XI. After this payment had been made the Cortes assembled again, and the King and all the honourable men being each in his place, the Cid rose from his ivory seat, and said, Sir, praise be to God and your favour, I have recovered my swords, and my treasure; now then I pray you let this other demand be heard which I have to make against the Infantes. Full hard it is for me to make it, though I have it rooted in my heart! I say then, let them make answer before you, and tell why it was that they besought you to marry them with my daughters, and why they took them away from me from Valencia, when they had it in heart to dishonour me, and to strike them, and leave them as they were left, in the Oak-forest of Corpes? Look, Sir, what dishonour they did them! they stript them of the garments which they had not given them, as if they had been bad women, and the children of a bad father. With less than mortal defiance I shall not let them go!... How had I deserved this, Infantes, at your hands? I gave you my daughters to take with you from Valencia; with great honour and great treasures gave I them unto you;... Dogs and Traitors,... ye took them from Valencia when ye did not love them, and with your bridles ye smote and with your spurs ye spurned and wounded them, and ye left them alone in the Oak-forest, to the wild beasts, and to the birds of the mountain! King Don Alfonso, they neither remembered God, nor you, nor me, nor their own good fortune! And here was fulfilled the saying of the wise man, that harder it is for those who have no understanding to bear with good than with evil. Praise be to God and to your grace, such a one am I, and such favour hath God shown me, from the day when I first had horse and arms, until now, that not only the Infantes of Carrion, but saving yourself, Sir, there is not a King in Christendom who might not think himself honoured in marrying with either of my daughters,... how much more then these traitors!... I beseech you give me justice upon them for the evil and dishonour which they have done me! And if you and your Cortes will not right me, through the mercy of God and my own good cause, I will take it myself, for the offence which they have committed against God and the faith, and the truth which they promised and vowed to their wives. I will pull them down from the honour in which they now are; better men than they have I conquered and made prisoners ere now! and with your license, Sir, to Carrion will I follow them, even to their inheritance, and there will I besiege them, and take them by the throat, and carry them prisoners to Valencia to my daughters, and there make them do penance for the crime which they have committed, and feed them with the food which they deserve. If I do not perform this, call me a flat traitor. When the King heard this he rose up and said, that it might be seen how he was offended in this thing. Certes, Cid Ruydiez Campeador, I asked your daughters of you for the Infantes of Carrion,