Ximena

“ In due time the Cid Rodrigo came to Burgos with his heart full of Ximena, his old love for her mingling with gratitude that she had forgiven him for the terrible wrong he had done her, and already he seemed to see her winning smile and her soft and lustrous eyes, that looked so truthfully under the long, dark lashes that fringed them. ”

“ We shall leave that wise and prudent monarch on his way to Castile, and learn something concerning the solitaries of the lake of San Vicente.
Ximena had believed that in solitude, in prayer, in penitence, and in the service of her afflicted fellow-creatures, she could forget Rodrigo, and find tranquillity and resignation, of which she was so much in need; she had, however, completely deceived herself, for when love has struck deep roots in a heart, it resists all violence, it resists all waves, it resists all storms. ”

“ Great joy had Doña Ximena and her daughters, who were awaiting him, when they saw him come riding in; and he stopt when he came to them, and said, Great honour have I won for you, while you kept Valencia this day! God and the Saints have sent us goodly gain, upon your coming. Look, with a bloody sword, and a horse all sweat, this is the way that we conquer the Moors! Pray God that I may live yet awhile for your sakes, and you shall enter into great honour, and they shall kiss your hands. ”

“ SPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward
far away,
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican
array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or
come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the
storm we hear.
Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of
battle rolls;
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy
on their souls!
"Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill
and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the
mountain rain."
Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena,
look once more. ”

“ You have heard of the fame he has lately won, when he took captive the five Moorish kings who broke suddenly into the land and ravaged it with fire and sword. And to prove that it was fame and not gold he wanted he set them all free, with only a promise of homage from them. Ah, if there were but a few more like him, Spain would soon be rid of the Moors. Happy is the woman he shall choose for his wife; she will live all her days in safety and in honour.’
Then the king paused, and watched to see how Ximena took his words. ”

“ Already were being realised the beautiful dreams of Rodrigo and Ximena; already were being brought to their fulfilment those golden hopes, so often combated and opposed, so often dead and brought to life again! What will Rodrigo now do? Will he consecrate his life exclusively to love, to Ximena, to the pleasures of the domestic hearth, and to the luxuries which his wealth can procure for him? No, a hundred times no! Noble souls, generous hearts, are never without honourable aspirations. ”

“ Retire to bed, Señor Alvarado, who is soon to become the husband of Elvira Avallo. Sleep sound, for Ximena will be found cold in the morning: and see that, in the critical hour of discovery, your wonted cunning fails you not. Show grief, and rage, and tears: you understand me? Diavolo! I hope your walls are built substantially. Should the guest who occupies the next room have overheard us, all is lost. But I have arranged for him. To make sure of his silence, Narvaez Cifuentes shall waylay him among the mountains at Roncesvalles, where even the sword of Roland would fail to aid him now-a-days. ”

“ It is said that Ximena, without any regard for the memory of her father, went to the king, Don Ferrando, and entreated him to allow her to be married to Rodrigo de Bivar, because she thought that he would one day be the richest and most powerful man in the realm. ”

“ Perhaps, without the love of Ximena, Rodrigo Diaz would be one of those plants which spring up, live, and die, without having borne any fruit; one of those men who pass through the world without leaving a trace which might point out his path to those who come after him; your love, however, will immortalise his name; by him the plains of Castile will be stained by Moslim blood; through him the standard of Mahomet will be trampled under foot by the Christian kingdoms; in him the weak and the oppressed shall have an arm to sustain and defend them ”

“ Farewell, oh my enemy”; and he stoops reverently to cover the face of the dead with his mantle, reading{290} the while with horror in the still set features the softer lineaments of his Ximena. “Alas!”—and his countenance darkens and he heaves a great sigh—“I am but Ruy Diaz, your lover, the most wretched of men! Oh! that I could lie there dead, instead of him! Ximena, oh, my love, will you ever forgive me?”
And sorrowing thus he turns away by intricate windings to mount the hill to the Suelos where Don Diego awaits him, seated in the hall, the food lying on the table before him untouched. ”

“ This is the kind of love which degenerates, which vulgarises itself by intimate and continuous intercourse, a love which has no hold on the soul, for the love of Sermonda was that of the imagination, not that of the heart. The love of Ximena was that love which is almost born with us, which increases in us, which lives with our life; and that is the love which, instead of becoming weaker, gains strength, preserves always its primitive freshness, mystery, and poesy, and which is as immortal as the soul to which it has clung. ”

“ Cid Campeador, so may our God abide thy strong support,
May it please Dame Xiména, but first seem good to thee,
And Minaya Alvar Fañez and all men here that be
Give us our wives. By marriage are they ours in very deed.
Unto our lands in Carrión those ladies we will lead.
With the dower-lands to enfeoff them that we gave for bridal right
Of the lands of our possession, thy daughters shall have sight,
And those wherein the children to be born to us shall share. ”

“ It [Pg 92] was he who killed Martin Gonzalez with the point of his sword."
Ximena could not repress a sudden rush of joy, and did not even try to conceal her feelings from the king.
"Sire, have compassion on me!" she cried. "Tell me the truth! Is it certain that Rodrigo is alive, or is it that you fear to tell me again that he is dead, lest I might fall into another swoon, such as that which your former words caused?"
"Ximena, I swear to you that Rodrigo lives, to love you ever. Are you not glad that he is alive? Are you not glad that he loves you?" ”

“ What does your father desire? Honours; riches; a kingdom; a throne for his daughter? You shall have all that, Ximena, I swear it by our love and by the honour of my ancestors. My arm is strong and my heart full of courage. Even to-morrow I shall set out for the country of our enemies. I shall enter the territory of the Moors, I shall fight as Bernardo fought at Roncesvalles, and I shall be victorious; for that love, which I have cherished for you during so many years, will make me invincible ”

