“Song of My Side” in brief


Rui Diaz de Bivar, nicknamed Sid, on the scourge of the enemies lost the location of his lord, the king of Castile, Alphonse, and was sent into exile. In order to leave the Castilian limits, Cid was given nine days, after which the royal squad received the right to kill him.

Having collected vassals and relatives, only sixty men of soldiers, Sid went first to Burgos, but, no matter how much the people of the city loved the brave Baron, for fear of Alphonse they did not dare to give him shelter. Only brave Martin Antolines sent the Bivarians bread and wine, and then he himself joined Syd’s squad.

Even a small squad needs to be fed, Sid did not have the money. Then he went to the trick: he ordered to make two chests, cover them with leather, provide reliable locks and fill with sand. With these chests, which supposedly lay gold looted by Sid, He sent Antolines to the Burgosan moneylenders Judah and Rachel so that they would take the lari as a bail and provide the squad

with a ringing coin.

The Jews believed Antolines and rolled off as many as six hundred marks.

Wife, don Jimene, and both daughters Sid entrusted the abbot to Don Sancho, the abbot of the San Pedro monastery, and himself, praying and tenderly bidding farewell to the family, set off. For Castile topics

The time spread the news that Sid goes to the Moorish land, and many brave warriors, eager for adventure and easy life, rushed after him. At Arlanson Bridge, a hundred and fifteen knights joined the Sid squad, whom he happily welcomed and promised that many feats and untold riches would fall to their lot.

On the path of the exiles lay the Mauritanian town of Castejon. Sid’s relative, Alvar Fanes Minaya, invited the gentleman to take the city, and he himself volunteered to rob the district in the meantime. Sid took a daring raid Castejon, and soon Minayia arrived with the booty, the extraction was so great that on the division each horse received a hundred marks, on foot – fifty. Prisoners were sold cheaply to neighboring cities so as not to burden themselves with their content. Sid

liked it in Castejon, but it was impossible to stay here for long, because the local moors were tributaries to King Alfons, and that sooner or later he would besiege the city and the townspeople would have had a bad time, since there was no water in the fortress.

The next camp, Sid, broke the town of Alcocer, and from there he raided the surrounding villages. The city itself was well fortified, and to take it, Sid went on a ploy. He pretended that he had withdrawn from the parking lot and was retreating. The Alocerites rushed after him, leaving the city unprotected, but then Sid turned his knights, crushed his pursuers and burst into the Alcocer.

In fear of Sid, residents of nearby cities sought help from King Valencia Tamina, who sent three thousand Saracens to battle with Alcoser. After waiting a while, Sid and his squad went out of the city walls and, in a fierce battle, drew the enemy to flight. Thanking the Lord for the victory, Christians began to share the untold riches taken in the camp of infidels.

The extraction was unprecedented. Sid called Alvar Minayu to himself and told him to go to Castile in order to present thirty horses in rich harness as gifts to Alfons, and in addition, to report the glorious victories of the exiles. The king accepted Sid’s gift, but Minaye said that it was not yet time to forgive the vassal; but he allowed everyone who wants to, join with impunity Sidovaya squad.

Sid, meanwhile, sold the Moors to Alkoser for three thousand marks and went on, plundering and taxing the surrounding areas. When the squad of Sid devastated one of the possessions of the Count of Barcelona

Raymund, he opposed it in a campaign with a large army of Christians and the Moors. The soldiers of Sid again gained the upper hand, Sid, having won in the duel of Raimund himself, took him prisoner. In his generosity, he released the prisoner without ransom, taking from him only a precious sword, Kolada.

Three years Sid spent in incessant raids. In the squad he did not have a single soldier who could not call himself rich, but this was not enough for him. Sid decided to take possession of Valencia herself. He overlaid the city with a dense ring and spent nine months besieging it. At the tenth Valencian could not stand it and surrendered. The share of Sid in Valencia was thirty thousand marks.

