The Poem of the Cid. A Translation from the Spanish,
with Intro- duction and Notes, by John Ormsby. (Longman.)—Mr. Ormsby has done the English public good service by publishing this volume, which many readers will welcome. Few historic personages have a more heroic fame than the "Cid Campeador " (though, indeed, Mr. Ormsby dispels some illusions about him), and we are glad to be able to read of him, as a poet who may well have been almost contem- porary describes him, in Mr. Ormsby's admirable version. A very readable introduction gives us the literary history of the poem, and also a serviceable sketch of Spanish history, which will help to the right understanding of it. Here is a sample of Mr. Ormsby's work, the charge of the Cid to rescue his standard-bearer, Pero Bermuez :— " Then cried my Cid, 'In charity—on to the rescue—ho !'
With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low, With stooping crests, and heads bent down above the saddle-bow, All firm of hand and high of heart, they roll upon the foe. And be that in a good hour was born, his clarion voice rings eat, And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout : Among them, gentlemen! strike home, for the love of charity !
The Champion of Bivar is here—Buy Diaz—I am he!' Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight, Three hundred lances, down they come, their pennons flickering white ; Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow And when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.
It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay ; The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red; The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead; While Moors call on Mohammed, and ' St. James!' the Christians cry, And sixty score of Moors and more in narrow compass
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