The Lay of the Cid | Page 3

time the Cid was restored to the good graces of Alphonso,
but a misunderstanding during some joint military expedition brought a
second decree of banishment. The Cid's possessions were confiscated
and his wife and children cast into prison.
The Cid then went to the support of Alkaadir, king of Valencia. He
defeated the threatening Almoravides flushed with their victory over
the Castilians at Zalaca. Again he chastised Berenguer of Barcelona. he
hastened to answer a second summons from Alphonso, this time to bear
aid in operations in the region about Granada. Suspecting that
Alphonso intended treachery, he with drew from the camp toward
Valencia. With Zaragoza as his base he laid waste the lands of Sancho
and avenged himself upon Alphonso by ravaging Calahorra and Nájera.
Finally in 1092 the overthrow of Alkaadir prompted him to
interfere
definitely in the affairs of Valencia. He besieged the city closely and
captured it in 1094. There he ruled, independent, until his death in
1099.
Even the Moorish chroniclers of the twelfth century pay their tribute to
the memory of the Cid by the virulence of their hatred. Aben Bassam
wrote: "The might of this tyrant was ever growing until its weight was
felt upon the highest peaks and in the deepest valleys, and filled with
terror both noble and commoner. I have heard men say that when his
eagerness was greatest and his ambition highest he uttered these words,
'If one Rodrigo brought ruin upon this Peninsula, another Rodrigo shall
reconquer it!' A saying that filled the hearts of the believers with fear
and caused them to think that what they anxiously dreaded would
speedily come to pass. This man, who was the lash and scourge of his
time, was, because of his love of glory, his steadfastness of character
and his heroic valor, one of the miracles of the Lord. Victory ever

followed Rodrigo's banner--may Allay curse him--he triumphed over
the princes of the unbelievers . . . and with a handful of men
confounded and dispersed their numerous armies.' [2] One can hardly
look for strict neutrality in the verdicts of Moorish historians, but
between the one extreme of fanaticism that led Aben Bassam elsewhere
to call the Cid a robber and a Galician dog and the other that four
centuries later urged his
canonization, the true believer can readily
discern the figure of a warrior who was neither saint nor bandit.
[2] Aben Bassam, Tesoro (1109), cf. Dozy, Recherches sur
l'histoire
politique et littéraire d'Espagne pendant le Moyen Age. Leyden, 1849.
The deeds of such a man naturally appealed to popular imagination,
and it is not wonderful that there were substantial accretions that less
than a hundred years later found their way into the Epic. Within an
astonishingly short time the purely traditional elements of the marriage
of the Cid's daughters and the Parliament at Toledo became its central
theme. It is probable that such a vital change was not entirely due to
conscious art in a poet whose distinguishing characteristic is his very
unconsciousness. From his minute familiarity with the topography of
the country about Medina and Gormaz, his affection for St. Stephen's,
his utter lack of accuracy in his description of the siege of Valencia and
from the disproportionate prominence given to such really insignificant
episodes as the sieges of Castejón and Alcocer, Pidal has inferred that
the unknown poet was himself a native of this region and that his story
of the life of the Cid is the product of local
tradition. [3] Moreover
there is abundant evidence to prove that before the composition of the
poem as it has come down to us, the compelling figure of the Cid had
inspired other chants of an heroic if not epic nature.
[3] Cid, 1, 72-73.
From this vigorous plant patriotic fervor and sympathetic
imagination
caused to spring a perennial growth of popular
legends. The "General
Chronicle of Alphonso the Wise," begun in 1270, reflects the national
affection for the very chattels of the Cid. it relates that Babiéca passed
the evening of his life in ease and luxury and that his seed flourished in

the land.
After this constantly increasing biographical material had been
developed and expanded through at least six chronicles and later epic
treatment it was taken up by the ballads with a wealth of new episodes.
Of these one of the most interesting is the Cid's duel with the conde
Lozano and his marriage to Ximena. The hounds of Diego Lainez, the
Cid's father, have seized a hare belonging to the conde Lozano, who
considers that he has been grievously insulted thereby. Accordingly he
retaliates with slurs that can removed only ont he field of honor. Diego
Lainez, too old to fight, in order to discover which one of his three sons
is worthy of clearing the honor of the family,