The Close of the «Cantar de Mio Cid»: Epic-Tradition and Individual Variation

Alan Deyermond

The last major section of the Cantar de Mio Cid -the court hearing at Toledo which vindicates the hero, and the duels which ratify that decision- may be viewed in three ways. First, this is a dramatic personal confrontation in which heroes defeat villains (the poet's criterion for distinguishing between good and bad is simple: is a character loyal or hostile to the Cid?). Secondly, the court scene and the duels present in personal terms a political and social conflict, ending in a decisive shift of power from an old, increasingly corrupt and ineffectual, higher nobility to the new class of infanzones, represented by the Cid, and a similar shift of power from the old kingdom of León to the new, previously subordinate, kingdom of Castile¹. The higher nobility of Castile is represented by the Cid's enemy García Ordónez; that of León by the Cid's sons-in-law, the Infantes de Carrión. These open or covert enemies, the «malos mestureros» who caused the hero's banishment, are shown to be ineffectual militarily (the Cid, lines 3281-90, taunts García Ordónez with the defeat after which his beard was pulled out), politically (their conduct and the Cid's courage and loyalty have transformed King Alfonso's attitude so that he is now a steadfast supporter of the hero), intellectually (they are outwitted in the court scene), economically (the Infantes have spent the dowries, and to make reparation to the Cid are compelled to pay in kind and then to borrow money, 3236-49), and perhaps even sexually (there are some indications in the text that the Infantes' marriages to the Cid's daughters are consummated belatedly and only in the excitement of an impending act of sadism)². Their defeat by the Cid's champions in the duels, and the betrothal of the hero's daughters to the future kings of Navarre and Aragon, confirm and emphasize the Cid's rise to a position of supreme honour. We must, of course, remember that this is a poetic fiction. The Cid of the Cantar has much in common with the historical Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, but they are not identical. The political and social changes in the Cantar are probably more spectacular, and certainly more rapid, than in the historical reality of medieval Castile. Within the poetic fiction, however, changes of the kind I have described are brought to vivid and memorable life by the poet's use of structural and stylistic techniques.

Both of these aspects the personal confrontation of good and evil, the presentation of social and political changes- may be observed when one comes to the Cantar without experience of any other epic poetry. The third way in which the closing section of the Cantar may be viewed depends on a knowledge of epic tradition: unless we are aware of the poet's modifications of that tradition, we shall miss an important aspect of his art. The poet of Mio Cid makes a subtle and highly individual use of the resources offered to him by Spanish and French epic tradition -so subtle and so individual that his dependence on tradition has often been underestimated. It is, for example, easy in miss his use of folk-motifs, but they are there none the less³. His formulaic style owes a substantial debt to the oral past of the Spanish epic, though not so substantial as to support a belief that the Cantar itself was composed orally⁴. Composition by motif is used, though again in a was that indicates a literate poet working in a formerly oral medium⁵. Features of epic plot which occur in widely separated cultures are found, usually with a marked difference, in the Cantar. My chief concern in this article is the treatment of such plot elements in the closing section of the Cantar, but one earlier instance may serve as a reminder that they occur throughout the poem.

Epic heroes are often faced with a momentous choice in circumstances which make it impossible to take a wholly right decision. Whether they realize it or not, they have a choice of evils. This tragic dilemma, or disastrous choice, is discussed by Bowra, with examples from Old Norse, Middle High German, and Yugoslav works⁶. It faces the Cid, though in a muted form, when King Alfonso lends his support to the suggestion of the Infantes de Carrión that they should marry Elvira and Sol, the hero's daughters. The Cid has misgivings about the Infantes: «Ellos son mucho urgullosos       e an part en la cort»⁷. For that reason, «d'este casamiento       non avría sabor» (1939). However, as the Cid explains to his daughters:

pedidas vos ha e rrogadas          el mio señor Alfonso atán firmemientre          e de todo coraçón que yo nulla cosa          nol' sope dezir de no.

