POEM OF THE CID ('Poema de Mio Cid') is the most ancient monument of Spanish literature. The author, date and place of its composition are uncertain, but internal evidence points to some part of Castile, probably the neighborhood of Medina, as the place and 1140 60 as the date of its writing. The falls thus in time between the de Roland> and the 'Niebelungenlied.> In archa ism of diction and prosody it stands nearer its French prototype; in unity of conception and the clean-cut outlines of the development of its story nearer to its German successors. The 3,730 lines of the epic fall into 152 stanzas of very varying length, the lines in each having the same assonant, though not rhyming ending. The metre is a rude Alexandrine, doubtless some what corrupted in the single manuscript, writ ten apparently in 1307, which survives. The beginning is lost and a page, some 50 lines, from the body of the book. The theme of the 'Poems' is the wrongs, martial achievements in banishment and final triumphant vindication of Ruy Diaz de Bivar, known to Moors as Sidi, that is, my •Cid, i.e., my Lord, and to his con temporary Spaniards as El Campeador, i.e., the Warrior, German Kiimpter, though curiously enough later writers of either race favored the designation given by the other. The historical Ruy Diaz was a Castilian of distinguished birth. His wife, Ximena, was a daughter of Diego, Count of Oviedo. He was banished through court intrigue in 1080 or 1081 and for some years distinguished himself in partisan warfare with and against Moorish chieftains, fought notable battles at Almenara, Zalaca and Tebar, captured Valencia in 1094, formed an alliance with Pedro of Aragon in 1096 and, after five years of troubled rule at Valencia, died in 1099. His wife and followers evacuated that town in 1102. Out of this energetic and successful con dottiere legend had in a half century erected a hero of a loyalty to his king as utter and more abject than that of Roland or of the German Hagen, a pattern of valor, of magnanimity and of honor as that age conceived it, but yet a thoroughly flesh and blood man. The (Poems' opens with the Cid going into banishment. Pop ular sympathy is repressed by dread of the king. He recruits his finances by cheating a Jew about security for a loan and his forces with °needy men° from all quarters. His wife, a Ximena, though not the true one, and his daughters, creatures of the poet's fancy, are confided to a monastery. He has a comforting vision of the angel Gabriel at Higeruela, cap tures Alcocer, defeats Moors who besiege him there in an inspiriting battle, but has still to °maintain himself by lance and sword.* At
Tebar he defeats the Count of Barcelona and -shows to him a magnanimity which challenges his admiration and even belief. Here the Cid won the first of his famous swords, Colada, still shown as a treasure at the Armeria in Madrid. °Here," says the poet, °begins the fiesta of My Cid"' (line 1086) and with it the epic's second' cantor, or canto. This tells of the greatest achievement of Ruy Diaz' life, the capture of Valencia and the setting up of his princedom •here, interweaving with this the wholly ficti tious tale of the marriage of the Cid's daugh ters, in compliance with the royal desire, to certain Infantes de Carrion. Here is intro , doted an °Fastern
Jeronimo, who plays somewhat the part of 'turpin in the Roland song. A combat with an uncaged lion seems conscious imitation of a passage in the French epic. Babieca, the steed who plays so large a part in the later ballads of the Cid, also appears. The third and last cantar opens with a fine ,battle piece and the winning of the Cid's second sword, Tison, still guarded as an heirloom in Spain, but deals chiefly with the bitter despite done to the Cid's daughters by the Infantes de Carrion at Corpes and with their subsequent humiliation and punishment in battle ordeal. It closes with the second and more brilliant nuptials of the daughters with the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon which have historic war rant, for since Alfonso VIII of Castile
of Spain are of his blood)" (line 3,724) and Charles V in a royal charter of 1541 speaks of the Cid as °our ancestor?' The most scholarly edition of