Thanks to these and other scholars whose labours cannot be adequately acknowledged by any formal compliment, the text of the Poema del Cid has been purged of many corruptions, and made vastly more intelligible. But there are still problems to be solved in connection with it. What, for instance, is the relation of the Spanish epic to the French? The ‘patriotic bias’ should have no place in historical or literary judgments, but this is a counsel of perfection. Scholars are extremely human, and experience shows that the ‘patriotic bias’ often intrudes itself unseasonably in their work. In writing of the French chansons de geste, Gaston Paris says:—‘L’Espagne s’en inspirait dès le milieu du XIIe siècle pour chanter le Cid, et composait, même sur les sujets carolingiens des cantares de gesta dont quelques débris se retrouvent dans les romances du XVe siècle.’ Rightly interpreted, this is a fair statement of the case. But earlier French scholars inclined to exaggerate the amount of Spain’s indebtedness to France in this respect, and—by a not unnatural reaction—there is a tendency among the younger generation of Spanish scholars to minimise it. We are not called upon to take part in this contention of wits: we are not concerned here to-day with ingenious special pleas, but with facts.
It is a fact that the earliest extant French chanson de geste was in existence a century before the earliest extant Spanish cantar de gesta: it is also a fact that the French version of Roland’s story was widely diffused in Spain at an early date. It was there recorded in the forged chronicle ascribed to Archbishop Turpin, and it filtered down to the masses who heard it from French pilgrims on the road to the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela. Among these pilgrims were French trouvères, and through them the Spaniards became acquainted with the Chanson de Roland. It was natural that suggestion should operate in Spain as it operated in Germany, where Konrad produced his Rolandslied about the year 1130. There is at least a strong presumption that the author of the Poema del Cid had heard the Chanson de Roland. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, whose patriotism and fine literary sense make him a witness above suspicion, admits that there is a marked resemblance between the battle-scenes in the two poems, and further allows that there are cases of verbal coincidence which cannot be accidental. We may therefore agree with Gaston Paris that the author of the Poema del Cid found his inspiration in the Chanson de Roland: that is to say, the Chanson probably suggested to him the idea of composing a similar work on a Spanish theme, and gave him a few secondary details. We cannot say less, nor more: except that in subject and sentiment the Poema is intensely local.
As regards its substance, the Poema is intermediate between history and fable. There is no respect for chronology; one personage is mistaken for a namesake; the Cid’s daughters, whose real names were Cristina and María, are called Elvira and Sol, and are provided with husbands to whom they were never married in fact, but who may have been maliciously introduced (as Dozy surmised) to exhibit the Leonese in an odious light. It is the office of an epic poet to exalt his hero, and to belittle that hero’s enemies; you might as reasonably look for perfect execution in the Poema del Cid as for judicial impartiality. Apart from freaks which may be due to bad copying, we accept the fact that the metre is capricious, fluctuating between lines of fourteen and sixteen syllables: we must also accept the fact that history fares no better than metre, and often fares worse. Yet the spirit of the poet is not consciously unhistorical; he conveys the impression of believing in the truth of his own story. There is an accent of deep sincerity from the outset, in what—owing to mutilation—is now the beginning of the Poema, a passage recording the exile of the Cid:—
With tearful eyes he turned to gaze upon the wreck behind:
His rifled coffers, bursten gates, all open to the wind:
No mantle left, nor robe of fur: stript bare his castle hall:
Nor hawk nor falcon in the mew, the perches empty all.
Then forth in sorrow went my Cid, and a deep sigh sighed he;
Yet with a measured voice, and calm, my Cid spake loftily—
‘I thank thee, God our Father, thou that dwellest upon high,