University of Virginia Library

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