Chapter XXXIII: Adventures of the Cid--Death and Burial

From this time began that life of knight-errantry which has made the Cid famous in all ages.

First he betook himself to the court of the Count of Barcelona, but not agreeing with him, passed into the service of the Sheikh Móstadri, the most powerful of the Moslem princes of Saragossa. At his death, which occurred soon after, the Cid continued with his eldest son, Montamin, and assisted him against his two brothers with prodigies of valour.

In five days he overran Aragon and harried a large tract of country for spoil, returning in triumph to Saragossa, bringing with him prisoner the Count of Barcelona.

“Blessed be God and all His saints,” said the Cid to his followers. “By this victory we have bettered our quarters for horses and for men. Hear me, all you knights,” and he raised his mighty voice, “we shall get nothing by killing these Moors. Let us make them show us the treasures they have hidden in their houses. That will serve us better than their death.”

All this and much more was done, as the Cid said, _por murzar_. Enemies or friends, money must be had.

But the great feat of the Cid’s life is his conquest of Valencia, where he was called to protect the Sheikh Yahia along with the Moorish king of Saragossa. Upon whatever cause he went (and the chronicles are extremely confused after he took service with the Moslem), ambition was his motive and pillage his object.

From Jativa, on the hills over the sea, he came down with his army into the _Huerta_, an unexampled garden, beautiful in all time: woods of palm and orange-trees, fences of aloes and prickly pear, the glory of the Roman, the pleasaunce of the Goth, the delight of the Arab, who declared “that heaven had fallen here.”

Valencia itself lies sweetly on either side of a river, the banks breaking into _bosques_ and gardens, with tall towers shooting into the blue sky. El Miguelete, square and Gothic, its rival Aliberfar, all points, minarets, and domes,--the Zeca (bazaar) and Alcazar,--bridge, twelve gates, and _tapia_ battlements, turreted and machicolated, hemmed in by fruitful plains, the rich country studded with _posadas_ and _quintas_ to the sea-shore, about a mile distant.

The Moorish Sheikh Yahia received the Cid honourably, and gave him a great revenue in

Photo Levy et Fils]

return for his protection. But this did not last long.

Seeing how powerful he was, King Alfonso suddenly claimed all his conquests as his suzerain, which led to further strife between them, Alfonso attacking Valencia in his absence with the Moors to gain it for himself; in revenge for which act of treason the Campeador carried his arms into his own land, Castile, destroying castles and sacking towns. “Make war and deceive,” was his motto now. He had learned it from the Moors, and acted up to it till he died. Still in his heart he loved the country where he was born and where he had left his wife and children, only that he hated King Alfonso more.

* * * * *

On his return the gates of Valencia were shut against him, and the terrible siege began, the Cid attacking the city as cruelly as he could, and food becoming dearer every day till at last it was not to be had; the people were carried off in waves of death, dropping and dying in the streets, the Alcazar full of corpses, and no grave with less than ten bodies in it.

At last the gates were opened to him by his friend, Abeniaf, the Adelantado, in return for which he had him first stoned, then burned alive in the plaza.

In these days one seeks in vain for the noble qualities of Ruy Diaz de Bivar. The only excuse to be found is the harshness and injustice with which Don Alfonso treated him.

Valencia surrendered in June, 1694, and the Cid at once bethought him of his wife and children, now grown up to womanhood, left in the Abbey of St. Peter, and sent his nephew Alvar Fañez and Martin Antolinez, with two hundred knights, on a mission to the king. He also sent money to redeem the debt of the chests filled with sand, and to excuse himself to the Jews, Rachel and Vidal, for having cheated them in his great need.

“What tidings bring you me of the Cid?” asks the king (of Alvar and Martin), whom they find in the city of Burgos.

Then Alvar stood out and spake boldly: “The tidings are good, Sir King, but we come to ask a boon, for the love of your Maker. You banished the Cid from the land, and behold, he has won six pitched battles against the Moors, also the city of Valencia; and he places all he has at your feet, if of your bounty he may have his wife and his daughters with him there.”