King of Seville, angry that the pride of the infidels – Valencia is in the hands of Christians, sent an army of thirty thousand Saracens against Sid, but it was also defeated by the Castilians, who were now thirty-six hundred. In the tents of the fleeing Saracens, the soldiers of Sid took three times more than in Valencia.

Having become rich, some knights began to think about returning home, but Sid issued a wise order, according to which anyone who left the city without his permission, was deprived of all the property acquired in the trek.

Calling Alvar Minaya again, Sid again sent him to Castile to King Alfonso, this time with a hundred horses. In exchange for this gift, Sid asked his lord to allow don Jiemer with his daughters, Elvira and Sol, to follow in Valencia, subject to him, where Sid wisely ruled and even founded a diocese led by Bishop Jerome.

When Minaya appeared to the king with a rich gift, Alphonse graciously agreed to let the ladies go and promised that his own knight detachment would guard them to the frontier of Castile. Satisfied that he honorably obeyed the order of the master, Minaya went to the monastery of San Pedro, where he pleased the daughter of Jimena and the daughters with the news of the imminent reunion with her husband and father, and the abbot Don Sancho was generously paid for the trouble. And Judas and Rachel, who, despite the ban, looked into the lari they had left Sid, found sand there and now bitterly mourned their ruin, the messenger of Sid promised to fully compensate for the loss.

The Carrion infanta, the sons of the old foe Sida Count Don Garcia, were tempted by the untold riches of the lord of Valencia. Although the Infanta thought that Diaz was not equal to them, the ancient counts, they nevertheless decided to ask Sid’s daughters to be his wife. Minaya promised to give their request to his master.

On the border of Castile, the ladies met a detachment of Christians from Valencia and two hundred Moors led by Abengalbon, ruler of Molina and friend of Sid. With great honor, they escorted the ladies to Valencia to Sid, who had not been as cheerful and joyful as he had been with a family for a long time.

Meanwhile, the Moroccan king Yusuf gathered fifty thousand brave warriors, crossed the sea and landed near Valencia. Alarmed by women, from the roof of the Alcazar, watching the African Moors smash a huge camp, Sid said that the Lord never forgets about him and now sends him a dowry for his daughters.

Bishop Jerome served the Mass, dressed in armor and rushed to the Moors in the front ranks of Christians. In a fierce battle, Sid, as always, took the upper hand and, along with a new glory, he also gained another rich booty. The luxurious tent of King Yusuf he intended as a gift to Alphonse. In the battle of this so distinguished bishop Jerome, that Sid gave the glorious cleric half of the penny he himself owed.

From his share, Sid added two hundred horses to the tent and sent Alfonso in gratitude for having released his wife and daughters from Castile. Alphonse accepted the gifts very favorably and announced that the hour of his reconciliation with Sid was coming to an end. Here the infants Carrión, Diego and Fernando approached the king with a request to wake up for them the daughters of Sid Diaz. Returning to Valencia, Minaya told Sid about the king’s offer to meet with him for reconciliation on the banks of the Tagus, and also that Alphonse asked him to give his daughters to Carrion’s infants. Sid took the will of his sovereign. When he met Alfonso in the appointed place, Sid ras – prostrated himself before him, but the king demanded that he immediately stand up, for it was not fitting for such a glorious warrior to kiss his feet “even to the greatest of the Christian rulers. Then King Alfonso solemnly proclaimed forgiveness to the hero and declared the infantols engaged to his daughters. Sid thanking

King, invited all to Valencia for the wedding, promising that none of the guests will not leave the feast without rich gifts.

For two weeks, the guests spent time at feasts and military fun; on the third they were asked to go home.

Two years passed in the world and fun. Son-in-law lived with Sid in the Valencian Alcazar, not knowing the troubles and surrounded by honor. But one day a disaster struck – a lion burst from the zoo. The court knights immediately rushed to Sid, who at this time was sleeping and could not protect himself. Infante with disgust shamed: Fernando huddled under the bench, and Diego took refuge in the palace davilna, where from head to toe mud smeared. Sid, having risen from the box, went unarmed to the lion, grabbed him by the mane and set him back in the cage. After this incident, Sid’s knights began to openly mock the infantry.

