by AnonYMous
The poem itself reveals a far more complex world than most imagine, a universe within which, among many other things, the Christian hero’s most trusted ally can be a Muslim, and where the most odious villains are important members of the Castilian aristocracy. As readers of Burton Raffel’s vigorous new translation will immediately discover, the reality of the poem is very different from the mythology, and its preoccupations are enduring ones. Although few readers of either the glorious Old Spanish or this brisk and instantly captivating new English version will sympathize with all of its values—and when is that ever the case with a work of fiction?—most will find themselves transported to a world sometimes unexpectedly familiar. Raffel’s rendition serves to remind readers of the straightaway power of oral narratives—hence the choice of the title The Song of the Cid—and captures much of the genius of the poem, especially its frontierlike directness and its unashamed expression of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition: the seduction of wealth, the grief of exile from a homeland, the unspeakable love of one’s children, the anger provoked by betrayals, the difficult contemplation of how to achieve justice. And all of this plays out on a stage where warfare is a fact of life, and yet where there is a visible and central struggle to replace raw violence with the rule of law as the ultimate arbiter of justice. Here we have an epic narrative that vividly conjures up a world at once removed and yet far from remote from us.
MARÍA ROSA MENOCAL
Suggestions for Further Reading
A vast library of scholarship and commentary on The Song of the Cid exists. Mentioned here are a very small selection of essential works in the history of the poem’s interpretation as well as recommendations for further exploration by the general reader. Many of the works cited contain extensive bibliographical guidance.
The most influential early works of scholarship on the Cid are Menéndez Pidal’s edition of the Poema de Mio Cid and his study La España del Cid, which exists in an English translation from 1934, The Cid and His Spain, by Harold Sunderland (London: J. Murray); both remain of considerable value and interest, and enduring influence. It is more than a curiosity to note that Menéndez Pidal served as an advisor to the 1961 Hollywood production of El Cid and that the story told in the film is based only in small part on the events of the poem itself but principally on Menéndez Pidal’s version of the history, as reconstructed from other texts. A number of recent Spanish editions of the poem provide useful commentary on textual and historical problems, extended bibliographies, as well as fundamental readings of the poem that can differ dramatically from those of Menéndez Pidal. Among these see especially Eukene Lacarra Lanz, Poema de Mio Cid (Barcelona: Area, 2002), and Alberto Montaner and Francisco Rico, Cantar de Mio Cid (Barcelona: Crítica, first published in 1993 but republished in an anniversary edition in 2007). Lacarra Lanz was herself the author of a landmark study of the poem in 1980, Poema de Mio Cid: Realidad histórica e ideología (Madrid: Porrúa Turanzas), which argued, against Menéndez Pidal, that the poem is the written work of a learned man, deeply versed in the law, and concerned with the early-thirteenth-century struggles among the different classes of the nobility, and their relations with royalty.
The arguments in favor of a learned single author were expanded a few years later by Colin Smith in The Making of the Poema de mio Cid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Smith breaks even more radically, and controversially, with the notion that the poem is the product of the oral tradition, suggesting that it is instead “a wholly new work of the early thirteenth century, by a single learned author who was not dependent either on an existing epic tradition in Castilian or on earlier vernacular poems about the Cid.” Smith’s own edition of the poem was published by Oxford University Press in 1972 and in many quarters—among both those who agree with his vision of the poem’s authorship and those who do not—has since replaced that of Menéndez Pidal. The most comprehensive countervision to Smith’s is thoroughly laid out by Joseph Duggan in The Cantar de mio Cid: Poetic Creation in Its Economic and Social Contexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). This landmark study for the first time brought detailed attention to the vast gift economy of the poem, and to the ways in which the acquisition and distribution of wealth are intimately tied to other thematic concerns, especially the preoccupations with social morality and nobility. Duggan’s book also provides a spirited defense of the hypothesis that the work was orally composed, arguing at the same time that the poetic achievements of anonymous works from the oral tradition are not primitive or inferior literary forms. Although completely at odds with Lacarra Lanz and Smith on the question of authorship, Duggan’s book, like theirs, places considerable emphasis on the gestalt at the time of the composition of the literary work, and provides an excellent history of the late-twelfth-century political and social issues that inform the poem recorded by Per Abbat in 1207.
Although most of these editions and studies contain narratives of the history of Spain in the eleventh century, and of the Cid’s life, none can match the breadth and depth of Richard Fletcher’s The Quest for El Cid (New York: Knopf, 1990). This is today the fundamental and highly readable source for the life and times of the historical Cid, complete with extended discussions of the historical sources in all languages; invaluable as well are Fletcher’s detailed observations on the differences between the presentation of the hero in the poem and what is known from other sources, and the ways that some traditions of scholarship have blurred the two. Other accessible narratives of the history of the period, in the broader context of the cultures and histories of medieval Spain, include Fletcher’s Moorish Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), and María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World (New York: Little Brown, 2002). Peter Linehan’s 1996 article “The Court Historiographer of Francoism?: La leyenda oscura of Ramón Menéndez Pidal” appeared in the Bulletin of Spanish Studies (73:4, 437-450) and is essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of contemporary and historical concerns in general, and especially in the life and works of the great Spanish intellectuals who survived the civil war and had to choose either exile or a return to Franco’s Spain.