(2200-02)

This is not as feeble as one might think. Alfonso's sponsorship of the marriage plan is a gesture of reconciliation, a symbol of the acceptance of the exiled hero and his family into Castilian society once more. If it is rejected, that reintegration is blemished, and that will harm Elvira and Sol as much as their lather. This is not, therefore, a choice between family affection and political interest, but rather between two actions, both of which carry some risk to the girls' interests (there is, of course, no way in which the Cid could foresee how the Infantes would turn out: the worst he knows of them is their pride), father decision would be a wrong one. The wrong decision that is made, the acceptance of the Infantes as sons-in-law, leads to the outrage in the oakwood of Corpes, but that in turn binds Alfonso more closely to the Cid, and opens the way to far better marriages. The Cantar is that rarity, an epic with a happy ending, and the disastrous choice proves disastrous only in the medium term. The Cid says to his daughters: «Buen casamiento perdiestes, mejor podredes ganar» (2867), and so it turns out when the girls marry the princes of Navarre and Aragon.

The barbarous and potentially lethal attack by the Infantes de Carrión on their young wives, the afrenta de Corpes, is seen by the villains as revenge for an insult: «La desondra del león          assís irá vengando» (2762). To the Cid and his followers -and to the poet- it is an unprovoked outrage which cries aloud for vengeance. The events of the poem from the incident of the escaped lion onwards thus follow the familiar epic pattern of insult or supposed insult which leads to an act of treacherous violence, which is in turn avenged by the hero or his surviving representatives⁸. Ganelon, furious at what he takes to be a slight offered by Roland, plots with the Moorish king to destroy Roland and the French rearguard; the plot succeeds, but Ganelon is brought to justice and suffers an agonizing form of execution. In the Nibelungenlied, Brunhild is convinced that Siegfried has betrayed the humiliating secret of her wedding night, and she incites his treacherous murder by Hagen; his widow Kriemhild bides her time, and the killers perish in a general slaughter which engulfs even Kriemhild herself. In the lost Spanish epic of Siete infantes de Lara (the plot is preserved in great detail by chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), Doña Lambra twice takes offence at the behaviour of her nephew Gonzalo González, and when the men she chooses to deliver a counter-insult are killed, she persuades her husband Ruy Velázquez to arrange the killing of Gonzalo González and his six brothers. The plan succeeds, but an attempt to have their father, Gonzalo Gústioz, killed not only fails but leads to the begetting of an avenger, Mudarra, and hence to the death by torture of Ruy Velázquez and, in one version, to the execution of Lambra. It would be easy to extend the list, but it is unnecessary.

In all of these cases, the recipient of the real or imagined insult is related, usually by marriage, to the offender; the offender is treacherously killed to wipe out the shame of the insult; and the traitor is put to death in circumstances of memorable atrocity. The Cantar de Mio Cid clearly makes use of this pattern to provide the basic plot of its second half, just as its first half is based on the equally familiar epic pattern of exile and return. Yet the divergence from the pattern is obvious. The Infantes de Carrión are related by marriage to the supposed author of the insult: they hold their father-in-law responsible for their disgrace in the episode of the lion, and for the ridicule which follows («non viestes tal juego       commo iva por la cort», 2307). On this belief depends everything that follows: the afrenta de Corpes, the court at Toledo, the duels. The belief, however, is not merely erroneous but irrational. In the other epics I have mentioned -Chanson de Roland, Nibelungenlied, Siete infantes de Lara- the furious reaction to insult is exaggerated, but it has some rational basis. In the Cantar de Mio Cid, that basis is wholly lacking. The Infantes de Carrión are the sole authors of their disgrace in the lion episode: they are cowardly when the Cid's followers are brave, and they are found in humiliating and ludicrous hiding-places. When the Cid's followers laugh at them, the Cid intervenes to protect his sons-in-law («mandó lo vedar       Mio Çid el Campeador», 2308)⁹. He, therefore, has not the slightest degree of responsibility for their discomfiture, yet they convince themselves that the fault is his. This forms part of their progressive dissociation (ruin reality, of the irrationality which increasingly controls their actions¹⁰. Nor is this the only symptom. The Infantes persuade themselves that they have been dishonoured by their marriage to the daughters of a lesser noble, and that this dishonour too must be washed away by blood:

Por los montes dó ivan          ellos ívanse alabando: «De nuestros casamientos          agora somos vengados; non las deviemos tomar por varraganas          si non fuéssemos rrogados, pues nuestras parejas          non eran pora en braços».