“ Ximena, the daughter of Count Lozano, is represented in the drama as already attached to the young knight; and a contest, therefore, arises between her sense of what she owes to the memory of her father and what she may yield to her own affection; a contest that continues through the whole of the play, and constitutes its chief interest. She comes, indeed, at once to the king, full of a passionate grief, that struggles with success, for a moment, against the dictates of her heart, and claims the punishment of her lover according to the ancient laws of the realm. ”

“ As he passes along the Calle, gay as a butterfly in the bright sunshine, under the barbicans and towers which so nobly break the lines, it may be said he has too much of a swagger in his gait, but he has reason to be proud, for, young as he is, Doña Ximena loves him, and the good old King Fernando has admitted him to his council because he is already strong in arms and of good custom. ”

“ His killing of Don Gomez in the manner described is extremely doubtful, and history affords no details as to the manner of his wooing or his wedding. But Ximena was his wife, shared in many of his hardships, and at his death, in 1099, ruled in his stead for three years at Valencia. Finally, much harried by the Moslems, who were ever growing bolder, Ximena withdrew to Burgos, taking with her the body of the Cid, embalmed in precious spices, and borne, as in the days of his vigor, on the back of his great warhorse Babieca. The Cid was buried in the monastery of Cardena, near Burgos ”

“ It is a tale that will bear a second reading—though, it must be confessed that, as in the case of ‘The Vespers of Palermo,’ somewhat of a monotony of colouring is thrown over its scenes by the unchanged employment of a lofty and enriched phraseology, which would have gained in emphasis by its being more sparingly used. Ximena, too, all glowing and heroic as she is, stirring up the sinking hearts of the besieged citizens with her battle-song of the Cid, and dying as it were of that strain of triumph—is too spiritual, too saintly, wholly to carry away the sympathies. ”

“ We were on horseback by daybreak, having before us a long ride, and, for the first five leagues (to Ximena) , a very difficult country to traverse. For about a mile the road is paved, and confined to the vale in which Ubrique stands by a precipitous mountain. But, the westernmost point of this ridge turned, the route to Ximena (leaving a road to Alcalà de los Gazules on the right) takes a more southerly direction than heretofore, and, entering a hilly country, soon dwindles into a mere mule-track. ”

“ There the Northern horses thunder, with the cannon at their heels.
"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now retreat and now advance!
Right against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's charging lance!
Down they go, the brave young riders; horse and foot together fall;
Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern ball."
Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on!
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost, and who has won?
"Alas! alas! I know not; friend and foe together fall,
O'er the dying rush the living: pray, my sisters, for them all! ”

“ She had good news to communicate to Rodrigo; he was about to find in his sweet and loving wife a new title to his love, a new pledge of her affection, for the breast of Ximena enclosed the first-fruit of that love which had filled up almost the entire lives of both of them—she was about to become a mother. What new and exceeding sweet enchantments must she not have experienced from the time she had become aware of that happiness! The wife is then something more than a woman, she has something of the divine, something which separates her from weak humanity ”

“ In truth, Ximena and Lambra, for now we know that they were the travellers, were almost dead with weariness, for they [Pg 60] had been obliged to go a considerable portion of the way on foot, as some of the paths were so rugged and bad that it would have been dangerous to remain in the litter.
Immediately afterwards, Ximena sent away the vassals and servants who had accompanied her, and entered the hermitage with Casilda, opening her heart to her, as she would have opened it to her mother, if God had left her by her side to strengthen her soul in the violent storm through which it was passing. ”

“ About Ximena and her far-famed husband Don Rodrigo, widely known as the Cid, many marvellous tales have been told, and it is a matter for regret that so many of them are purely legendary. According to one of the traditions, which was followed by the French dramatic poet Pierre Corneille when he wrote his famous play, Le Cid, in 1636, Ximena is given a much more prominent place in the story than that accorded to her in history. According to this version, Don Diego, father of Don Rodrigo, is given a mortal insult by the braggart Don Gomez, who is the father of Ximena. ”

“ Sit, therefore, like a king and lord on your ivory seat."
The honor in which Rodrigo was held is shown by the fact that he married a cousin of the king, Ximena,—daughter of the Count of Oviedo, a powerful noble. Doubtless it was his love for the beautiful Ximena that rendered the Cid so indifferent to the affection of Princess Urraca. Most dearly and tenderly he loved Ximena, and after his marriage to her, gave up warfare for many years, and lived in peace and tranquil happiness near Burgos. During this quiet period, the Cid fought only a few single combats as champion of the king. ”

“ This love will elevate your soul and strengthen your heart. Summon our friends and vassals, and go fight against the infidel, for the glory and the power which you will achieve shall throw into the shade, as you have said, the ambitious Don Gome, and Ximena will become your bride. The contentions which separate her family and ours are not of that kind which, between honourable rivals, cannot be terminated without honour being stained. Go, my Rodrigo, go to your repose, for indeed you require it after so long a journey, and to-morrow we shall see what can be done to promote your happiness ”

“ Six months later King Fernando was seated in the great hall of his palace of Burgos, dispensing justice to high and low, when there entered once more Ximena, followed by thirty esquires and pages.
[148] ‘I come, though I know it is in vain,’ she cried, when she had made her way to the foot of the throne. ‘Five times I have appeared to demand my rights, and no longer will I be put off with empty words. No king are you, who are swayed this way and that by every man that passes, and dare not even avenge your friends, for fear of what may come of it.’
‘Not so,’ answered the king ”