The Poem of the Cid (The Song of the Cid)

Based on the real King Alfonso VI of León and Castile (1040 AD—1109 AD), King Alfonso is responsible for the exile of the Cid at the beginning of the text. As Dona Jimenez hints in the text, this exile is likely the result of gossip among the Cid’s enemies, which the king has naively believed. Despite this, King Alfonso is depicted as being happy with the Cid’s successes and ultimately forgiving when he sees the gifts the Cid sends as tribute. Although he does not welcome him back immediately, he is cautious enough to accept him little by little, so as not to undermine his own decree.

While King Alfonso has unjustly exiled the Cid, he later recognizes the error and transforms over the course of the text into arguably the Cid’s greatest defender. He makes certain the Carrión heirs are brought to justice at court and personally arranges the Cid’s daughters’ marriages in “face-to-face talks” (245) with the kings of Navarre and Aragon. Overall, the king is depicted as a fair and capable ruler who is able to recognize his errors and reestablish justice in his kingdom.

The Cid’s right-hand man and closest confidant, Minaya Álvar Fáñez—or simply Minaya, meaning “my brother”—is a knight from Zurita who accompanies the Cid from the start of the text. Based on a historical figure, Minaya is known at court and is thus able to act as an emissary between the Cid and King Alfonso, as the Cid seeks forgiveness in the first two Cantos. He is trusted enough by both the king and the Cid that he is chosen to accompany the women from Castile to Valencia, just as he is chosen by the king to stand as the Cid’s proxy during the daughters’ wedding ceremony to the Carrión heirs.

Minaya is often depicted as a strategist, coming to the Cid with plans of attack as they face each new battle and siege. He is savvy enough to argue the Cid’s case before the king little by little, showing immense gratitude with each positive decree from King Alfonso. However, he is humble enough to refuse the Cid’s gifts until he can truly prove himself “[f]ighting Moors on fields of battle” (35). Like the Cid, he is brave and honorable, challenging the Carrións at the end of Canto 3 for insulting the Cid, though he is refused the opportunity to humiliate them as well.

First referred to as “[t]hat fine man from Burgos” (51), Martín Antolínez is most likely a fictional persona not based on a historical man, but rather a symbol for the everyday people who come to join his campaign. Eventually placed at the head of the Cid’s household, Martín Antolínez is not part of the city’s nobility, nor does he come from a great family. However, he is willing to give up everything he has and face the king’s wrath to follow the Cid on his journey.

Martín Antolínez is there at key moments of the plot, whether following the Cid into battle or escorting his daughters back from Castile across arid, dangerous terrain. He also secures the first loan from Raguel and Vidas, without which the Cid could not pay his men to follow him out of Castile. For his loyalty, which mirrors the Cid’s loyalty to the king, Martín Antolínez receives the sword Colada, which he uses to defeat Diego González, a man of much higher stature.

Traditionally referred to as the infantes (princes) of Carrión, Fernando and Diego are higher in social status than the Cid and his family. Relatively interchangeable as characters in the text, the brothers are welcomed into the Cid’s family and live with his daughters in peace for the first two years of their marriages. While their fathers and grandfathers are sworn enemies of the Cid, the brothers are at first simply offered up in marriage. However, their true nature as despicable Carrións becomes evident with the lion encounter and later in battle, when both brothers run and hide, rather than defend their father-in-law.

When they are ruthlessly mocked by the Cid’s men, they devise a plan to humiliate and abandon the family. Rather than try to be better, they seek revenge. Like foils to the Cid’s knights, both Fernando and Diego become deceitful and ungrateful for the wealth and open support they have received from the Cid. They suddenly feel they have married beneath their station, but they are happy to keep the dowries. After they cruelly beat and abandon their wives for dead, they brag about it at court, believing it elevates their status. The Carrión brothers become everything the Cid is not, and with their entire family behind their deception, their actions ultimately destroy their family’s wealth and reputation at court.