,
Men cried ‘our King is bad.’ That King sent gifts
Suing the Cid's return. The Cid replied:
‘To others gifts! for me my lands suffice.
My King commands my sword; my terms are these:
“To each hidalgo thirty days, not nine,
Shall stand conceded ere his banishment,
And courts beside wherein to plead his cause.
Next, charters old shall have their reverence old
As though their seals were red with martyrs' blood.
Lastly the King shall nowhere levy tax
Warring on law. Such tax is royal treason:
Thus wronged, the land is free to rise in arms.”’
Long time the King demurred; then frowned consent;
And there was peace thenceforth. That day arose
This saying: ‘Happy exile he that home
Returning to his country, bring her gifts.
His rest shall be in Heaven.’
No tale beside
Succeeded. Sweetly and slowly once again
From that remote high altar rose a hymn
Tender and sad: that female train once more
Approached it two by two, with steps as soft
As though they trod on hearts—Ximena last;
And star by star the altar lights shone out.
The knights arose, and, moving t'ward the east
Knelt close behind those kneelers.

III. The Cid at Valencia.

Once more the warriors watched: the first to speak
A knight of splenetic lips though roughly kind,

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Don José de Maria, thus began:
Sirs, some have boasted deeds if quaint yet brave,
And some have lectured long of lesser triumphs
The Cid's half jesting feats. Such chroniclers
Because they shared those battles give them praise,
Praising therein themselves. Valencia! there
Flamed forth the man's true greatness like the sun!—
The Moors' chief city, where their noblest dwelt
In garden-girdled palaces 'mid palms.
Seaward it looks t'ward every coast where waves
Their prophet's flag accurst. Thus spake the Cid:
‘Valencia's King sent kinglings on a day
When I, new wedded, hunted on his grounds,
To visit me. We grappled; and they fled:
Decorum needs that we return that visit.’
Pass we the lesser triumphs on his march.
He took Valencia's suburb chief. Huge walls
Manned by an army barred our farther progress;
Our scaling ladders near them seemed like toys.
The Cid encamped before them: missives sent:
‘Sirs, have your choice! or fight or die of hunger!’
But they had seen him in the field too oft
To fight as once they fought. The Cid flung back
With scorn their petulant sallies. Day by day
Their stores were minished. Sorer week by week
The anguish of their hunger. Many a Moor
Rushed to our serried ranks loud clamouring, ‘Bread!
‘Make us your slaves, but feed our babes!’
At last
An unexpected promise dawned upon them;
The mightiest of the Moorish hosts drew near,
The Almoravides; and Valencia's sons,
Fools of a credulous hope, exultant cried:
‘To Allah praise! Yon Christian foe is doomed;

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Ere long their bones shall whiten vale and plain!’
So sang they, clustered on the city walls
As twilight deeper grew, and plainlier shone
The Moorish camp-fires far. Meantime my Cid
Had given command to rive the dams and bridges
And open fling the sluices to the sea,
For prescient was the man and knew his foe
Must cross a lowland wide. The sea rushed in;
Twilight to blackness changed. The moon was drowned
In plunging storm of hail and rain and snow:
Emerging thence it stared on wandering floods
From sea and river, and the mountain walls
Whose torrents, glimpsed but when the lightning flared,
Thundered far off. Vain were the Moslem vows,
For countless prayers of Christians in all lands
From Breton coasts to the utmost German forest
And all that empire old of Charlemagne
Meeting them, drave them past the heavenly gates
Abortive shapes and frustrate. All night long
The Moors down crouched upon their city bastions
Clinging to tower and coign. At dawn came news!
That Moorish force had fled; Valencia's sons
When spread those tidings deemed themselves dead men;
Yea, as the blind they groped about their streets,
Or staggered on like drunkards; neither knew
Each man the face of neighbour or of friend,
But gazed at him and passed: at other times
Old enemies clasped hands but spake no word;
And some flung forth their arms like swimmer spent
That sinks in black seas lost. Ten days went by;
The famine spread till chiefs remote drew near

