The Lay of the Cid

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lay of the Cid
by R. Selden
Rose and Leonard Bacon
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Title: The Lay of the Cid
Author: R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6088]
[Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on November 4,
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Edition: 10
Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE LAY OF
THE CID ***
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.

Transcription by Holly Ingraham.

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.

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 an end