(2757-61)

Yet these marriages, which the Infantes now see as an intolerable insult, were their own idea; they prevailed on King Alfonso to support the idea, and to convince the Cid of its advantages.

Resentment over the marriages is, however, a secondary motive for the afrenta de Corpes, and it is the lion episode which dominates their planning of the afrenta, becoming the subject of obsessive repetition:

Sacar las hemos de Valençia          de poder del Campeador, después en la carrera          feremos nuestro sabor, ante que nos rretrayan          lo que cuntió del león...

(2546-48)

Assí las escarniremos          a las fijas del Campeador, antes que nos rretrayan          lo que fue del león.

(2555-56)

and which is the only explanation offered to the victims:

Bien lo creades,          don Elvira e doña Sol, aquí seredes escarnidas          en estos fieros montes. Oy nos partiremos          e dexadas seredes de nós, non abredes part          en tierras de Carrión. Irán aqúestos mandados          al Çid Campeador, nós vengaremos por aquésta          la desondra del león.

(2714-19)

This, of course, is a second important departure from the traditional pattern: not merely do the Infantes create their own disgrace and blame the Cid for it, but they take revenge by a treacherous attack on substitute victims. Roland, Siegfried, and Gonzalo González are the targets of the traitors' attacks, and all of them are killed. In Siete infantes Gonzalo González's six brothers are also killed, and in Roland many French knights fall with the central hero, but this is incidental to the achieved aim of the traitor in each case. In Mio Cid, there is no attempt to kill or wound the supposed author of the insult (except emotionally, through the attack on his daughters).

A third divergence from the pattern is implied in what has just been said: the victims of the afrenta de Corpes are wounded and abandoned, but they are not killed. Indeed, it is unlikely that the Infantes intended to kill them. Even these cowardly and ineffectual young men are, when fully armed, able to kill two defenceless girls, and the fact that they do not do so (although, of course, the girls might have died of their injuries) indicates lack of intention. It suits their purpose much better that Elvira and Sol should live with their dishonour¹¹. This departure from the pattern is, I think, essential for the way in which the poet handles the last section of his work, the hero's revenge. We have already seen that the treacherous killers Ganelon, Hagen, and Ruy Velázquez are put to death (in the first two cases, many of their supporters are also killed). The killing of Ganelon follows a trial for treason, whereas that of Hagen and of Ruy Velázquez is an act of individual retribution. In the Cantar de Mio Cid, epic vengeance takes the form -as far as I know, unprecedented- of a civil action for damages. The court that hears the Cid's complaints against the Infantes is of a very different kind from the one that tries Ganelon. The dramatic power of this potentially bathetic legal action is a striking testimony to the poet's skill: we never stop to question whether this is a suitable way for an epic hero to take his revenge¹². The court hearing is followed by judicial duels in which the Cid's loyal followers defeat the Infantes and their brother, thereby confirming the court's vindication of the Cid. It is noteworthy that of the four ways in which a judicial duel could be decided, only one is omitted by the poet: the death of one of the contestants. In the first duel, the wounded Fernán González yields to Pero Bermúdez. In the second, the other Infante, Diego, is wounded by Martín Antolínez and flees from the duelling field. In the third, their brother Asur González is so seriously wounded by Muño Gústioz that his family yields on his behalf. But none of them is killed¹³.

This merciful treatment of the villains is extraordinary in the context of world epic. It is, of course, made possible by the absence of killing in the afrenta de Corpes: had either Elvira or Sol died, the Cid would inevitably have insisted on the death of the murderers. But even in cases where there is no murder, it seems normal for the hero's vengeance on his enemies to take the form of killing. Odysseus is, as has been pointed out by Hart, similar to the Cid in his combination of fortitudo and sapientia¹⁴. These are among the very few epic heroes who prefer to think their way out of a crisis whenever possible; they avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Yet when Odysseus returns to Ithaca, and finds that the suitors are besieging Penelope and wasting his resources, he kills them and then hangs the maidservants who abetted them. The Cid, under much grosser provocation, is content to ask for the return of his swords, then to demand the repayment of the dowries, and finally to lodge a formal accusation of dishonour (menos valer).

