The Death of Roderic
The time now came when it was appointed that the King should leave the retreat where he had passed through trials so many and so terrible, and, following a cloud appointed for his guidance, he girded up his loins and set forth on his journey. Before nightfall of the first day he came to another hermitage, where he lodged during the hours of darkness. After two days’ journeying he came to a place unnamed, which was destined to be that of his burial. The Elder of this place told him that he must go to a fountain below the hermitage in which he had taken up his abode, and that he should there find a smooth stone. This he was instructed to raise, when he would find below it three little serpents, one having two heads. This two-headed serpent he must place in a jar and nourish secretly, so that none should know of its existence, and so hide it until it grew large enough to wind its coils three times within the jar and put its head out. Then he must place it in a tomb and lie down himself with it, naked, for such, it pleased God, should be his penance, according to a voice the Elder had heard speaking in the church of that place.
Roderic scrupulously followed the Elder’s injunctions, found the reptile, and waited patiently till the two-headed serpent had waxed great within the jar. Then, in company with the Elder, he divested himself of his raiment and sought the tomb, wherein he laid himself down. And when he had done so the Elder took a lever and laid a great stone upon the top. Having lain there three days, during which the Elder prayed and watched devoutly, the serpent raised its heads and began with one head to devour his sinful nature and with the other to eat his heart. In great torment did Roderic lie in that place. But at length the serpent broke through the web of the heart, so that incontinently the King gave up his spirit to God, Who by His holy mercy took him into His glory. And at the hour when he expired all the bells of the place rang of themselves, as if they had been rung by the hands of men.
So, in the strange spirit of medieval mysticism, ends the piteous legend of Don Roderic of Spain. Who shall unriddle the weird significance of its close, unless, like old Thomas Newton in his Notable History of the Saracens, they believe “that the serpent with two heads signifieth his sinful and gylty conscience”? Requiescas in pace, Domine Roderice!
[1] Unless the Anseis de Carthage be excepted—a romance which attributes the downfall of Spain to a son of Charlemagne, who acts as does Don Roderick. The Anseis is in French.
[2] As enshrined in the Crónica Sarrazyna, of Pedro de Carrel, which founds on the Crónica General, the Chronicle of the Moor Rasis, and the Crónica Trayana, the ballads relating to Roderic are all later than this compilation.