The Poem of the Cid (World Literature in Translation)

One of the greatest works of Spanish literature, this eight-hundred-year-old saga narrates the legendary exploits of the soldier-adventurer Ruy Diaz of Bivar, known as El Cid–“the Lord”–and his part in the long struggle between Christianity and Islam. The poem recounts the adventures of a broad cast of characters: the Cid; his peerless steed, Babieca, and his two famous swords, Colada and Tizon; his wife, Dona Ximena, and his two daughters, Dona Elvira and Dona Sol, who found sanctuary with Abbot Don Sancho in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardena during the Cid’s exile; and the black-hearted princes of Carrion, Diego and Fernando Gonzalez. This powerful epic sings of universal human values and failures, loyalty and betrayal.