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Crying: ‘Thy vassals we!’
Four weeks had passed;
Then rose a white-haired elder, prophet deemed,
And famed for justice long, a silent man;
For three whole years he had not spoken word
Save thrice. He scaled Valencia's topmost tower,
And while around its base the people thronged
Made thus the lamentation of the City:
Nine times he made it ere the sun went down.
‘Valencia, my Valencia! Trouble and grief
Have come upon thee, and the hour decreed:
If ever God on any place shewed mercy
Now let Him shew it. For thy name was joy:
All Moors that live their boasting made of thee.
If God this day should utterly consume thee
Thy doom is doom of pride. If those four stones
The corner-stones that bind thy walls in one
Could leave their dread foundations, and draw nigh
And speak with stony mouth to stony ear,
The burden of their dirge would be thy sin.
Thy towers far-gazing see but woe. Thy river,
Old Guadalever, from its course is bent,
And all those watery ministers of thine
Far-sluiced behold their channels choked with mud;
Dried are the gardens green that sucked their freshness:
The wolf and the wild boar root thy plantains down;
Thy fields are baked like clay.
Thy harbour vast,
The mirror of thy greatness, and the marvel
Of merchant princes, guests from every land,

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Rots thick with corpses; and above it far
Drifts the red smoke from burning tower and town
From coast to coast.
Valencia, my Valencia!
This is the death-cry from a breaking heart,
Repent thee of thy sins!’
When sank the sun
That burthen ceased. Then round that pillar's base
Rang forth a mighty and a piercing cry;
And headlong from it through the city rushed
Women and men. Then first that saying rose,
‘Upon my right hand breaks the sea to drown me,
The lion on my left to crush my bones:
Behind me is the fire: before my face
And all around, the hunger.’
From that hour
Whoso had bread or grain in earth interred it
Like wild beast that inearths its remnant spoil,
And gnawed it stealthily—an ounce a day—
With keen eyes glancing round. At last a beggar
Groped his blind way into the market place
And cried, ‘Give up the city!’ Straight that cry
Ran through Valencia; and its elders rose
And paced barefoot, and found the Cid, and knelt,
And laid the City's keys before his feet:
Right courteously and sadly he received them;
Helmless he rode through silent streets, his horse
With muffled feet in reverence for their woe;
The Cross first raised he on the Alcazar's tower,
Then freed the Christian slaves. Proclaim he made
‘Let all who will depart the city free:’
Two days sufficed not for thosè throngs forth-streaming:
Thousands remained so well they loved that place;

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O'er these he set, alcalde of their race,
That elder—Alfaraxi was his name—
Who mounting to Valencia's topmost tower
Had sung that city's dirge.
Through that just man
The Moors their tribute paid. Thenceforth his fame
Drew thousands to the Cid. From that far East
Whence came the Magi following still the star
To Bethlehem's crib, drew near a wondrous man
Close shorn and shaven, Don Hieronymo,
On foot a monk, a warrior when on horse;
Hating the Moors, he came to waste and slay them.
My Cid received that priest full honourably,
And gave him armour and a horse. Withal
Bishop he made him of Valencia's city,
With instant charge that every mosque should change
Thenceforth to Christian church.
The Cid next day
Sent to San Pedro's Convent golden store
And mystic gems; for well he loved that haunt
Within whose balmy bosom dwelt once more
His wife and infants twain—not infants now
But virgins in the lap of womanhood.
He sent command to speed them to Valencia:
That missive read, they knelt and raised their hands
Much weeping for great joy. The abbot old
Wept also not for gladness but for grief
Since much he loved them. Brief was his reply:
‘I send them, Cid: our convent year by year
Will pray for thine and thee.’
A week went by;
And now Ximena with her daughters twain
Nighed to Valencia, and my Cid rode forth
To meet her, helmed and mailed. Hieronymo,

