[12] It is amusing to compare the Moorish accounts of the Cid with the Christian. In the work of Conde on the Arabs of Spain, which is little more than a translation from Arabic chronicles, the Cid appears first, I think, in the year 1087, when he is called “the Cambitur [Campeador] who _infested_ the frontiers of Valencia.” (Tom. II. p. 155.) When he had taken Valencia, in 1094, we are told, “Then the Cambitur--_may he be accursed of Allah!_--entered in with all his people and allies.” (Tom. II. p. 183.) In other places he is called “Roderic the Cambitur,”--“Roderic, Chief of the Christians, known as the Cambitur,”--and “the Accursed”;--all proving how thoroughly he was hated and feared by his enemies. He is nowhere, I think, called Cid or Seid by Arab writers; and the reason why he appears in Conde’s work so little is, probably, that the manuscripts used by that writer relate chiefly to the history of events in Andalusia and Granada, where the Cid did not figure at all. The tone in Gayangos’s more learned and accurate work on the Mohammedan Dynasties is the same. When the Cid dies, the Arab chronicler (Vol. II. App., p. xliii.) adds, “May God not show him mercy!” The Poem of the Cid partakes of both these characters. It has sometimes been regarded as wholly, or almost wholly, historical.[13] But there is too free and romantic a spirit in it for history. It contains, indeed, few of the bolder fictions found in the subsequent chronicles and in the popular ballads. Still, it is essentially a poem; and in the spirited scenes at the siege of Alcocer and at the Cortes, as well as in those relating to the Counts of Carrion, it is plain that the author felt his license as a poet. In fact, the very marriage of the daughters of the Cid has been shown to be all but impossible; and thus any real historical foundation seems to be taken away from the chief event which the poem records.[14] This, however, does not at all touch the proper value of the work, which is simple, heroic, and national. Unfortunately, the only ancient manuscript of it known to exist is imperfect, and nowhere informs us who was its author. But what has been lost is not much. It is only a few leaves in the beginning, one leaf in the middle, and some scattered lines in other parts. The conclusion is perfect. Of course, there can be no doubt about the subject or purpose of the whole. It is the development of the character and glory of the Cid, as shown in his achievements in the kingdoms of Saragossa and Valencia, in his triumph over his unworthy sons-in-law, the Counts of Carrion, and their disgrace before the king and Cortes, and, finally, in the second marriage of his two daughters with the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon; the whole ending with a slight allusion to the hero’s death, and a notice of the date of the manuscript.[15]