MARÍA ROSA MENOCAL
A Note on the Translation
My basic text has been Poema de Mio Cid, edited by Colin Smith. I have used the second edition, a Spanish-language text (1985), rather than the original English-language edition (1972), because the second edition has been corrected and enlarged. I have occasionally not followed Smith, particularly with regard to line sequence and the correct placement of the arabic numerals indicating a new section (laisse). Miguel de Unamuno’s Gramática y Glosario del Poema del Cid, posthumously published in 1977, has often been helpful.
BURTON RAFFEL
CANTO ONE
[The beginning of the poem is lost. Historical documents show that the King of Castile had turned against the Cid and given him nine days to leave.]
1
De los sos ojos tan fuertemientre llorando,
tornava la cabeça e estávalos catando;
vio puertas abiertas e uços sin cañados,
alcándaras vazías, sin pielles e sin mantos
e sin falcones e sin adtores mudados.
Sospiró Mio Cid, ca mucho avié grandes cuidados;
fabló Mio Cid bien e tan mesurado:
“¡Grado a ti, Señor, Padre que estás en alto!
Esto me an buelto mios enemigos malos.”
2
Allí piensan de aguijar, allí sueltan las rriendas;
a la exida de Bivar ovieron la corneja diestra
e entrando a Burgos oviéronla siniestra.
Meció Mio Cid los ombros e engrameó la tiesta:
“¡Albricia, Álbar Fáñez, ca echados somos de tierra!”
3
Mio Cid Rruy Díaz por Burgos entrava,
en su conpaña sessaenta pendones.
Exiénlo ve
r mugieres e varones,
burgeses e burgesas por las fıniestras son,
[The beginning of the poem is lost. Historical documents show that the King of Castile had turned against the Cid and given him nine days to leave.]
1
Tears were flowing from his eyes, then flowing faster
As he turned and looked back, just standing.
He saw the doors, swung open, padlocks gone,
Wall pegs empty, no furs, no gowns
Or cloaks, no falcons or molting hawks.
My Cid sighed, his burdens weighing him down.
My Cid spoke, in measured, well-controlled tones:
“I thank you, my Father, my Lord on high!
This is the vulture trap my evil enemies sent me.”
2
They spurred the horses, let the reins hang low.
To their right, leaving Vivar, they saw a hooded crow,
But as they reached Burgos it flew to their left.
My Cid shrugged his shoulders and shook his head:
“Let it be a good sign, Alvar Fáñez, for now we’re exiles!”
3
My Cid, Ruy Díaz, rode into Burgos.
His sixty men carried spears, hung with banners.
Men and women came out, when they appeared;
Merchants and their wives leaned from their windows, staring,
plorando de los ojos, tanto avién el dolor;
de las sus bocas todos dizían una rrazón:
“¡Dios, qué buen vassallo, si oviesse buen señor!”
4
Conbidar le ien de grado, mas ninguno non osava,
el rrey don Alfonso tanto avié la grand saña;
antes de la noche en Burgos d’él entró su carta
con grand rrecabdo e fuertemientre sellada:
que a Mio Cid Rruy Díaz que nadi nol’ diessen posada
e aquel que ge la diesse sopiesse vera palabra
que perderié los averes e más los ojos de la cara
e aun demás los cuerpos e las almas.
Grande duelo avién las yentes cristianas,
ascóndense de Mio Cid, ca nol’ osan dezir nada.
El Campeador adeliñó a su posada,
assí como llegó a la puerta, fallóla bien cerrada
por miedo del rrey Alfonso, que assí lo avién parado
que si non la quebrantás por fuerça, que non ge la abriesse
nadi.
Los de Mio Cid a altas vozes llaman,
los de dentro non les querién tornar palabra.
Aguijó Mio Cid, a la puerta se llegava,
sacó el pie del estribera, una ferídal’ dava;
non se abre la puerta, ca bien era cerrada.
Una niña de nuef años a ojo se parava:
“¡Ya Campeador, en buen ora cinxiestes espada!
El rrey lo ha vedado, anoch d’él e[n]tró su carta
con grant rrecabdo e fuertemientre sellada.
Non vos osariemos abrir nin coger por nada;
si non, perderiemos los averes e las casas
e demás - los ojos de las caras.
Cid, en el nuestro mal vós non ganades nada,
mas el Criador vos vala con todas sus vertudes sanctas.”
Esto la niña dixo e tornós’ pora su casa.
Weeping, overcome with sorrow.
