He sent to threaten me,
That he would cut my skirts away,
Most shameful for to see!
That he would put my maids to scorn,
The wedded and to wed,
And underneath my silken gown
My little page strike dead!...’
Of the two hundred and five romances on the Cid printed by Madame Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, probably one hundred and eighty at least may be considered modern, and some we know to have been written by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, Lucas Rodríguez, and Juan de la Cueva. But the rest are doubtless ancient (as romances go), and it is unfortunate that Lockhart gives no specimen of the ballads on the siege of Zamora. For example, the celebrated ballad that begins
Riberas del Duero arriba cabalgan dos Zamoranos[42]—
a splendid romance the opening of which may be quoted from Gibson’s rendering:—