A thing, the world itself to win, my Cid would not have done;
No perfidy was ever found in him, the Perfect One.
No doubt the Poema del Cid is very unequal. Too often it degenerates into tracts of arid prose divided into lines of irregular length with a final monotonous assonance: there are too many deserts dotted with matter-of-fact details, names of insignificant places, and the like. But the poet recovers [20]himself, glows with local patriotism when recording a gallant feat, and humanises his story with traits of gentler sympathy—as when describing the parting of the Cid from Jimena and his daughters at the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña. And the Spanish juglar has the faculty of rapid, dramatic presentation. His secondary personages are made visible with a few swift strokes—the learned Bishop Jerónimo who, attracted by the Cid’s fame as a fighter, comes from afar (‘de parte de orient’), and would almost as soon miss a Mass as a battle with the Moors; the grim Alvar Fáñez, the Cid’s right arm, his ‘diestro braço’ as Roland was Charlemagne’s ‘destre braz’; the Cid’s nephew, Félez Muñoz, always at the post of danger; the stolid, inscrutable Pero Bermuez, the standard-bearer whose habitual muteness is transformed into eloquent invective when the hour comes for denouncing the poltroonery of the Infantes of Carrión; and even these fictitious rascals have an air of plausibility and life. In the Poema del Cid we meet for the first time with that forcible realistic touch, that alert vision, that intense impression of the thing seen and accurately observed which give to Spanish literature its peculiar stamp of authenticity. And the poem ends on an exultant note with a pæan over the defeat of the imaginary Infantes of Carrión, the really historical betrothal of the Cid’s daughters, and the triumphant passing of the Cid, reconciled to the King:—
And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he hath sped!
His daughters now to higher rank and greater honour wed:
Sought by Navarre and Aragon for queens his daughters twain!
And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the throne of Spain.
And so his honour in the land grows greater day by day.
Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away.
For him and all of us the grace of Christ let us implore.