Does this imply weakness or lack of resolution? There is no sign of it in the Cantar. On the contrary, the Cid pursues with skill and single-minded determination an outcome which is wholly satisfactory to him and to his daughters. Perfect justice is seen to be done¹⁵. The Infantes de Carrión had viciously beaten the Cid's daughters because of the supposed insult of the lion episode, and now they are punished by the revelation of that episode to the King and the great nobles who are present at the Toledo court: Pero Bermúdez taunts Fernán González, and Martín Antolínez taunts Diego, with all the details of their cowardice (3329-42, 3363-66). Moreover, the details of Fernando's cowardice in battle against the Moors, hitherto concealed even from the Cid by Pero Bermúdez's generosity, are published to the court (3315-28). The secondary motive for the afrenta is the Infantes' wish to rid themselves of wives whom they regard as unworthy, and to wipe out what they claim to be the insult of being forced to marry girls who were not fit even to be their mistresses. The result of the afrenta is, however, by dissolving the marriages, to rid Elvira and Sol of unworthy husbands. The Cid can now receive in open court the request that his daughters should marry princes of Navarre and Aragon. The Infantes claim in court that they should marry royalty:

De natura somos          de condes de Carrión, deviemos casar con fijas          de rreyes o de enperadores, ca non perteneçién          fijas de ifançones.

(3296-98)

Only a hundred lines later, the Navarrese and Aragonese envoys arrive. Elvira and Sol are about to become royalty by marriage, and the Cid's chief lieutenant Álvar Fáñez at once points the moral:

Esto gradesco yo          al Criador quando piden mis primas          don Elvira e doña Sol los ifantes de Navarra          e de Aragón. Antes las aviedes parejas          pora en braços las tener, agora besaredes sus manos          e llamar las hedes señoras, aver las hedes a servir,          mal que vos pese a vós.

Finally, the Infantes de Carrión refrained from killing Elvira and Sol so that they should live with their dishonour. The Infantes' lives are spared in the duels, and they must now live with dishonour. They must suffer what they intended for their victims, who will enjoy what the Infantes had coveted for themselves. At every point, the intentions of the villains are frustrated. Their punishment is complete and perfect.

The poet of the Cantar de Mio Cid takes the epic pattern of insult, treacherous violence, and vengeance as the starting-point for the second half of his work. He does not abandon the pattern, hut rather adapts it, replacing the traditional killing-avenged-by-killing with a subtler, more delicately balanced sequence of offence, and punishment. Both the use of the tradition and its modification seem to me to be conscious artistic choices. Epic poets often follow traditional patterns without apparently being aware that they are doing so. Albert Lord has, for example, shown that the incorporation of the Baligant episode in the Chanson de Roland is probably the result of what he terms mythic necessity, which gives Roland a plot structure similar to that of the first half of Beowulf¹⁶. Necessity of this kind operates at times, I believe, in Mio Cid: the appearance of the Infantes' brother Asur González in the court scene is not required by the necessities of the plot or of character development. He seems to be introduced merely in order to provide a third duel, because three is a favourite number for narrative units in a traditional tale¹⁷. I think it unlikely that the poet realized this. It seems much more likely that he was unconsciously following a traditional path. The same may be true of one line in the description of the third duel: when Muño Gústioz wounds Asur González, «Todos se cuedan       que ferido es de muert» (3688) -it seems as if the traditional scene of killing which the poet consciously avoids has unconsciously affected his choice of words. This, however, can hardly be the case with the modifications of the vengeance pattern discussed above: too much careful adjustment is involved.

The poet's individual variation of his inherited pattern gives emphasis to two of the poem's themes: the hero's mesura, and the transformation of sorrow into joy. The Cid's restraint in his vengeance shows prudence and mercy as well as power. The absence of killing at the end liberates the emotions of the audience from a preoccupation with the fate of the villains, and concentrates attention on the happy outcome, in which the Cid's honour continues to increase steadily even after his death:

¡Ved quál ondra creçe          al que en buen ora naçió quando señoras son sus fijas          de Navarra e de Aragón! Oy los rreyes d'España          sos parientes son, a todos alcança ondra          por el que en buen ora naçió.

(3722-25)18