I saw a crimson banner come,
With three hundred horse of war;
I saw them bear a coffin,
And black was its array;
And placed within the coffin
A noble body lay....
These ballads are included in the Romancero del Cid, and they are particularly interesting as being the débris of a lost epic on the siege of Zamora which has apparently been utilised in the Crónica general; but perhaps a translator might excuse himself for not dealing with them on the ground that the Cid only appears incidentally. Indeed in
Por aquel postigo viejo que nunca fuera cerrado,
the Cid does not appear at all. The same excuse might be given for omitting the well-known
Doliente estaba, doliente, ese buen rey don Fernando,[44]