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Who, clad in mystic raiment white and black,
Followed Perfection, sent his clergy forth:
That great procession met them, golden-robed,
Three crosses at their head. Behind them trooped
The knights, a glittering company. The Cid
Rode at its head. Their Mother and those maids
Leaped down and rushed to him with arms extended.
Silent he clasped them each. At last he spake,
Laughing like one who jests that he may weep not:
‘Enter Valencia! 'Tis your heritage!
I hold it but in fief.’ Entrance they made
Through streets with countless windows tapestry-hung
And arches vine-entwined. Wondering, they marked
Its gilded minarets, and high palace fronts
Mosaic-wrought. At last they reached that tower,
The same which heard so late the prophet's dirge.
They clomb its marble steps. To the West they saw
The city's myriad gardens fountain-lit;
Eastward the sea. They knelt and sang ‘Te Deum’;
And from the vast and marvelling mass beneath
The great ‘Amen’ ascended.
Sirs, a tale
For children made might here find happy end;
But life, a teacher rough, when all looks well
Genders its tempest worst. Winter went by
With feast and tourney rich. Spring-tide returned:
A sudden flame of flowers o'er-ran the earth;
To see that sight, they clomb again that tower:
What met their eyes? A spectacle unlooked for!
The horizon line was white with countless sails.
The Cid but smiled: ‘I told you not of this,
A sorry seasoning for your winter banquets,
But knew it well. In far Morocco sits
The Emperor of the Afric Moors. Yon fleet

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Wafts here his son, with thirty kings all vowed
Their steeds to water in our Holy Wells
Then stable them in every Christian church:
What sayst thou, lady mine?’ Ximena spake:
‘How many come they?’ And the Cid replied
‘Full fifty thousand; and five thousand ours!’
Death-pale his daughters grew and silent stood:
Ximena made reply, her large black eyes
Dilating at each word, ‘What God inflicts
Man can endure.’ That moment strange eclipse
Darkened the sun; and from that fleet storm-hid
The Arab tambours rolled their thunders forth:
The Cid but stroked his beard, and smiling said:
‘Daughters, take heart! The larger yonder host
The shamefuller their defeat; our spoil the greater!
I promised you long since good mates in time:
This day I promise you fair marriage portions!’
He turned; not once again he sought that tower:
Not once he sallied from Valencia's wall
Till the last Moor had landed.

Sirs, to the end!
There where we fought we triumphed; but at last
Our springs of water failed us: then it was
Our Cid put forth his greatness. Earliest dawn
Was glimmering sadly under clouds low-hung
When, in San José's, Don Hieronymo
Sang Mass. He gave the absolution thus:
‘This day whoever, Christ's true penitent,
His heart with God, his face to God's chief foe,
Dies for his country, that man's sins shall fly
Backward in cloud; his Soul ascend to heaven!’
The rite complete, that Perfect One exclaimed:
‘A boon, my Cid! Your vanguard's foremost place!
God's priest should strike the earliest blow for God.’

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The Cid made answer: ‘Be it in His name!’
Then Alvar Fanez thus: ‘Concede me, Cid,
Three hundred knights that we may bide our time
Within that bosky dell of Albuhera:
The battle at its fiercest, we will on them!’
The Cid replied: ‘In God's name be it so!’

Ere day with knights five thousand forth he rode,
And, curving round through by-ways in the woods
Dashed on the Moorish rear. New risen and 'mazed,
They deemed some second host was in among them.
That second host was Don Hieronymo
With all his vanguard. ‘Smite them,’ still he cried,
‘For love of Charity!’ The battle flame
Upsoared and onward ran like fire o'er woods:
Great deeds were done that day and many a horse
Lacking a rider spurned the blood-red plain
That flashed with broken breast-plates and with helms;
And now the Moor the Christian now prevailed,
And all the battle reeled as when two storms
Through side-way valleys met in one black gorge
Wrestle and writhe commixed. That day the Cid
Seemed omnipresent, so the Moors averred;
They sware that on his crest a fire there sat
And shone in all the circlings of his sword,
His stature more than man's. Not less in mass
Their dusk battalions hour by hour advanced:
Numbers at last prevailed; and here and there
The Christian host fell back. At once my Cid
Cried to his standard-bearer, ‘Scale yon rock,
And wave around thy head my standard thrice!’
Forward the standard-bearer rushed. That hour
The monks in far San Pedro's Church entoned
Their customed matin song and promised prayer
For him, the man they loved. The standard-bearer

