sentence might require,” and lines of eleven and lines of eighteen syllables occur indifferently. From beginning to end the story moves on without flagging; the style is so rapid and direct that it carries the reader with it. There is a joy and freshness in the narrative that have rarely been surpassed.[97] These events may not have happened, or may have happened differently, but that matters little, since, owing to the skill of the unknown poet, they stand out with a vividness that imprints them indelibly on the mind of the reader and proves that nothing is so real as that which has not happened. Who can forget, for instance, the arrival of King Alfonso and the Cid at Toledo, when the King passes on into the town, but the Cid remains on the further side of the Tagus, in the castle of San Serván (now a beautiful ruin with two Moorish windows still left, and surrounded by dwarf-asphodels in spring). He says to the King: “I with mine will rest in San Serván; this evening will my followers arrive. I will hold vigil in that holy place; to-morrow morning I will enter the city.” Here he and his followers “said matins and prime until the dawn,” and next day they enter Toledo, the Cid splendidly attired and accompanied by a hundred knights, riding across the bridge of Alcántara and up the steep and narrow street to the Court or Parliament.[98] Every detail of his dress is given, purple and gold and silver. But fresh and quaintly vivid details are frequent in the poem. When the counts of Carrión have outraged and abandoned their wives the poet pauses to exclaim, “What good fortune were the Cid Campeador to appear.” Félez Muñoz, on finding the Cid’s daughters almost at the point of death, brings them water in his hat: “new it was and fresh, and he had brought it from Valencia.” Mass is said “at half cock-crow, before the dawn.” The Moor Abengalvon upbraids the treachery of his guests in planning his murder as follows: “Tell me what have I done to you, Counts of Carrión? I serving you without guile, and you took counsel for my death, _Hyo sirviendovos sin art, E vos conseiastes para mi muert_.” Nothing could be more spontaneous and direct. With equal directness honest Pero Bermuez calls one of the Counts of Carrión “a tongue without hands,” “a mouth without truth,” and we read of Asur González, who “would breakfast before he went to prayer,” that “purple he came for he had breakfasted, and reckless was his speech.” The account of the battle is well known: “they clasp their shields before their breasts, they lower their lances with their banners, they bow their faces over the saddles, they went to smite them with bold hearts. With loud voice calls he who was born in happy hour, ‘Strike them, knights, for the love of charity. I am Ruy Diaz, the Cid Campeador of Bibar.’ All strike in the group where is Pero Bermuez. Three hundred lances are there, all with their banners. A Moor apiece they killed at a