“It pleases me well,” is the king’s answer. “I will give them a guard through Castile. When they have passed it, the Cid Campeador will look after them himself. Moreover, I grant him Valencia and all that he has won as his own, to be held under me, who am his liege lord and suzerain.”

Great joy was there at San Pedro de Cardeña when the knights appeared, Doña Ximena and her daughters running out on foot to meet them, and weeping plenteously for joy.

“And how does my dear lord fare?” asks the gentle Doña Ximena, wiping her eyes. “In all all these years I have had no news of him.”

“Well, and safe and sound,” answers Alvar Fañez, saluting her. “Be of good cheer, my cousin, for the great city of Valencia is his, and his heart’s desire is to see you and have you with him there.”

“Alas! what am I,” cries poor Ximena, ever humble in her mind, “that he could show me this favour after so many years! God and the Virgin be thanked for his constancy.”

* * * * *

When they were within three miles of Valencia, under the thick shade of the orange woods of the Huerta, word of their coming was brought to the Cid, who ordered that Babieca should be saddled, and girt on his sword.

He was much changed. He had the same commanding aspect and far-seeing eyes, but his white beard was so long and flowing, it was a wonder to behold. No man ever put his hand on it in life but himself, or touched it with a razor, and when he fought it was screwed up like a curl under his chin. Every gesture was imperious, as of a king. At that time, indeed, no king in Spain could compare with the Cid in power.

“Dear and honoured wife,” he exclaimed, as he embraces Doña Ximena, who received him on her knees, “and you, my daughters, come with me into Valencia, the inheritance I have won for you.”

He leads them through the gate called “of the Snake,” then mounts into the famous tower of the Miguelete, now the Campanile of the Cathedral,--and in the clear transparent air shows them the city which lies at their feet, the green Huerta, thick with shade, and the blue ocean beyond, on which ride the ships of the King of Morocco, come to besiege the city, a sight which made poor Ximena tremble.

But the Cid comforted her.

“You shall see with your own eyes how I fight and how I gain our bread. Fear not, honoured wife,” seeing that Ximena’s courage fails her, “my heart kindles to the fight because you are here. More Moors, more gain----”

The tambours of the enemy now sound a great alarm, but the Cid smiles and strokes his beard, gazing fondly on Ximena, now a wrinkled woman in middle age.

“Dear wife, look boldly out over Valencia. All this I give you for a marriage gift. I have won it, and I will send the King of Morocco packing whence he came. In fifteen days, please God, his rattling tambours shall be hung up in the church of St. Mary. Pray God I may live for your sakes, and still overcome the Moor!”

Thus speaking, they descend the tower and enter the Alcazar, all gold and painted walls on stone and wood, in the Arab manner, with hangings above and below, purple and crimson, and rich cloths thick with gold and silver, and take their seats on benches set with precious stones, the Cid placing himself on an ivory divan like a throne.

* * * * *

About this time King Alfonso and the Cid met at last as friends on the banks of the Tagus, a river of very rapid flood, where tents were pitched and many knights assembled.

The Cid knelt on the ground before him, and would have kissed his foot in the jewelled stirrup, but King Alfonso cried out: “My hand, Cid Campeador, my hand!” and embracing him said he forgave him with all his heart (the Cid still on his knees), then raised him up and gave him the kiss of peace.

Afterwards they ate together, and Alfonso proposed his kinsmen, the two Infantes of Currion, as husbands to the Cid’s two daughters, Elvira and Sol. Very scornful and haughty young princes they were, who did not please the Cid nor Doña Ximena at all, but the Cid dared not say “No,” on account of the king.

The marriages indeed turned out ill; and the dames were afterwards affianced to Don Sancho of Aragon, and the Infante Ramiro of Navarre. The Infantes of Currion were dismissed and dishonoured for their crimes, at the Cortes held in the palace of Burgos, before Alfonso, the Cid sitting beside him, within the golden _estrado_, on the ivory divan he had taken from the Moors--a throne, in fact, which had served a sheikh--a great triumph for him, at Burgos especially, his native city, where he had begged in vain for bread and was forced to cheat the Jews to fill his purse!