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Waved thrice his standard from that craggy height,
And, as he waved it, shouted thrice ‘My Cid’
With sound as when the Fontarabian cliffs
Re-echoed Roland's horn. Swifter than moon
Fleeting 'mid stormy hill-peaks forest-girt,
That host by Alvar Fanez hid forth dashed
And flung themselves upon the Moorish flank,
Three hundred spears. The Moors were panic-stricken;
Ere long, half blinded by the westering sun,
They broke, and headlong toward the harbour fled:
Then jesting cried my Cid, ‘The day declines;
The sun must not go down upon our wrath.
For that cause, Christians, smite, and smite your best!
Your battle-axe be on them till yon orb
Shows but one star-like point!’ That point evanished
The fugitives reached the sea. Three times that hour
My Cid closed up upon the flying king,
Yucef, and three times smote his shoulders lithe;
Half dead he reached his ship; but as he leaped
My Cid flung after him the sword Colada;—
It left its mark upon him till his death,
Then sank in sea; next day a diver raised it.
Twelve thousand perished there in ship or wave.
That evening through Valencia's stateliest street,
That Perfect One, Hieronymo, beside him,
Bare-headed rode the Cid. Like creatures winged
Ximena and his daughters rushed to meet him
And kissed his hands and kissed Bavieca's neck;
Great feast was in the palace held that night,
And in the churches great were the thanksgivings
And great the alms bestowed upon the poor,
Christian and Moor alike.
Ere long within Valencia was fulfilled
That vow the Cid had vowed: ‘Though exiled now,

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This hand will give these babes to worthy mates,’
For thither, drawn by rumours of their charms,
Great princes flocked. In after times these maids
Were queens: The elder throned in Aragon,
The second in Navarre.

Don José ceased:
Then shouted loud Don Ivor of Morena
With hands high holden and with eyes upraised,
‘O Cid, my Cid, how glorious were thy days!
How many a minstrel sang thee in far lands!
What greetings came from kings! The French king thus,
“Hail, Cid, no king, yet prop of all our kings!
In vain Charles Martel with his Paladins
Had trod the Crescent down on Poitiers' plain
Thy later aid withheld!”’
Then rose once more
That youngest knight and slender as a maid
Who on the earliest of those knightly vigils
Spake thus, ‘Our earthly life is but betrothal.’
Again he spake: The Cid's most happy day
Was one that neither brought him gift nor triumph:
The day when came to him that silent man
Whom from the first his heart had loved and honoured,
The Alcalde Alfaraxi—he of whom
Hieronymo had said, ‘Watch well yon man,
For when he speaks he'll teach us lore worth knowing.’
That day he sought the Cid and thus addressed:
‘Sir, I give thanks to God Who sent you here!
Here dwelt my forefathers: I loved this spot;
The Christians took me captive yet a child,
And taught me their religion: but my kin
Ransomed me later; with their seers I bode
And won from them all learning of the Moors;

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Yea, zealous for their Prophet's law was I.
Now, sir, a man of silence, musing long,
And measuring Christian Faith with Moslem Law,
Albeit on many loosely hangs that Faith
Else I had been a Christian many a year,
My sentence is with Christ and not Mahomet;—
I will to be baptized.’ Then laughed for joy
My Cid: he kissed that Moor, and caught his hand
And led him straight to where Ximena sat
Crying, ‘Rejoice! The Alcalde is our brother!’
Ximena heard, and rose, and, like her husband,
That Christian kissed, and largess sent to shrines,
And decked the palace gates because God's Church
Is Gate, as all men know, 'twixt earth and heaven;
And on the morn of Holy Saturday
The font new-blessed, when leaped therein once more
‘God's creature, water, holy and innocent,’
His god-mother was she. From that day forth
Gill Diaz was his name. That eve my Cid
Whispered a priest, ‘I often mused why God
Had sent me hither, not some worthier knight:
Perchance 'twas but to serve one silent soul!’
In three months more Gill Diaz was a Saint.
He taught the Cid to rule the Moors with kindness
Judged by their proper law. They loved that Cid
For gracious ways in peace, though fierce in war,
And ofttimes when he passed the gates cried loud,
‘Great Cid, our prayers attend thee!’
The young knight ceased. Then glittering from afar,
Again before the Altar shone the lights:
Again Ximena 'mid their radiance knelt;

277

Again arose that saintly ‘Miserere’;
Again those warriors joined the rite august.