Some time later, a Moroccan army reappeared near Valencia. Just at this time Diego with Fernando wanted with his wives to return to Castile, but Sid preempted the execution of the intention of his sons-in-law, inviting the next day to go out into the field and fight with the Saracens. They could not refuse, but showed themselves to be cowards in battle, which, fortunately, their father-in-law did not recognize. In this battle, Sid accomplished many feats, and at the end of it, in his Babeque, who had previously belonged to the King of Valencia, chased after Buckar and wanted to offer peace and friendship to him, but the Moroccan, relying on his horse, rejected the offer. Sid caught up with him and cut him in half. At the dead Bukar he took a sword, called Tyson and no less precious than Kolada. Among the joyous festival that followed the victory, the sons-in-law came to Sid and asked to go home. Sid let them go, giving one to Kolada, another Tyson, and, moreover, having provided untold treasures. But ungrateful Carrionians conceived evil: greedy to gold, they did not forget that by birth, their wives are much lower than them and therefore unworthy to become mistresses in Carrión. Somehow after spending the night in the forest, the infanta told the companions to move forward, for they, they say, are willing to remain alone, in order to enjoy with their wives love pleasures. Left alone with Donya Elvira and Donja Sol, the insane infanta told them that they would throw them here to be eaten by the beasts and scolded people. No matter how the noble ladies appealed to the charity of the villains, they stripped them, beat them to death, and then, as if nothing had happened, they continued their journey. Fortunately, among the satellites of the Infanta was Sid’s nephew, Feles Muñoz. He worried about the fate of his cousins, returned to the place of spending the night and found them there, lying unconscious.

The infants, returning to the Castilian limits, shamelessly bragged about the insult that the glorious Sid carried from them. The king, having learned about the incident, grieved with all his heart. When the sad news reached Valencia, an angry Sid sent an ambassador to Alphonse. The ambassador conveyed Sid’s words to the king that as soon as he had wed Don Elvira and don Sol to the unworthy of the Carrionians, he now had to convene Cortes to resolve the dispute between Sid and his offenders.

King Alphonseus acknowledged that Sid was right in his demand, and soon the Counts, barons and other nobles called to him appeared in Toledo. However dreadful the Infanta could come face-to-face with Sid, they had to come to the Cortes. With them was their father, the cunning and insidious Count Garcia.

Sid presented to the meeting the circumstances of the matter and, to the joy of the Carrionians, demanded only to return to him the priceless swords. With relief, the Infanta was handed to Alphonse Kolada and Tyson. But the judges have already acknowledged the guilt of the brothers, and then Sid demanded to return as well the riches that were given to unworthy sons-in-law. Willy-nilly the Carrionians had to fulfill this demand. But in vain they hoped that, having received back his good, Sid would calm down. Then, at his request, Pedro Bermudez, Martin Antolines and Munio Hustios stepped forward and demanded that the Carrionians, in fights with them with blood, wash away the disgrace inflicted on Sid’s daughters. This Infanta feared most of all, but no excuses did not help them. We appointed a duel according to all the rules. Noble Don Pedro nearly killed Fernando, but he admitted himself defeated; Don Martin did not manage to get together with Diego, as he fled in fear from the stadium; the third fighter from the Carrionians, Asur Gonzalez, wounded, surrendered to Don Muñoz. So God’s court determined the right and punished the guilty.

Meanwhile, ambassadors from Aragon and Navarra arrived to Alfonso with the request to marry the daughters of the hero of Sid for the infants of these kingdoms. The second marriages of Sid’s daughters proved incomparably happier. Spanish kings still honor the memory of Sid, his great ancestor.


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“Song of My Side” in brief