This is one of the finest of epic poems and the only one to have survived from medieval Spain.

The hero, El Cid, is a warlord of Herculean stature: superior to his fellow men in action, of outstanding generalship and courtesy, he is at the same time a good husband and a devoted family man. Blending fiction with historical fact in a manner unique in the heroic epic, the plot seethes with the restless, adventurous spirit of Castille, telling of the Cid’s cruel banishment, his victorious campaigns in Valencia and the crowning of his daughters as queens of Aragon and Navarre, the high point of his career as a warmonger.

Of august majesty as well as down-to-earth humanity, this exhilarating work sings of human qualities that are today as universally admired as they were in thirteenth-century Spain.