IV. The Death of the Cid.

The latest of those watchful days had come:
The Knights still held discourse of ancient times
And wonders of the Cid. At last arose
A man silent till then though restless oft,
A silver-haired Castilian flushed of brow:
He spake like one that hides his grief no more.
‘Sirs, ye converse of things long past as present,
For still ye laud the Cid who rests with God
And, angel-praised, regards not praise of man,
Yet near things see through mist. Sirs, look around!
Morocco's Soldan knocks against your gates;
His navies close your ports; his hosts this hour
Thrice number those our Great One chased whilome.
To business, sirs! A week, and of those present
Few will survive, I ween.’
To him replied
That youngest knight who at their earliest watch
Had said, ‘Man's earthly life is but betrothal.’
‘Sirs, it had ill become us, warriors vowed,
Had we discoursed of danger ere our dirge
O'er greatness dead had reached an honest end.
That done, devise we how to save the city.’
Then laughing cried, with hands together rubbed,
That mirthful knight, Don Leon de Toledo:
‘Devise we counsel, sirs! but wot ye well
Counsel is bootless if the counsellors
Be men of rueful face. Such face, moreover,

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Insults our Cid, to whom all wars were jest
And jest at times was sermon in disguise:
Glad man was he—our Cid!’
Don Sanchez then:
‘Supreme of jests were this: to place our Cid,
Though dead, upon his horse with face to foe!
Santiago! but to hear his laugh in heaven!
The rogues would fly!’
To him Don Aquilar:
‘Brother, your jest was to our Cid no jest,
But serious thought. In sickness twice he cried:
“For this alone is Death a thing unwelcome,
It stays us from the Moors! Should ill confront us
When dead I lie, set me upon my horse;
This arm shall smite them still!”’ Don Ramon next
Know ye no more? Ximena told me all.
The Cid, Morocco's navy full in sight,
Confessed to her that peril till then unknown
Compassed the Christian cause. ‘Bucar,’ he said,
‘Nursing five years his rage, stirs up this day
The total hosts of Barbary against us.
What if our pride of late, or sins beside,
Invoke God's chastening hand?’ That fleet arrived,
He, sickness-stricken, cried aloud, ‘Ah me,
That I should live unprofitable this day!
Raise up, great God, some nobler! Let him walk
Thy knight elect!’
Distressed he lay that night,
Tranquil at morn. He spake: ‘Fear naught, Ximena!
There came to me last night trial unknown—
Pray God it come no more! A trance fell on me
That was not sleep. Before me sat a man
At sunset in an ancient castle's hall:
Low-bent his forehead rested on his hands:

279

At last he raised his head: it was my sire,
The man I ever loved the best on earth:
Sad image seemed he of that speechless woe
His when his race and house had suffered shame.
An age methought that dreadful trance endured.
Sudden, like breeze from Pyrenean snows,
Some Breath Divine transpierced my heart:—that Breath
Which cheered me oft at danger's worst. I heard
“Be strong! When night is darkest day is night!”
Then all my palace filled with wondrous light
And from that splendour issued forth a Man
Hoary but strong—two keys his girdle bore.
He spake: “Regard no more yon host, for God
In thirty days will call thee to His peace
Because thou serv'dst Him with true heart though frail,
And lov'dst right well my convent of Cardena.
Thy God will not forsake thee! Like a mist
The Moor shall vanish; and thyself, though dead,
When Spain's high Patron fights that final fight,
Shalt share his victory for thy body's honour.
Likewise that day thou diest the Power accurst
Shall fall in Holy Land; the Faith be free:
The Cross of Christ shine forth from Salem's towers:
And Bullogne's Godfrey live God's knight elect,
Fulfilling thus thy prayer.”’
Thus spake the Cid, and ceased. Ximena fixed
Her eyes upon him. Then the Cid resumed:
‘The body's weakness is the Spirit's strength.
I saw these things, and more: he came to me,
That boy all beautiful we lost in youth.
You too shall see him soon.’
Again he mused, and sudden ended thus:

