In this state of his father’s feelings, Roderic, a mere stripling, determines to avenge the insult by challenging Count Lozano, then the most dangerous knight and the first nobleman in the kingdom. The result is the death of his proud and injurious enemy; but the daughter of the fallen Count, the fair Ximena, demands vengeance of the king, and the whole is adjusted, after the rude fashion of those times, by a marriage between the parties, which necessarily ends the feud. The ballads, thus far, relate only to the early youth of the Cid in the reign of Ferdinand the Great, and constitute a separate series, that gave to Guillen de Castro, and after him to Corneille, the best materials for their respective tragedies on this part of the Cid’s story. But at the death of Ferdinand, his kingdom was divided, according to his will, among his four children; and then we have another series of ballads on the part taken by the Cid in the wars almost necessarily produced by such a division, and in the siege of Zamora, which fell to the share of Queen Urraca, and was assailed by her brother, Sancho the Brave. In one of these ballads, the Cid, sent by Sancho to summon the city, is thus reproached and taunted by Urraca, who is represented as standing on one of its towers, and answering him as he addressed her from below:-- Away! away! proud Roderic! Castilian proud, away! Bethink thee of that olden time, That happy, honored day, When, at Saint James’s holy shrine, Thy knighthood first was won; When Ferdinand, my royal sire, Confessed thee for a son. He gave thee then thy knightly arms, My mother gave thy steed; Thy spurs were buckled by these hands, That thou no grace might’st need. And had not chance forbid the vow, I thought with thee to wed; But Count Lozano’s daughter fair Thy happy bride was led. With her came wealth, an ample store, But power was mine, and state: Broad lands are good, and have their grace, But he that reigns is great. Thy wife is well; thy match was wise; Yet, Roderic! at thy side A vassal’s daughter sits by thee, And not a royal bride![216] [216] This is a very old, as well as a very spirited, ballad. It occurs first in print in 1555; but “Durandarte, Durandarte,” found as early as 1511, is an obvious imitation of it, so that it was probably old and famous at that time. In the oldest copy now known it reads thus, but was afterwards changed. I omit the last lines, which seem to be an addition.