“That peerless Bavieca should ever be bestrid
By any mortal but Bivar—‘Mount, mount again, my Cid!’”
There is a spot in Spain where we still seem to breathe the very air of chivalrous romance: the royal armoury at Madrid, in which the mail-clad knights with their plumes, their housings, their lances, their trophies, sit their fine horses as gallantly as if they were riding straight into the lists. There, and there alone, we can invoke the proper mise en scène for the gestes and jousts described in the Spanish ballads.
Historically, it seems certain that the Cid died at Valencia in July, 1099, an access of grief that his captains—who, owing to his ill-health, were obliged to replace him—had failed to hold the Moors in check. King Alfonso came to the assistance of his noble widow, Jimena, but finally Valencia had to be abandoned; all the Christians left the town and the Cid’s body was borne to his distant Northern home. Such is the historical outline, sufficiently pathetic in itself but adorned with additions, not all of them, perhaps, invented in the sublime legend of the Last Ride. It is said that the Cid, knowing that his last hour was near, refrained from any food except certain draughts of rose-water in which were dissolved the myrrh and balsam sent to him by the great Sultan of Persia. He gave particular instructions as to how his body was to be anointed with the myrrh and balsam which remained in the golden caskets, and how it was to be set upright on Bavieca, fully saddled and armed, to be still a terror to the Moors, who were to be kept in complete ignorance of his death. All this was done and a great victory was won over the Moors, who thought they saw their dreaded enemy once more commanding in person. Then the victors started on the long journey to San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos, the Cid riding his horse by day, supported by an artful contrivance, and by night placed on a dummy horse wrought by Gil Diaz, his devoted servitor. Jimena, with all the Cid’s men, followed in his train. On the way the procession is joined by the Cid’s two daughters and by a great mass of people who mourned in their hearts for Spain’s greatest hero, but they wore rich and gay apparel, for the Cid had forbidden the wearing of mourning. So Cardeña was reached, and tenderly and lovingly Ruy Diaz lifted the Cid’s body for the last time from Bavieca’s back—never more to bear a man. The glorious war-horse lived for two years, led to water each day by Gil Diaz. On his death, at more than forty years of age and leaving not unworthy descendants behind him, he was buried, according to the Cid’s express desire, in a deep and ample grave, “so that no dog might disturb his bones,” near the gate of the Convent, and two elms were planted to mark the spot. When Gil Diaz died, full of years and richly provided for by the Cid’s daughters, he was laid to rest beside the horse he had loved and tended so faithfully.
In this narrative, condensed from the Chronicles, the curious particular will have been noticed of the gift by the “Great Sultan of Persia” to the Christian warrior of those precious spices and aromatic gums which seem to have been the secret treasure of old Persia, forming a priceless offering reserved for the very greatest personages. The strangeness of bringing in the Sultan of Persia almost suggests that there was truth in the assertion that he had sent presents to the Cid. Over the sea and over the fruitful fields the radiance of noble deeds travels, as Pinder said of old. A little after the march of the Thousand, the Arabs of the desert were heard discussing round their camp-fires the exploits of Garibaldi. If the fame of the Cid reached Persia, as it is very likely that it did, he would have found fervent admirers among a people which was still electrified by the epic poem of Firdusi, who died within a year or two of the Cid’s birth. In that epic is told the story of the Persian Campeador—the Champion Rustem, who not only in his title but in all we know of his general bearings has so great a resemblance to the Cid that it is a wonder if no historical “discoverer” has derived one from the other, the more so since there have not been wanting writers who denied the Cid’s existence. And if Ruy Diaz de Bivar has his analogue in Rustem, has not Bavieca a perfect counterpart in Rakush?
It is the horse not his master that leads me into the mazes of the Shah Nameh, but something of Rustem must be told to make Rakush’s story intelligible. Like Siegfried, Rustem was of extraordinary size and strength: he looked a year old on the day of his birth. When he was still a child a white elephant broke loose and began trampling the people to death: Rustem ran to the rescue and slew it. A little time after this his father, whose name was Zal, called the boy and showed him all his horses, desiring him to choose that which pleased him best, but not one was powerful enough or spirited enough to satisfy him. Unlike the Cid, Rustem wanted a horse that looked as perfect as he really was. After examining them all and trying many, he noticed at a little distance a mare followed by a marvellously beautiful foal. Rustem got ready his noose to throw about the foal’s neck, and while he did so, a stable-man whispered to him that this foal was, indeed, worth anything to secure; the dam, named Abresh, was famous, while the sire had been no mortal creature but a djinn. The foal’s name was Rakush (“Lightning”), a name given to a dappled or piebald horse, and his coat, that was as soft as silk, looked like rose-leaves strewn on a saffron ground. Several persons who had tried already to capture the foal had been killed by the mare, who allowed no one to go near it.
In fact, no sooner has Rustem lassoed the foal than its mother rushes towards him ready to seize him with her white teeth, which glisten in the sun. Rustem utters a loud cry which so startles the mare that she pauses for an instant: then, with clenched fist, he rains blow on blow on her head and neck till she drops down to die. It was done in self-defence: still, it is a barbaric prelude.
Rustem continued to hold Rakush with his free hand while he conquered the mare, but now the colt drags him hither and thither like an inanimate object: the dauntless youth has to strive long for the mastery, but he does not rest till the end is achieved. The horse is broken in at one breath, after the fashion of American cow-boys. It should be noticed that legendary heroes always break in their own horses—no other influence has been ever brought to bear on the horse but their own. Rakush has found a master indeed, but a master worthy of him. He has recognised that there is one—only one—fit to rule him. Like all true heroes’ horses, he will suffer no other mortal to mount him: if Barbary really allowed Bolingbroke to ride him it was a sure sign that his poor royal master was no hero. This same characteristic belonged also to Julius Cæsar’s horse, which was a remarkable animal in more ways than one, as he was reported to have feet like a human being. I have no doubt that Soloman’s white mare, Koureen, followed the same rule as well as the angel Gabriel’s reputed steed, Haziûm, though I have not found record of the fact.
When the colt is broken in, he stands before his master perfect and without flaw. “Now I and my horse are ready to join the fighting-men in the field,” says Rustem as he places the saddle on his back, to the boundless joy of Zal, whose old, withered heart becomes as green as springtide with the thrill of fatherly pride.
So Rakush is richly caparisoned and Rustem rides away on him, beardless youth though he is, to command great armies, slay fearsome dragons, defeat the wiles of sorcerers, and do all the other feats with which the fresh fancy of a young nation embroidered the story of its favourite hero—for, it must be remembered, Firdusi did not invent Rustem any more than Tennyson invented Lancelot. I think there is every reason to believe that there was a real Rustem just as there was a real Cid; and that the first, like the second, was a combination of the guerrillero, the condottiere, the magnificent free-booter, with the knight-errant or paladin—a stamp which was impressed upon the other rôle by the personal quality of noble-mindedness possessed by the individual in each case. For years unnumbered the exploits of Rustem have entertained the Persian listener from prince to peasant, but the story will ever remain young because it is of those which reflect that which holds mankind spell-bound: the magnetic power of human personality.