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‘Would God that when that final battle joins,
The strength of men might place me on my horse
Facing the Moor; for God, methinks, that hour
Will work some great deliverance for mankind;
Also the greater then will be His praise
When all men cry, “'Twas God, and not our Cid,
Conquered of old: now through the Dead He conquers.”
But let these things be done as they deem best—
Hieronymo, that Perfect One, and these
My cousin Alvar Fanez, and Bermudez.
Gill Diaz I ordain for charge of thee.’
Then spake that slender knight and meek as maid:
Sirs, rest assured that wish was not pride-born,
Since what could be more humble than his death?
He bade them bear him to St. Peter's Church,
There entering, spake: ‘I suffer none to mourn;
Sirs, all that live must die; but know ye this:
Christian who goes reluctantly to God
Is like a soldier who hath ta'en a city
Yet fears to enter it and hail his lord
There new-enthroned and crowned.’ Full reverently
Then at the Bishop's feet he knelt, and there
Humblest confession made and was assoiled.
They that stood nigh in circle heard his words:—
Great scorn had still our Cid of all concealment:
The words he spake they heard.
Don Sanchez last:
Sirs, in this matter God hath shewn His will
By manifest signs. Regard our Cid! He sits
Beside yon altar, changeless. Sirs, attend!
What time Valencia fell, for months, for years
Far nations sent him gifts; Persia's arrived
The last with camel train and long procession.
‘Can Moslem love a Christian?’ was our cry!

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Sirs, of her gifts the chief, ye know, was this,
A golden Vial, and around it graved
Inscription strange which no man could decipher
Knight, clerk, or stranger. Don Hieronymo
At last confession made: ‘God sent that Gift,
Not man: and God its import will divulge
When most our need.’ This likewise, sirs, ye know,
That when that Moor who sang Valencia's dirge,
The Alcalde Alfaraxi, Christian made,
Was shewn that Vial sealed from Moslem eye,
He, sage in Persian lore, the inscription read:
‘The body of the just man, ere his death
Washed in this balsam shall not see corruption:’
Sirs, in that balsam was our Great One washed
Ere yet he died and hath not seen corruption:
Therefore 'twas God, we know, who sent that Gift!
He sent it that our Cid, the Elect of God,
Should triumph in his death. The battle-field,
Sirs, shall attest my words!
Then rose the cry,
‘Place we our Cid upon his horse, Bavieca,
Full armed, and with his countenance to the Moor,
Leaving the rest to God.’

That Perfect One,
Hieronymo, next day approved their word,
And Alvar and Bermudez; and, God-taught,
Devised how that high thought should stand fulfilled.
Throughout that day the Christians knelt in prayer—
Prayer great and strong. When pealed the midnight chime
The twelve side altars of St. Peter's Church
Glittered with lights; and, hour by hour, at each
In swift succession Mass on Mass was said

282

Low-toned by priests that came like shades then passed
With chalice veiled adown the darkling aisles.
At earliest day-break Don Hieronymo,
Before the great high altar standing sole
Offered the all-wondrous Sacrifice Eterne
With absolution given: and all the knights,
Four thousand men, kneeling received their Lord
Then bent long time their foreheads on the ground:
At last they rose with sound as when sea-winds
Blow loud on piny hills, and by that gate
Named ‘of the Snake’ forth from the city rode
Full slowly and in silence. At their head
Upon his horse Bavieca rode the Cid
With awful, open eyes, and in his hand
His sword, Tirzona, pointing to the skies,
Upon his right hand Don Hieronymo,
His left, Gill Diaz, holding each a rein.