And from their lips, all of them, fell the same prayer:
“O God, what a wonderful servant, if only he had a decent
master!”
4
They would have been glad to ask him in, but no one dared;
Don Alfonso, the king, was far too angry.
He’d sent the city a notice, received the night before,
Sealed in dramatic passion, and urgent:
My Cid, Ruy Díaz, was to be turned away,
Given nothing. Whoever dared to disobey
Would lose whatever they owned, their eyes would be torn from
their heads,
And their bodies and souls would be lost forever.
Every Christian in Burgos was bent in fear
And sorrow, hiding from my Cid, too terrified to speak.
The Warrior rode to the Burgos house where he’d always gone;
He stood at the door, solid and bolted shut
By the people inside, for fear of King Alfonso.
Unless he broke it down, nothing would force it open.
My Cid called to them, his voice raised high,
But no one inside would reply.
My Cid rode up to the door,
Slipped his foot from the stirrup, and kicked at the place.
But no one opened what was closed tight in his face.
Then a little girl appeared, nine years old:
“It’s done, Warrior, you who have worn your sword so proudly!
The king has forbidden it, his order came last night—
Strict and fierce, harsh and sealed all over, tight.
We don’t dare help you, we can’t do a thing,
And if we did, we’d lose our houses and everything—
And what’s still worse, the eyes in our heads!
My Cid, you’d win nothing from our misery, our death,
But may the Creator protect you with his heavenly blessing.”
The little girl said this, then went back in her house.
Ya lo vee el Cid que del rrey non avié gr[aci]a;
partiós’ de la puerta, por Burgos aguijava,
llegó a Sancta María, luego descavalga,
fıncó los inojos, de coraçón rrogava.
La oración fecha, luego cavalgava,
salió por la puerta e Arlançón pa[s]sava,
cabo essa villa en la glera posava,
fıncava la tienda e luego descavalgava.
Mio Cid Rruy Díaz, el que en buen ora cinxo espada,
posó en la glera quando nol’ coge nadi en casa,
derredor d’él una buena conpaña;
assí posó Mio Cid como si fuesse en montaña.
Vedádal’ an conpra dentro en Burgos la casa
de todas cosas quantas son de vianda;
non le osarién vender al menos dinarada.
5
Martín Antolínez, el burgalés conplido,
a Mio Cidealos suyos abástales de pan e de vino,
non lo conpra, ca él se lo avié consigo,
de todo conducho bien los ovo bastidos;
pagós’ Mio Cid e todos los otros que van a so cervicio.
Fabló Martín A[n]tolínez, odredes lo que á dicho:
“¡Ya Canpeador, en buen ora fuestes nacido!
Esta noch y[a]gamos e vay[á]mosnos al matino,
ca acusado seré de lo que vos he servido,
en ira del rrey Alfonso yo seré metido.
Si convusco escapo sano o bivo,
aún cerca o tarde el rrey querer me ha por amigo,
si non, quanto dexo no lo precio un fıgo.”
My Cid knew the king was burning inside.
He turned away from the door, galloped through Burgos,
Straight to Saint Mary’s cathedral, where he dropped from his
horse,
Fell on his knees, and prayed from his heart.
The moment his prayer was finished, he departed;
Galloping through city gates he crossed the great river, the
Arlanzón.
Not far from Burgos, sand all around,
He stopped, ordered tents put up, and then dismounted.
My Cid, Ruy Díaz, who had worn his sword with pride,
Was lodged, near this city now closed to him, in a barren sand
pile,
But with good company all around him.
My Cid, camped as if in a mountain wilderness,
Forbidden to buy food of any kind, in Burgos,
Nothing at all, and the people behind their doors
Barred from selling him half a penny’s worth.
5
Martín Antolínez, that de
ft citizen,
Brought bread and wine for my Cid and his men—
Things he did not buy, he already had them—
So they had plenty, whatever they wanted.
Warrior Cid, mighty Conqueror, was glad,
And so were all who’d come with him.
Martín Antolínez spoke: listen to what he said!
“O, mighty Cid, born at a lucky hour!
Stay here tonight, and we’ll leave in the morning—
Because, for sure, I’ll be accused of doing what I’ve done,
And King Alfonso’s anger will hunt me down.
If I run off with you, and stay in one piece,
Sooner or later the king will want to be friendly—
And if not, whatever I leave is dust on the ground.”
6
Fabló Mio Cid, el que en buen ora cinxo espada:
“¡Martín Antolínez, sodes ardida lança!
Si yo bivo, doblar vos he la soldada.
Espeso é el oro e toda la plata,
bien lo vedes que yo non trayo aver
e huebos me serié | pora toda mi compaña.
Fer lo he amidos, de grado non avrié nada:
con vuestro consejo bastir quiero dos arcas,
inchámoslas d’arena, ca bien serán pesadas,
cubiertas de guadalmecí e bien enclaveadas.
7
“Los guadamecís vermejos e los clavos bien dorados.
