As a
matter of fact I have never read the poem to this day, though. I have
often tried, and I doubt if its author ever intended it to be read. He
intended it rather to be recited in stirring episodes, with spaces for
refreshing slumber in the connecting narrative. As for the Cid in real
life under his proper name of Rodrigo de Vivas, though he made his king
publicly swear that he had had no part in the murder of his royal
brother, and though he was the stoutest and bravest knight in Castile, I
cannot find it altogether admirable in him that when his king banished
him he should resolve to fight thereafter for any master who paid him
best. That appears to me the part of a road-agent rather than a
reformer, and it seems to me no amend for his service under Moorish
princes that he should make war against them on his personal behalf or
afterward under his own ungrateful king. He is friends now with the
Arabian King of Saragossa, and now he defeats the Aragonese under the
Castilian sovereign, and again he sends an insulting message by the
Moslems to the Christian Count of Barcelona, whom he takes prisoner with
his followers, but releases without ransom after a contemptuous
audience.
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