Here follows in that sacred legend old
The greatest battle ever fought in Spain,
Though brief, ‘God's Battle’ named. The Chronicler,
Writing for men who inwardly believed
God made the world, and rules it, fearless wrote,
And this his record. Morn by morn, twelve morns,
Morocco's host had stood before that gate
Shouting defiance and their prophet's name,
And, no man answering, mused, ‘The Cid is dead’;
But when that morn they saw the Cid advance
Slowly, his knights four thousand in the rear,
Fear fell upon them whispering each to each,
‘He died not! Traitors lied to lure us hither,
Then slay us like one man!’ Others averred,
‘He died; but God hath raised him from the dead!’
Nearer he drew: distincter grew his face:
Panic divine fell on them. Mists of death

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Cumbered their eyes: each heart was changed to ice:
The knights four thousand shouted ‘Santiago!’
They fled. King Bucar launched on them fresh hosts
In fratricidal war. The Cid and his
Meantime on-moving, reached that fountain cold
Akbar by name, begirt by palm-trees seven—
An Arab saint, men said, had rested there—
Therein, his wont, Bavieca quenched his thirst:
That done, Gill Diaz turned him towards Valencia:
At last no farther would he move, but stood
With forward-planted feet, and head forth held,
Eyeing the battle plain.

Again he saith,
That Chronicler, the Moors, their panic spent,
Surceased from that their fratricidal war
While prophet bald, grim seer, and fakir fierce,
Nursed on mad visions 'mid Arabian peaks
Rushed through the red ranks with uplifted hands
Exhorting and denouncing. Bucar well pleased
Watched from his height the lulling of that storm
And hurrying up with all his great reserves
Missioned long since from every Afric coast,
Tremessian, Zianidian, or Tunisian
Whate'er vexed Syrtes kens o'er raging waves
Or Atlas through grey cloud—with these begirt,
Their dazzling chivalry and standards green,
Himself in midst of those late-warring hosts
With crown imperial and with sceptre gemmed
Sudden appeared, nor stayed, but vanward passed
Assuming sole command. Back rushed the Moors
Now formed anew, to where the Christian Knights
Waited unmoved though destined as might seem
To certain death and swift, and waiting raised
Once more Spain's shout of onset, ‘Santiago!’

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'Twas heard in heaven! The eyes of either host
Were opened, and they saw the Hills of God
Round them thick-set with knights innumerable
On snow-white steeds and armed in mail snow-white;
Their Chief a wondrous One with helm cross-crowned
Who bore upon his breast a bleeding cross
And raised a sword all fire. The Moslems fled;
Their Soldan first. Later they sware the earth
Upheaved like waves had hurled them t'ward the sea.
That flight was murderous more than battle's worst:
Whole squadrons perished trampled under foot;
Not once they turned on those four thousand knights
Loud thundering in their rear. The harbour reached,
Thousands lay smothered 'mid the ships or waves
By their own armour cumbered to the death—
Among them kings eighteen. The rest made sail
With Bucar to Morocco. Never again
That Soldan looked on Spain.
The rising sun
Shone fair next morning on Valencia's walls
As from them moved a solemn pilgrimage—
Spain's greatest son upon his horse world-famed,
Borne slowly t'ward San Pietro di Cardena.
Upright he sat: upon his right hand walked
His Wife, and on his left Hieronymo
Behind them priests intoning gladsome psalms.
Each evening as they neared their place of rest
Its bishop and his priests approached cross-led,
With anthem and sad dirge. The second day
The Donna Sol, his daughter eldest-born
Beside her Aragonian lord drew near,
And knights a hundred mailed, with shields reversed
Hung from their saddle-bows. Wondering they gazed
So awful looked that dead man yet so sweet,

285

His household standard o'er him, and his knights
Not funeral-garbed but splendid as beseems
High tournament or coronation feast.
Not thus the Donna Sol. Her glittering tiar
She cast on the earth and wailed. Ximena then:
‘Daughter, you sin against your Father's charge;
Lamentings he forbade.’ Then Donna Sol
Kissed first her father's hand and next her mother's,
And answered low, ‘In ignorance I sinned.’
Elvira, youngest daughter of the Cid,
Next morning joined them with Navarre, her husband:
Silent she wept, knowing her father's will.
Day after day great companies drew nigh
With kings among them regnant in far lands,
Blackening both vale and plain. At last the Cid,
Faithful in death, reached that majestic pile
So loved by him, San Pietro di Cardena:
The abbot, aged now a hundred years,
And all his monks before the portals ranged
Received him silent.
King Alphonso dwelt
That season at Toledo. In sombre silence
He hastened to those obsequies of one
By him so long revered, so scantly loved
And yet to him so helpful at his need;
Long time he stood a-gazing on the dead:
At last he spake: ‘Spain ne'er had man like that man,
Saw never knight so loyal and so true
So gladsome, simple, holy and brave and sage.
'Twas well for me he never knew his greatness!
In heaven they'll rise to meet him!’ Six whole days
He graced the Cid with vigils and with rites
Befitting Christians dead. He willed besides
To lay him in a golden coffin gemmed

