El Cid - himself
El Cid, of course, was not born El Cid. he was born Rodrigo Diaz, a minor aristocrat, near the town of Vivar, born around 1043. at 1065, he was the commander of Castille's army. huh? at 22? apparently. so he went off and won a bunch of battles and helped his king extend what was known as Castille, oops! but his king was murdered without an heir, and the only legitimate inheritors were people Rodrigo had been defeating in battle. the new king of Castille eventually exiled Rodrigo, who found work as a general for the Moors. he won a bunch of battles for them, but newcomers from Africa overwhelmed the army of Castille, and the king who'd exiled Rodrigo requested that he return and command what was left of Castille's army. he did, and won some battles, keeping the newcomers out but threatening Castille. on the side he worked at taking over the city-state of Valencia for himself and his family. in the end, he did rule Valencia for a while, and spent his last few years fighting the newcomers from Africa. he died at about 55 and his wife continued to rule Valencia for about three years. told my way, Rodrigo's life is almost ho-hum. kid grows up, becomes a general at 22, fights and wins, fights and wins, fights and wins, but his king is murdered. becomes general for his traditional enemies and fights and wins, fights and wins. is asked to return by the king who exiled him, does, fights and wins, fights and wins. wins a city of his own, fights some more, wins some more, and dies. fortunately he had a better biographer than me. one or more poets composed what we now call El Cantar de Mio Cid (the Song of My Cid), an epic poem assembled as three songs. it's not my fault; if I were making up history, it would be more coherent than this. oh! and to add to the fun, the first page is missing, and so are two pages in the middle. but it is written in Old Spanish. it is thousands of verses long, but I think each verse is 16 or 17 syllables long, broken into two lines. honestly, I don't get it. in any case, the story starts with the exile of El Cid and relates his fighting and winning and fighting and winning and fighting and winning. then the king brings him back to Castille, and he's reunited with his family, and his two daughters marry the two princes of Carrion. they turn out to be cads and cowards and stupid besides. they beat El Cid's daughters senseless and tie them up and leave them at the side of the road. their cousin rescues them and El Cid pleads to the king for justice. the king allows two of El Cid's men to duel the princes (one man to duel each prince) and El Cid's men win. not only that, but the kings of Aragon and of Navarre marry their sons to El Cid's daughters (one son to each daughter), and everything is wonderful. well, hell, the song was designed by a monk, how much imagination could you expect? sigh. how in the hell did El Cid so attract me as a kid? oh yeah, I didn't learn either of these stories! in whatever I read as a kid, El Cid desperately fought off astonishing odds and won against not only armies but monsters - a lion, a giant, and a dragon, if I remember correctly. he then had to win three tests, each involved winning a battle, but in increasingly clever ways, set by his king. he wins all three and marries the princess and lives happily ever after except, oops, the Moors re-invade (apparently sometime he drove them out of somewhere) and El Cid rushes off to defeat them again, he does, but he dies doing so. somehow it all seemed very heroic when I was a kid. I tried and tried and tried to re-imagine the story so it stayed heroic but he survives. I never did figure that out. must a hero die for the story to be epic? I still don't know.
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