The Cid was in the prime of life, untouched by the hand of time, lord of a great capital and of a powerful state--far-seeing and wise, heroically audacious in all he did, capable of love, yet tremendous in hate. “Our Cid,” as the people called him, “born in a happy hour,” none dreaming of a united kingdom of which he was to be the head when he was struck in the midst of his career by the hand of death.

“Be you sure,” he said to his household and his companions in arm, whom he had called together, “that I am at the end of my life. In thirty days I shall die. More than once lately I have seen my father, Don Diego Laynez, and the son whom I lost. They say to me each time, ‘You have tarried on earth too long, come now with us, among the people who live for ever.’”

After this, having sickened of the malady of which he died, he called for the casket of gold in which was the balsam and the myrrh the Soldan of Persia had given him, and he drank it, and, for the seven days which he lived, he neither ate nor drank aught else, and his body and his countenance appeared fairer and fresher and his voice clearer, though he waxed weaker and weaker.

On the day before he departed, he called for Doña Ximena and his nephew Alvar Fañez, and directed them what to do after his death.

“You know,” he said, “that the King Bucar, of Morocco, will presently return to besiege the city; therefore, when I am dead, make no cries or lamentations, but wash my body and dry it well, and anoint it with the myrrh and balsam out of the gold casket, from head to foot; then saddle you my horse Babieca, and arm her as for battle, apparel my body as I went in life against the Moors, and set me on her back, and tie me fast, so as not to fall, and fix my good sword Tizona in my hand, and when thus accoutred lead me out against the king, whom God has delivered into my hands.”

Three days after the Cid died (1099). On the morning of the twelfth day, when all was ready, as the Cid had commanded, they went against the army of the Moor and prevailed, and the dead body of the Cid left Valencia, on his horse Babieca, armed at all points and passed through the camp of the Moors, followed by Doña Ximena and his trusty friends--taking the road for the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, near Burgos, where he was to be interred; and the king came from Toledo to meet them.

When they took the Cid from off his horse and set him on a frame before the altar, so fair and comely did he appear, Doña Ximena entreated the king not to have the body laid in a coffin underground. So king Alfonso sent to Burgos for the ivory divan on which the Cid had sat as king at the Cortes, and gave orders that he should be placed in it, to the right of the altar, and a graven tabernacle placed over him, bearing the blazon of Castile and Leon, Navarre, and Aragon, and his own arms as the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. There it was left for ten years, and when the garments waxed old others were put on.

In a side _capella_ of the church of San Pedro, five miles from Burgos, the square monument of the Cid is still to be seen. It is much mutilated, but his lofty figure can still be traced on the lid, wearing a coat of mail and grasping his double-hilted sword Tizona, the effigy of the faithful Ximena at his side.

Legend says that while the body was left alone in the church before being interred, it was visited by a Jew, who, wagging his head, contemptuously contemplated the face of the dead hero and his sacred beard, of which the Cid had said, “Thanks be to God, it is long because I keep it for my pleasure, and never a son of Moor or Jew has dared to touch it.”

“Yes,” said the Jew to himself, recalling all the cruelties of which he had been guilty towards his race, “you are the great Cid, low enough now, and that is your fine black beard, grey and thin, of which you were so proud. I should like to see what you will do to me if I pluck it.” At which he stretched forth his hand, but drew it back sharp enough when, with a hollow sound, the dead hand seized the hilt of Tizona and drew forth the blade more than half a palm. Down fell the Jew in a fit, and in rushed the priests, and lo! the dead hand still grasped Tizona, and the fierce eyes seemed to roll. Who, after such an experience, would dare to trifle with the remains of the Cid?

At the present time these remains are said to be deposited at the Ayuntamiento at Burgos, in a case of walnut wood, in the centre of a large hall, along with the skeleton of poor Ximena, still faithful to him in death.