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Beyond the funeral pomps of Spanish kings.
Ximena would not. Once again the wife
Stood up as stately as the maid that stood
Before Ferrando, making then demand
‘Let him who crushed my father's house restore it!’
As calm she answered now that monarch's son:
‘It shall not be! There let him sit enthroned,
For many a throne throughout his stormy life
My husband spurned, thus answering, “Of my sires
No man was king.” Look there! There sits, not lies,
The man, not king, who propp'd the thrones of kings—
There in that house which roofed his exiled babes:
There let him rest.’ Alphonso at her word
Sent to Toledo for that ivory chair
Raised on a dais where the Cortes met
Yearly, whereon till then had no man sat,
The kingly symbol of an absent king,
And reared it at the right of Peter's altar
And spread thereon a cloth of gold impearled,
And o'er it raised a wondrous tabernacle
Azure, gold-starred, and flushed with arms of kings
The blazonries of Leon and Castile
Navarre and Aragon, and with these the Cid's:
And on Saint Peter's day the King Alphonso,
The Infantes of Navarre and Aragon,
And Don Hieronymo, in sacred state
Throned on that chair the Cid, and round him spread
That purple robe the Persian Soldan's gift,
And reared within his grasp his sword Tirzona,
Whereof the meaning is the ‘Brand of Fire’—
Not bare but sheathed since now its work was done;
Upon its hilt was graved ‘Ave Maria’:
Likewise before his feet that earlier sword

287

They laid, Colada, graved with ‘Yea’ and ‘Nay’
At either side its blade; since plain of speech
The Cid had ever been.
Thenceforth till death
In that magnific pile Ximena dwelt,
Watched by her husband's latest friend, Gill Diaz,
His latest yet most honoured, most beloved,
Serving the poor of Christ. Long nights she knelt
In prayer beside her lord, lest aught ill-done
Or left undone might bar him from God's Vision,
Though restful with those Saints who wait God's time
In that high paradise of Purgatory
Sung by the Tuscan, where Eunoe flows
And Lethe, and Matilda gathers flowers.
Four years fulfilled, in peace and joy she died.
Three days before her death she spake these words
'Twixt sleep and waking to her maidens near:
‘I go to be at last in heaven his Bride
With whom I lived in troth not spousal here.’
Gill Diaz yet remained. Daily he led
His master's charger—no man rode him now—
To where beside a cross a spring uprose
Fresher than Akbar's 'mid those palm-trees seven:
O'er it the old charger bent. Full many a time
There standing, though with thirst unsatisfied,
Troubled he lifted up his ears and listened,
And when he heard his master's voice no more,
Sighed and moved on, deject. Two years he lived,
Then died. Before that monastery's gate
Gill Diaz buried him, above his grave
Planting two elms, and dying, gave command,
‘Beside Bavieca's grave in turn be mine,
Because both knew to serve.’
Here maketh end

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That book world-famous, the ‘Cid's Chronicle,’
Writ by a king, Alphonso named the Wise
Sage in all science and a Troubadour.
Two centuries and a half the Cid was dead:
Then sent Alphonso faithful men and true
Through all the cities and the vales of Spain
To garner up all relics old that song
History or tale had treasured of that man
Who was the manliest man that e'er shed tear,
The tenderest man that ever fought in war,
The lowliest man that e'er rejected thrones:
All these that king into a garland wove.
With England's Arthur and with Charlemagne
The Cid hath place; and since he left this earth
He rests and reigns among the Blest in heaven.

University of Virginia Library

LEGENDS OF THE CID.

I. The Cid's Marriage.

II. The Cid in Exile.

III. The Cid at Valencia.

IV. The Death of the Cid.