Читать книгу Legends & Romances of Spain - Lewis Spence - Страница 30

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The opening of the Poema del Cid, as we possess it, is indeed sufficiently striking and dramatic to console us for the loss of the original commencement. The great commander, banished (c. 1088) by royal order from the house of his father through the treachery of the Leonese party at the Court of King Alfonso, rides away disconsolately from the broken gates of his castle. A fairly accurate translation of this fine passage might read as follows:

He turns to see the ruined hold, the tears fall thick and fast,

The empty chests, the broken gates, all open to the blast.

Sans raiment are the wardrobes, reft of mantle and of vair,

The empty hollow of the hall of tapestry is bare.

No feather in the falconry, no hawk to come to hand,

A noble beggar must the Cid renounce his fathers’ land.

He sighed, but as a warrior sighs. “Now I shall not repine.

All praise to Thee, our Father, for Thy grace to me and mine.

The slanderous tongue, the lying tale, have wrought my wreck to-day,

But Thou in Thy good time, O Lord, the debt wilt sure repay.”

As they rode out of Bivar flew a raven to the right,

By Burgos as they bridled the bird was still in sight.

The Cid he shrugged his shoulders as the omen he espied;

“Greetings, Cousin Alvar Fañez, we are exiles now,” he cried.

The sixty lances of the Cid rode clattering through the town;

From casement and from turret-top the burgher-folk looked down.

Sore were their hearts and salt their eyen as Roderick rode by;

“There goes a worthy vassal who has known bad mastery.”

And many a roof that night had sheltered Roderick and his band

But for the dread in Burgos of Alfonso’s heavy hand.

The missive broad with kingly seals had run throughout the town:

“Who aids the Cid in banishment, his house shall be cast down.”

So as the train rode through the streets each eye was turned aside,

All silent was the town-house where the Cid was wont to bide;

Both lock and bar were on the gates, he might not enter there.

Then from a casement spoke a maid who had the house in care:

“My lord Don Roderick, who took the sword in happy hour,

The King hath sent a letter broad to ban from hall and bower

Both thee and all thy company, ’tis doom to shelter one;

Never again who aids thee shall his eyes look on the sun.

Now go, and Goddës help with thee, thy pity we implore;

In all broad Spain thou canst not lack, O Cid Campéador.”

Finding no place to lay their heads within the town, the Cid with his men rode disconsolately to the plain of Glera, to the east of Burgos, where he pitched his tents on the banks of the river Arlanzon. To him came Martin Antolinez, one of his former vassals, who brought food and wine for all his train and strove to comfort him. Not a maravedi had the Cid, and how to furnish his men with arms and food he knew not. But he and Antolinez took counsel together, and hit upon a plan by which they hoped to procure the necessary sinews of war. Taking two large chests, they covered them with red leather and studded them with gilt nails, so that they made a brave outward show. Then they filled the chests with sand from the river-banks and locked them securely.